A View From The Back Of The Room: South Wales Showcase (Live Piece By Matt Bladen)

So I was going to review this as a normal gig but to be honest it wasn't a normal gig. There was a lot of pent up emotion spent at this show which saw eras ending and new ones beginning. As such I won't be scoring the show rather I'll be giving a run down of what happened as an overview.

This was probably the biggest room that many of these bands had played in, the upstairs room of Clwb Ifor Bach is a reasonably big space and with the looks of the crowd it was going to be quite sparse, probably due to the Slipknot gig earlier in the week and the fact that it was for many a week until payday, still more than a handful of intrepid adventures moved upstairs into the room gathering closer to the stage as Democratus hit the stage the improved sound meaning you could pick out every instrument rather than the usual muddy sound they get in smaller shows. Steve is still the driving force behind this band his wrecking ball voice leading them through a set that was pretty much exactly the same as the one they played at The Gryphon supporting Wretched Soul. A worthy opening to the night they warmed the crowd for the emotion to come.

Yes we got to Agrona a band I've been following since the beginning and as with most of the local acts I obsess about they are beset by line up changes. However tonight it was a seismic shift due to it being the final show of founding vocalist Taranis who has been a mainstay behind the mic from the outset. As such no new songs, this was a death or glory classic set serving as a finale to this iteration of the band. Most of their debut album was played including Apotheosis a song that had long been out of the set list for a long time. It was dramatic, spectral and loud as fuck in the bigger room as more turned up for this very special sermon, with the synths finally audible and the whole band filled with equal parts emotion and aggression they laid waste to Clwb with a ferocious show far removed from last one I'd seen at Fuel at Winter Eradication. (It may be because of Steve from Democratus' guest slot who knows) Not only was this a farewell but a statement of defiance that this band will carry on into the next chapter slimmed down yes but a focus on the next page of their story.

Finally the night was rounded out by Sodomized Cadaver now a two piece of just drums and guitar their filthy death metal was pretty much what you'd expect from the band grunted vocals and horrific lyrics were the order of the day as they blasted through older material and a new song from their upcoming new release unleashed on a Cardiff crowd. It was here that for the second time during the night the sound went totally off cue, the first being the sudden crank of bass during Agrona's set, Sodo were plagued by quite a lot of feedback which threw them off their game a little. Always a little chaotic Sodo rounded out a night of South Walian metal, and although the crowd had all but disappeared by the final strains of their show the entire evening felt a little special as much as it did weird.

It was a night of transition that will hopefully lead on to bigger and better things for all involved, was it a little too early to be playing a show this size? Possibly but if you don't try you don't know. Let's see where this new journey takes Agrona as Sodomized are a unit that have always shed and gained members and are still plugging away while on the other side of the coin Democratus keep getting bigger and bigger with every show. Add to this the influx of Welsh talent around and a looming M2TM its going to be a great year for the South Wales scene.