For some inexplicable reason when this tour was announced it managed to completely bypass me. Luckily for me when I did find out about it mere days before the show was to take place I realised I was off work and thanks to cheap Megabus tickets it would not cost me an absolute fortune to go to this gig. After an arduous five hour coach journey and navigating London Underground during the rush hour on a Monday I arrived at the Electric Ballroom in Camden with plenty of time to spare and managed to secure a good vantage point in front of the sound desk before the first band hit the stage.
Kicking the evening off in gloomy style were German melodic death doom band Nailed To Obscurity (8). I’ve been a fan of this band since hearing their King Delusion album a couple of years ago and this was my first time checking them out. They started the set with the title track off their latest album Black Frost which to be honest isn’t their best song and seemed a strange choice to start the set with. After this initial misstep things picked up dramatically with jaw dropping renditions of gloriously melancholic songs such as The Aberrant Host, Tears Of The Eyeless and Desolate Ruin. The band played fantastically with a huge all encompassing sound and frontman Raimund Enegga put in a passionate and fiery performance. For a band that plays such dark sorrowful music they are a bunch of cheery lads on stage. By the time they left the stage they had definitely won over the London crowd and made a big impression on me especially as they play a style of metal I absolutely adore. An absolutely brilliant start to the evening.
Thanks to ongoing visa issues the other support act for the tour Jinjer weren’t able to get into the UK to perform at this show so next up were the first of the nights two headliners and a band that I have been listening to for a great number of years - Swedish melodic death metallers Soilwork (8). The band have just released their 11th album Verkligheten so a good chunk of their set was taken with new material such as Arrival, Full Moon Shoals and Witan and is must be said these songs sounded absolutely fantastic live. The band were firing on all cylinders with bags of energy. Frontman Björn “Speed” Strid is a commanding presence on stage and whipped up the crowd into a frenzy. His vocals on the night were a mixed bag. His clean vocals were utterly fantastic and the best I’ve heard them but he struggled with the harsh vocals especially towards the end of the set. He said to the crowd that his voice was shot and that he was struggling but the audience were more than willing to assist screaming, shouting and singing along loudly to glorious melodeath anthems such as The Crestfallen, Nerve, Like The Average Stalker, As We Speak, The Ride Majestic and Stabbing The Drama. The sound was a bit muddy at points but it did not detract from a blinding set by the Swedish melodic death metal legends.
This show was a sell out event and so by the time Soilwork had finished the venue was very crammed and very warm. I retreated back a bit for a bit more space for the final band of the evening Finnish metal legends Amorphis (9). Amorphis dropped what was for me the best album of 2018 and so I was very pleased that a good portion of the set was dedicated to the new songs. The band kicked off with The Bee accompanied by a dazzling light show and a flawless performance. I had only ever seen Amorphis at festivals before and this was my first experience of a proper Amorphis show. It seriously did not disappoint. The sound was absolutely spot on with all instruments at a perfect level of clarity. Frontman Tomi Joutsen proved entirely why he is one of the best singers in metal with his ability to switch absolutely seamlessly between his guttural death metal growls to his glorious clean singing voice. His vocal control is just utterly amazing.
The rest of the band put in seamless performances and performed flawless versions of Sky Is Mine, Bad Blood, Wrong Direction, The Smoke, Silver Bride, Death Of A King, House Of Sleep and the classic Black Winter Day. My only minor criticism is that very little of their older material was played with the entire set apart from Black Winter Day coming from the Tomi fronted albums. The performances and entire show was just absolutely perfect and I can only complain about what wasn’t played as what was played was absolutely glorious and shows the strength of the material Amorphis is still putting out in the bands 29th year of existence.
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