A View From The Back Of The Room: Lords Of The Land

Lords Of The Land Festival, SWG3 Complex, Glasgow

So our first time at Glasgow based metal was memorable for a number of reasons, mainly due to it being a few of our number's first time in Glasgow, which I must say is a very interesting city, it was also any of our numbers first time at the SWG3 Complex situated on the West side of Glasgow city. This wasn't the original venue mind you, it was supposed to take place at the legendary Barrowlands but just three weeks out from the festival the venue was changed to this art space, it meant that our 10 minute commute became a 35 minute walk to the venue which is hidden in Glasgow's student quarter.

The change of venue with such short notice meant that the event itself suffered a few knock on effects, mainly the single entrance to the venue and paper ticket system meant that the punters were kept out in the rain for a long time as the poor woman on the door had to manually search for every ticket that had been purchased while also organising the photopasses and everything else. The venue itself is a massive industrial space full of hard bricks and metal girders, it had a bar/relax area with plenty of seats. This also suffered from the change of venue with large queues at the bar and towards the end of the day the beer selection ran very low, leaving many with a choice of Red Stripe or soft drinks (so it was Soft Drinks for me). I must say though the musical portion of the day (which is the important part) was excellent as there was a huge performance area which had probably the best sound at a venue I've ever heard, due to the massive ceiling and rectangular shape.

The first band of the day were Manchester Folklore-inspired Black Metal band Winterfylleth (8) who benefitted from the venue by having almost perfect sound, it was the best sounding show I've seen from Winterfylleth who have notoriously complicated music that often suffers if they are not headlining or in a venue that can handle their intricate musical dexterity. We only managed to catch the final few songs from their short set due to the problems at the door but it was very intense, having limited time to chitchat, due to a 10pm curfew, they blasted out their atmospheric black metal to a reasonably large crowd. Received well they took their leave starting the day off well.

Next up were Akercocke (6) who for me were one of the two weakest bands on the bill as I had seen them before at Bloodstock and they did little to impress me, the major problem are the vocals of Jason Mendonca who can snar;, growl and scream with the best of them as the band play their avant-garde style of black metal, but his clean vocals are utterly dreadful distracting from the set, it was time to find a drink and reconvene as the next band came to the stage. The next band were one of the major surprises of the day, I had never seen extreme metal titans Anaal Nathrakh (8) before but here on a dreary day in Glasgow they destroyed SWG3 laying down the gauntlet with their apocalyptic extremity, they literally sound immense everything is in your face from moment one. There was industrial bludgeoning, death metal grooves, black metal fury, political rants and lots of crowd surfing and as the Birmingham killing machine announced their last song there was audible boos. The crowd for Anaal Nathrakh was the biggest so far but we hadn't seen anything yet.

Next to the stage were Hellenic metal legends Rotting Christ (9) who took Anaal Narthrakh's gauntlet and burned it in hellfire. The mainstays of Sakis and Themis Tolis took their places behind the mic and drum-kit respectively as Sakis is flanked by guitarist George Emmanuel and bassist Van Ace, with a build up they opened with thundering new song Hallowed By Thy Name which got every head moving and I do mean every head as this was the biggest crowd so far, something that was reciprocated by Rotting Christ who played it like it was a headline set and for many it was, as this band have been spreading their message of Non Serviam for 30 years now, they mixed up old and new moving straight into Kata Ton Demona Eautou and another new song the brilliant Fire, God And Fear. Despite them being less than a month old the faithful sang every line but it was classics such as The Forest Of N'Gai, In Yumen-Xibalba, Grandis Spiritus Diavolos that got the pits moving as Sakis conducted from the stage. In a setting such as this Rotting Christ are imperious, the music blending with the light show to great effect, I for one can't wait for Bloodstock and their Thursday headline show.

Poor Belphegor (8) had to follow up on the back of that, but not to be outdone they brought their entire stage set up with them, decking the stage with religious symbology and inverted crucifixes the Austrian extremists blasted on to the stage as double kickdrums demolished the eardrums as the band powered through tracks such as The Devil's Son, Conjuring The Dead, Lucifer Incestus and Baphomet to a more decreased but still baying audience. Their classic black metal sound is slick and violent every snarl perfectly audible over the distorted blistering black metal assault. Having the enviable task of following that set they held their own well keeping those that were watching riveted to the stage.

A little break was needed and luckily I am not as big of fan of Black Dahlia Murder (6) as my colleague Polly so this proved ample time to come out for some food and a beer, Black Dahlia Murder do what they do well and they have a very die-hard fandom but their music style doesn't really do anything for me and no matter how energetic their frontman is I only lasted three songs before merch was perused and food was eaten. Did I say energetic frontman? Sorry this title only really belongs to one man. Gerre the singer of German Alco-thrashers Tankard (7) is a man of a certain age but he prowls the stage like a man in his twenties, he commanded the thrash fans in the crowd to go absolutely bonkers as they peeled off their beer influenced thrash metal with glee, their set was wild even featuring a guitar solo from the crowd on top of a punters shoulders! It's exactly what you want from thrash metal sitting nicely as an alternative to the more extreme brand of music that the rest of the day was made up of.

The thrash theme continued but with a big fat helping of prog as Swiss cult heroes Coroner (9) took to the stage for their only UK show of the year. The band famously broke up in 1996 only to triumphantly reform in 2011, they've been playing gigs ever since and time has not diminished them one bit, they were slick as a seal covered in grease, I can only describe their sound as Prog-Slayer as they have the same extreme thrash metal sound as the big four legends, I mean the destructive riffs and explosive solos but also they have a progressive edge that sees them shift patterns and time signatures at will with growled vocals over the top. Coroner were brilliant here, there was no talking between the songs they came out to slay and slay they did, the three piece were joined by an extra member playing a laptop to add samples etc but mostly it was heavy, progressive, solo heavy metal music that was more complex and heavier than Tankard but had more melody than Black Dahlia Murder which for me was the perfect combination. Other than Rotting Christ Coroner played the best set of the day and I'm waiting in anticipation for their newest album.

So with the day running late, the 10pm curfew drew near, what was needed was a band with short, poppy numbers to finish. No such luck as it was the London based kings of occult psychedelic doom Electric Wizard (8) who's songs are elongated, headfucking, trips through the weird and wonderful drug addled mind of frontman Jus Oborn, playing just six songs there wacked out ear punishing doom metal was unleashed from the first track Witchcult Today which was accompanied by images of long forgotten softcore porn occult b-movies projected onto a screen and the band themselves as Oborn wildly flailing as he shouted his reverbed vocals and played the sprawling guitar solos. It's not just Oborn though Liz Buckingham is the source of all the feedback coming from her six strings with Haz Wheaton (bass) and Simon Poole (drums) the buzzing rhythm section, eliciting the slowest most deliberate headbangs of the day the Wizard were on form as they rolled out big hitters such as Black Mass, Satanic Rites Of Drugula and Funeralopolis each song bringing new eye watering visuals and brain melting sonics. I'll admit they probably didn't have as big of a crowd as you'd want for a headliner but Wizard have always been fiercely underground so if the black metal purists didn't like I don't think EW would care, they showed what they were made of from the opening note and didn't let up one inch until the final curfew.

A few teething problems in the new venue yes but overall a superb festival in Scotland, if the line up is right next year then once again we'll be on a plane and getting ready for a whole day of heavy metal mayhem.