A View From The Back Of The Room: Intrepid (Alice Doyle)

Interpid, Thel & Archemori, The Gryphon Bristol, 08.05.26



On another one of my extemporaneous trips out of town I landed myself in Bristol, and upon my arrival heard of a group of bands performing at The Gryphon that evening. The bands in question were Archemori, THEL and Intrepid - all somewhat falling on the death metal spectrum, and sure to be a treat. No further convincing was necessary, and I was off to the Gryphon!

The venue was quirky and separated into little segments, where the actual ‘stage’ was on the next level. A fairly small room, but compellingly good for acoustics and spacious enough to fit a reasonably large herd of headbangers in.

Archemori (7) were doing their first ever opening set, and with a technical fusion of different extremes they established the mood. The vocalist, Heather, immediately displayed an incredible control over her growl and the crowd responded with nodding to the tune. She would take the time between tracks to engage with the audience and would acknowledge us even during songs, which always adds value to a performance in my opinion. As the set went on we would see Heather touch on some clean vocals, but although the transition was smooth the clean vocals were a little lacklustre. In general each of the members performed with confidence and in near perfect synchronicity, but particularly the drummer and guitarist seemed to harmonise extremely well.

An excellent start to a night of live music!

I quickly caught up with the cats & kittens of Archemori by the bar, and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of support they gave each other. Very friendly and down to earth bunch, whom then returned with me upstairs to witness the next band,

THEL (8) are a Bristol based group here to debut their melodic death jams live for the first time. In the background played a kind of electronic synth tune, which stood out for me. I wrote “f*cking sick control” twice, and I think the singer’s vocal performance was absolutely stellar and his reverb was being much accommodated by the layout of the room. 

We had the guitar solos, synth boogaloo and a drummer with eight arms and a cowbell - really what else do you need? As we reached the final song of their set (my personal favourite) the crowd had already established the world’s smallest pit in this narrow room, and everyone was thoroughly having a good time and I bought a t-shirt because yes.

Next up were the headliners - Intrepid (8), whom hailed from the cool, calm and collected climates of Estonia. Regardless of their young age, they immediately took control of the stage with an intense and aggressive sound. The vocalist was impressive, driven and his growl went deep, but furthermore I took notice how the backup vocalist seamlessly blended in his own voice into support and add depth. 

It was also the first of the three bands, where bassist was the first to catch my attention as I dissected the ensemble, showing strong skill whilst trying to pluck above the pitch of the drums - which I later found were affected by my positioning in the room. Though the lead had started with almost cocky confidence, towards the end he seemed to visibly relax and show some playfulness in his performance. These guys definitely deserve a bigger audience, but it shows welcome humility that they are willing to play to a smaller crowd despite playing to much bigger reception in the past.

Definitely a worthwhile experience, extra points for potentially offending the singer with my joke about Finland vs Estonia, which was received with visible discomfort. (Will she ever learn?)

Brilliant night with much talent and enthusiasm. Alice over and out out out!