Tag: heavymetal

LIVE REVIEW – GLORYHAMMER, TWILIGHT FORCE, AMMO

March 12th, 2024

Toronto, ON @ The Phoenix

Photos & Words: Miles Leblanc

Gloryhammer brought the fun and the heat from Europe to Toronto on Tuesday night, with outstanding touring support from Sweden’s Twilight Force and local openers Ammo.

AMMO
The perfect local opener for this show blending in unique Toronto-styled heavy metal, paying homage to all of the bands from around the world before them but with modern flare, a Toronto edge, and lots of feeling. Ammo absolutely got the crowd ramped up right from the start, continuing throughout the performance, even gaining the acknowledgement of the most staunch metalhead in the crowd with fists in the air and headbanging all around. At one point, viewing the crowd from the back of the venue and observing things, after the first three songs, Ammo absolutely had the crowd in the palm of their hands.

Alex, the vocalist, has endless vocals for days and a barrage of stage banter to match the outstanding vocals, bringing in the same level of screams as heavy metal legends who’ve been singing for decades. Brett, the guitarist with the orange guitar, much like Alex, just screams away on the guitar with endless riffs, endless grooves, and a better head of hair than anyone else in the crowd. Jeff on bass just sounded so massive on the Phoenix sound system, just thumping away the whole performance from start to finish. Matt, the other guitarist and the newest member of the band, would absolutely blow your mind with how seamless he plays in the band, all business and compliments, playing back and forth with Brett all throughout the performance. Last but certainly not least, Struan plays like an absolute timepiece, effortlessly playing the drums to the point where, multiple times throughout the performance, having the time to provide faces that would express Struan is having fun rather than work behind the kit.

Speaking of Struan, mid set it was brought to the Toronto crowd’s attention that it was Struan’s birthday. With the request from Alex, the Toronto crowd delivered all the happy feels to Struan on his special day, coming together and singing happy birthday.

Together, this five-piece local Toronto heavy metal band put on a consistent, headbanging, and just flat-out fun performance. I can’t wait for the next performance, which thankfully is later this month at the Bovine, as proclaimed by Alex mid-set, and most importantly, can’t wait to see the new music from this fully-loaded, well-polished, and standard-setting Toronto heavy metal band. Bravo! 

Setlist 
Tombstone City, Into Death, Street Metal Werewolves, Doomsayer, Mortis Rex, Empire, Too Metal For Metal

TWILIGHT FORCE
This concert is my first time even hearing this band, and it’s music live and in person. This band, full of story-telling through songs and in-between songs, was in full LARP (Live-Action Role-Playing) style costumes and caused a lot of crowd-going members to dress up as well. Each member came out one by one, to the roar and delight of the Toronto crowd, and at the end of band introductions, new vocalist Kristin absolutely burst out onto stage horns first, seemingly with the same amount of energy someone would need to run a marathon.

Within the first minute of the first song, the Toronto crowd was deafeningly loud, singing the songs word for word and creating a lot of vibrations with movement and stomping feet to the degree that the floor was vibrating, which is not an easy feat in any venue. Twilight Force cruised through the setlist, getting to the first part of addressing the crowd, to which Kristin let the uninformed know that the main vocalist, Allyon, was MIA for this tour due to family issues. To this point in the performance and to the end of the performance, I was hard-pressed to believe that this band had a missing vocalist. Seriously, that impressive. Kristin absolutely belted through the songs, singing in all the ranges from the most gentle operatic voice, so something more fitting of the horns on their head, growls from down below.

Both guitarists, Aerendir and Lynd absolutely brought a new flavour of guitar work and symphonic power metal throughout the performance. Trading off rhythms, riffs, and melodies back and forth absolutely hooked me in. Born, the bassist and no argument here, the most photogenic in the band complemented the strings throughout the performance, genuinely expressing a lot of happiness in the reception from the Toronto crowd. De’Azsh, on drums, just brought the sound of a dragon, roaring through as easily as the loudest member of the band. Last but certainly not least, Blackwald plays the keyboard backing vocals and also fills in the blanks with stories in-between songs. For someone who is standing in one spot almost the whole performance, Blackwald easily did the most work.

A highlight of this performance was ‘Dragonborn’. Kristin, and the band threw an inflatable pool dragon into the crowd, and the Toronto crowd played with it too much, causing it to deflate by the end of the performance. There was lots of joy and laughter over this from the Toronto crowd. Twilight Force definitely played its part as the supporting band for the main event, Gloryhammer. It definitely opened my eyes to wanting to check out more symphonic power metal, and I hope they come back to Toronto again. Swords, dragons, and LARP, oh my!

Setlist
Dawn Of The Dragonstar, Twilight Force, Dragonborn, Thundersword, Flight Of The Sapphire Dragon, Sunlight Knight, At The Heart Of Wintervale, The Power Of The Ancient Force, Knights Of Twilight’s Might (outro)

GLORYHAMMER
“Magical and cosmic” power metal, has a nice ring to it. The reason for this Red, White, And Hoots tour. Seemingly simple, but Hoots has somewhat of a cult following with this band and their interactions with the crowd. One of the stage hands dropped off a cut-out of Tom Jones, and on the p.a. ‘Delilah’ cranked through the speakers, a sign of the performance to come, as this crowd was laser focused and ready for this venue-sized karaoke session with Gloryhammer. High energy overtook the stage after the second intro, and the band was on a warp-speed path to deliver this set.

Right out of the gate after the first song, the comically large Gloryhammer came out with a goblin, who was easily defeated by Angus McFife on vocals, took the large hammer, and did lots of victory poses throughout the rest of the song, much to the delight of the Toronto crowd and me as a photographer selfishly. Vocally speaking, the new version of Angus McFife (the third) brought such energy, passion, and charisma, and it would be hard to say this is the new version and/or incarnation of the vocalist for Gloryhammer. Absolutely blended with the band as the newest member, and I would challenge any die-hard Gloryhammer fan to see if any errors were made.

The Hootsman on bass duties, an ominous figure on stage that absolutely commanded everyone’s attention with presence, costume, and sheer power of pounding the bass notes, I genuinely felt bad for the bass towards the end of the set for how much pounding happened! Ser Proletius on guitars, crazy how this band can sound like two guitarists are on stage, but Ser Proletius commands the guitar by themselves, playing everything to the letter and delivering the goods. Zargothrax on keyboards, evil, dark, and more evil than ever before, with five years away from the last Toronto performance, something really took over them from the last viewing; maybe it’s just the corpse paint. Last but certainly not least is Ralathor on drums, another drummer who makes it look easy; seriously, he looks as though he didn’t miss a note, didn’t have a care in the world, and just smashed through all the music.

The most surprising moment for me was the little break of hearing ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss song)’. If you are a wrestling fan, you know why, and of course I had to get a woo chant going, which worked from where I was standing in the back and traveled all the way to the front. Speaking of chants, multiple times through every song, random pockets of the crowd bellowed “HOOTS” (almost akin to random people screaming Slayer in the same vein).

Surprisingly, mosh pits happened during this performance, and while the band touched on every album in their discography, I would have lost money on no moshing at this show. The goblin also made a return by the end of the set, with a big, awesome hammer in tow, and got brained for troubling Angus. Good fun all around. This five-piece performing a near 90-minute set was the perfect set for a return to Toronto, who definitely believes in The Red, The White, And The HOOTS! 

Setlist
Delilah (Tom Jones song) (Intro #1), Incoming Transmission (Intro #2), Holy Flaming Hammer Of Unholy C, osmic Frost, Gloryhammer, The Land Of Unicorns, Fly Away, Angus McFife, Questlords of Inverness, Ride To The Galactic Fortress!, Sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss song), Wasteland Warrior Hoots Patrol, Fife Eternal, Masters Of The Galaxy, Sword Lord Of The Goblin Horde, The Siege Of Dunkeld (In Hoots We Trust), Keeper Of The Celestial Flame Of Abernethy, Universe On Fire, Hootsforce, The Unicorn Invasion Of Dundee, The National Anthem Of Unst

It may have only been a Tuesday night at the Phoenix Concert Theatre, but for the over 75% capacity crowd who no doubt enjoyed the days seasonally above average March weather temps, this line-up was bullet-proof, performed on multiple levels, and would satiate even the most ridged concert goer. Shout out to Inertia Entertainment, who recently celebrated a 28th birthday being in the business, for being one of the leaders in southern Ontario’s extreme and heavy music experiences.

Remaining dates on the Red, White, And Hoots Tour are as follows…

March
16 – Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room
18 – Denver, CO @ The Oriental Theater
20 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall
22 – Seattle, WA @ Substation
23 & 24 – Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theatre
25 – Roseville, CA @ Goldfield Trading Post
26 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent Theater
27 – Mesa, AZ @ The Nile Theater
29 – Austin, TX @ Come and Take It Live
30 – Dallas, TX @ The Studio at The Factory

LIVE REVIEW – GWAR, CANCER BATS, X-COPS

March 12th, 2024

London, ON @ London Music Hall

Photos: Kimberly Baarda

Words: Jason Deaville

To say things were going to get a bit bloody on this night is an understatement. In fact, London, Ontario, Canada would become drenched in oceans of blood, just as one would expect from “The Blood Of Gods” themselves, GWAR. The band rolled into Canada as part of their Age Of Befuddlment Tour, which also featured Toronto’s Cancer Bats, and a rare appearance of the mysterious and legendary X-Cops. GWAR frontman Blöthar The Berserker had this to say about the impending trek…

“The Invasion of Canada is nigh. We will start our campaign to bring befuddlement to the masses in the cultured and forward thinking American South, and from there, we will launch a coast-to-coast attack on the Great White North, leaving a swath of destruction not seen since the War of 1812. Stopping only to get high in the Pacific Northwest, we will dive directly into the gaping hole of the donut, the American Midwest, before gracing the Dirty South and ending again on the filthy streets of Baltimore! I wonder if we can score crack in the ‘City that Reads.’ Are You Not Befuddled?”

X-COPS
Outfitted in their obligatory police uniforms, this side-project featuring members of GWAR raided the stage like the law enforcement buffoons in the slapstick TV comedy, Reno 911. Their set consisted of songs mainly from there one and only studio album, You Have the Right to Remain Silent (released on Metal Blade Records way back in ’95), as well as two brand new tracks (‘Kinderhardened’ and ‘Light Em Up’) from a rumored EP set to be released later this year.

If I were to guess, a good portion of the sizeable crowd in attendance for X-Cops‘ set likely had no idea who the band were. That being said, they managed to the win crowd over with an incredibly competent performance that was as fun to watch as it was to listen to.

Setlist
Interloper, Barbells, Zipper Pig, Cavity Search, Kinderhardened, Light Em Up, Paddy Wagon Rape, Welcome To New Jersey, You Fucked Up

CANCER BATS
Toronto hardcore punkers Cancer Bats might have been slightly out-of-place on this billing, but they didn’t show it, delivering an incredibly high-energy set of songs from their extensive catalog of recorded material. Frontman, Liam Cormier, did an admirable job of getting the audience pumped and eating out of the palm of his hands, and that energy from the packed house was directed right back at the band. There was no doubt that a sizeable portion of the crowd was there to see Cancer Bats, which speaks volumes to the success and longevity of this hard-hitting band.

Setlist
Bricks & Mortar, Trust No One, Pneumonia Hawk, Lucifer’s Rocking Chair, The Hoof, Rats, True Zero, Road Sick, Hammering On, Sorceress, Winterpeg, Sabotage (Beastie Boys cover), Hail Destroyer

GWAR
From the deepeset reaches of space, the Scumdogs Of The Universe were sent to conquer this insignificant shitball floating in a dark corner of the universe; the planet Earth. Tonight, the unsuspecting, conservative city of London, Ontario, Canada was the target. With them, the band brought gallons upon gallons of blood in an effort to mark the city as their own.

With the venue now packed to the gills, the spectacle started with Black Sabbath‘s ‘War Pigs’ playing over the house speakers. This served to amp the crowd up ten-fold. As the song faded away into obscurity, the Scumdogs, fittingly, blasted onto the stage with the song ‘Battle Lust’ (taken from their Violence Has Arrived album released in 2001). The stout, pig-faced, horned-goblin of a frontman, Blöthar the Berserker, was an imposing force, spewing out the lyrics like a demon possessed, backed-up by co-vocalist Sawborg Destructo.

GWAR wasted no time, immediately launching into ‘Hail, Genocide!’ and ‘I, Bonesnapper’ much to the delight of the audience, who were now wholly-consumed by the force from the stage. It was around this time that the band then unleashed a torrent of blood onto the all-too-eager crowd, soaking the first five rows from head to toe. Those poor photographers in the press pit came out looking like Stephen King’s Carrie. The highlight of the evening was when the band brought out Joe Biden, who, as expected, shambled out out onto the stage and rambled incoherently as the band grilled him. In the end, things didn’t turn out so great for old Biden, with Blöthar quickly decapitating Biden while the audience cheered on in approval.

This was certainly one of the most exciting and engaging metal shows in London, Ontario in a very long-time. The best part was seeing the throngs of fans making their way out of the venue at the end of the night drenched in blood yet with glowing, satisified smiles.

Setlist
War Pigs (Black Sabbath), Battle-Lust, Hail Genocide!, I Bonesnapper, Mother Fucking Liar, I’ll Be Your Monster, The Cutter, Starving Gods (Death Whistle Suite), Krosstika, Completely Fucked, Immortal Corrupter, Maggots, Let Us Slay, Sonderkommando, Crack In The Egg, Berserker Mode, Sick Of You, Fishfuck, Fuck This Place

Remaining dates on the Age Of Befuddlement Tour are as follows:

March 16 – Saskatoon, SK @ Coors Event Centre FM
March 17 – Edmonton, AB @ Midway Music Hall FM
March 18 – Calgary, AB @ The Back Alley FM
March 20 – Vancouver, BC @ The Vogue Theatre FM
March 21 – Spokane, WA @ Knitting Factory FM
March 24 – Lawrence, KS @ Granada Theater FM
March 26 – Davenport, IA @ The Capitol Theater FM
March 27 – Pontiac, MI @ The Crofoot FM
March 28 – Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall FM
March 29 – Charlotte, NC @ The Underground FM
March 30 – Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Soundstage FM

ALBUM REVIEW: NECROWRETCH

Necrowretch – Swords of Dajjal

Reviewed by: Kenneth Gallant

Review Score 9.0

You have to love it when a band can build tenure in any musical genre. When a band like Necrowretch is eating up fifteen years in the business it’s quite a feat. Now I say this having very little exposure to the band’s discography, but upon hearing their latest effort, I have to say I’m quite impressed.

The album in question is Swords Of Dajjal and it’s due out February 2nd on Seasons of Mist Underground Activists. What you get here is an album clocking in around thirty-seven minutes of the blackened-death variety and it only took three years in the making according to the band.

This is also album number five, coming upon the heels of the whole world shut down debacle of COVID, and it’s quite an interesting back story as to how this record came about. For starters, the previous release The Ones From Hell (came out in 2020) was meant to give the band a huge push right out of the gate. A European tour was put together with Kampfar and Taake, but that was quickly squashed when the pandemic erupted. The band was forced into shutdown mode, so they decided to write some new songs.

These songs gave the band a chance to upgrade their power and depth as a musical entity and according to singer Vlad, he took singing lessons to meet that challenge, along with upgrading their gear and tuning the sound. What came about afterwards is a sound of intensely written black metal, but with more variety and some death metal layering in for good measure.

Necrowretch

This all sounds exciting, so when perusing over the press-kit materials I quickly realized the band means business on this new release. So without further adieu, here’s some of my analysis on what to expect with Swords Of Dajjal.

The guitars are out front on the opening track ‘Ksar Al-Kufar’, along with Vlad’s raspy vocal delivery in a pronounced way. He sounds immediate here and I’m liking what I am hearing. There’s some nice ominous passages that start up on ‘The Fifth Door’ right out of the gate. The commanding drone of the guitars reach my ears quickly and Vlad layers his vocals with a fiery passion. The song spirals into a meaty mid-section and I am completely enthralled with this new sound.

‘Di Mauri’ begins with a demonic passage of speech and blackened guitars that spew out a tone of nastiness. The band’s new drummer N. Destroyer is on fire and I’m getting some early-era Entombed vibes here tonally. The pace quickens on the title track Swords Of Dajjal because those riffs take centre stage and provide meaty fisticuffs before sprawling into a doom laden passage. This is definitely some serious stuff happening and we’re only half-way through the recording.

It’s hard to tell what is being said lyrically, but I suppose ‘Numidian Knowledge’ is waxing poetically on the ways of this semi-nomadic tribe known as the Numidia population. As esoteric as it sounds, the song spirals out like a group of monks deviating from their daily ritual of prayers and mediation and embarking on some bloodletting. It’s a pretty cool song for the most part and I do like the snaky passages leading up to the end of it. The next track ‘Vae Victis’ is a black metal staple with all the fixings, as the guitars drone along until the stark turn into barked out death vocals and blasting guitars. It’s such a great way to end the number.

‘Daeva’ is a short instrumental track that follows; getting punchy and straight to the point. However, it’s contrasted by the closing number ‘Total Obliteration’ as being the longest track here. You get some precision drumming and drony guitars to start out, but Vlad’s vocals are shouted out and seem to give the song some added extra dimension. There’s a smooth transition into the eerie sounds of hands sliding across the neck of the guitar strings that is a really neat effect to bring an end to the proceedings. I have to say this track concludes with a bang and it compliments the other seven tracks before it.

I have to say this is a banger of a release! It’s built upon a new and improved sound, plus it expertly straddles along the genres of both black and death metal. Vlad’s vocals are a high point for me and you can’t go wrong with a band who puts its best foot forward in earnest of improving their sound overall. Let’s see what they do on the live concert circuit in 2024.

Swords of Dajjal will be released February 2, 2024 on Season of Mist

The Metal Pit’s Top 15 of 2023

  1. Obituary – Dying Of Everything
  2. Overkill – Scorched
  3. Primordial – How It Ends
  4. Cannibal Corpse – Chaos Horrific
  5. Dying Fetus – Make Them Beg For Death
  6. Hellripper – Warlocks Grim And Withered Hags
  7. Enslaved – Heimdal
  8. Suffocation – Hymns From The Apocrypha
  9. Katatonia – Sky Void Of Stars
  10. Tsjuder – Helvegr
  11. Incantation – Unholy Deification
  12. Blackbraid – II
  13. Tomb Mold – The Enduring Spirit
  14. Tailgunner – Guns For Hire
  15. Prong – State of Emergency

Like clockwork, each and every year metalheads compile a list of their favorite albums that destroyed their earholes for the year, and 2023 was no different.

So, what was it about 2023 and metal releases that made this year so special? For starters, it was certainly the year of death metal. Who would have thought that thirty-five years after the release of many of the classic albums that birthed the genre that we would be here today still critiquing albums from these bands?

This year saw some incredibly relevant albums from many of our death metal overlords, which included Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation, Incantation, Dying Fetus, and Obituary. In fact, all five made The Metal Pit’s year-end list, with Obituary taking the number one spot. Additionally, we had one contemporary death metal band, Tomb Mold, make our list, with many of our contributors placing it quite high. It’s good to see death metal so strong all these years later.

Similarly, black metal proper has been infecting ears over the last thirty years yet remains just as strong today as it did back in those early church burning, murderous days. This year saw some stellar releases from the Nordic contingent with albums by the mighty Enslaved and Tsjuder (the latter releasing one of their most vicious albums yet). Again, we had a couple of contemporary black metal albums make our year-end, which includes newcomers Blackbraid and Hellripper.

If The Metal Pit’s year-end list is any indication, 2023 wasn’t quite the year of thrash, with only a couple of albums making the list. That said, one of those albums, Overkill‘s Scorched, scored the number two spot. A fantastic album that showcases the consistency and relevance of this legendary, genre-defining band. We once again have to speak about Scotland’s Hellripper (who we previously mentioned when discussing 2023’s black metal releases). When it comes to thrash, Hellripper certainly fits the bill, with a ton of killer riffs that display a decidedly 80s thrash attack. Definitely a band to watch out for.

Rounding out our list we have few outliers, two of whom comfortably fit in the alternative metal category. The first of those bands is Prong. Another legendary act who released perhaps their best album since 1990’s Beg to Differ and 1991’s Prove You Wrong. An incredible album that showcases the relevancy of their crossover take on thrash and alternative metal. The UK’s Tailgunner was probably the surprise band of 2023 with their debut full-length Guns For Hire, an album chock-full of solid metal goodies. Quite the feat for a band that has only been in existence for a few short years.

The last band of our list, Swedish legends Katatonia, is a band that I’m certain makes year-end lists for each and every album they release. They truly are one of the most consistent heavy bands in existence, and this year’s Sky Void Of Stars once again proves this.

The Metal Pit is looking forward to a bevy of releases in 2024… stay tuned, as we will definitely be covering tons of metal this coming year! We thank you for supporting us and are looking forward to seeing you all in the PIT!

The Metal Pit Writers Top 15 lists.

Jim Harrison
Tom Elke
Georgina Strilakos
Dennis van’t Hoofd
Kenneth Gallant
Billy Klare
Staicha Kidd
Jason Deaville
Kim Baarda
Blake Mossey