Eluveitie & Sabaton @ HMV Ritz, Manchester

November 3rd 2012 saw us venturing to pastures new, a venue we didn't even know existed. The HMV Ritz in Manchester which, we were reliably informed, has a sprung dancefloor, was to house an evening of folk metal and historically accurate power metal courtesy of Eluveitie and Sabaton.

It started off in a most perplexing and confusing way, TicketMaster having completely failed to deliver our tickets despite our ordering them in July. After wandering about for a while being told to go this way and that we, sensibly, went to the pub. Upon our return the tickets were there after all. Nothing to worry about. 

After purchasing possibly too much merchandise (including the most epic power metal t-shirt ever) and being absolutely gabberflasted at the ludicrous cost of beer (£9 a pint for Old Speckled Hen!) the music started.

To give a good idea of the epicness of this t-shirt, this is the back of it, and the front is just as complex!

First up were Wisdom, of whom I got no decent pictures. Very traditional metal, complete with Iron Maiden cover. Next up were Eluveitie, the first of our November "bands to see" with their many instruments.

Then straight on to Sabaton, with their stompy awesomeness.

The sprung dancefloor was a reality. In stomping, jumping and bouncing about to Sabaton we were repeatedly catapulted up and off the ground. The atmosphere was the best I've experienced at a gig for ages. A definite highlight of the year, despite almost collapsing at the cost of beer.

See the full set over at lazyrobot.org.uk.

My Top 10 Essential Metal Albums

While watching Gojira at the Corporation in Sheffield the other day, I was challenged to produce my Top 10 Essential Metal Albums. The albums that I keep going back to, or have some special meaning to me. It's obviously a very personal list and I can guarantee that just about everybody in the world will find fault with it, but that's the point of these things, isn't it?

Dark Tranquillity - We Are The Void Dark Tranquillity's latest album (although it is now five years old), and the one I have played most by a very large margin. I have even played it twice as much as Projector, my previous favourite. Featuring some shudderingly creepy melodeath riffs and covering all the classic Gothenburg bases, you can't go far wrong with this one. It's hard to choose a favourite track of this album, but I guess Shadow In Our Blood or Iridium would take it. Or Her Silent Language, or The Grandest Accusation. One of those, anyway.

Opeth - Ghost Reveries There will always be controversy over choosing a favourite Opeth album, but this is mine, narrowly beating Blackwater Park to the top spot (thanks to my decision to only have one album by any given band in the list). Of all the Opeth albums I have on my iPod (most of them) it's the one I return to time and again for my fix of proggy deathy growliness. The Grand Conjuration is probably the best track, but like We Are The Void there are too many good ones. The cover of Soldier of Fortune is bloody good, too.

Lacuna Coil - Comalies From way back in the days when I was finding my metal feet, as it were, Comalies contains just enough heavy, just enough catchy to get me hooked. This was my gateway drug to a love affair with melodic death metal, of all things. Top track would be Tight Rope, which gives me a little nerdgasm for recognising the game the voiceover samples are taken from.

Agalloch - Marrow Of The Spirit I heard about Agalloch long before I heard Agalloch, and when I finally did hear them, I wondered why I hadn't looked them up before. Dark and disquieting and epic in equal measure. Favourite track would have to be, um, all the tracks. Seriously, I can't choose between them.

Judas Priest - Painkiller The one and only venture into NWOBHM on this list. As must as Iron Maiden is seen as the pinnacle of British heavy metal, you just can't beat Painkiller for volume or tempo. I did air guitar to the title track a couple of months ago and my left shoulder still hasn't forgiven me. My favourite tracks are Painkiller, obviously, and Night Crawler.

Insomnium - Above The Weeping World Although in recent months it has been pushed aside in favour of One For Sorrow, Above The Weeping World is still Insomnium's magnum opus, and proof that they are still one of the finest melodic death bands in the business. I'm starting to think I shouldn't have tried to include a favourite track. On this one The Gale, Mortal Share, The Killjoy and Devoid of Caring are my choices.

Wolverine - Still One of my favourite albums ever. I first heard Sleepy Town on a friend's shuffle, and wanted to know what the rest sounded like. I was amazed, and have been a fan of the band ever since. Sleepy Town itself is high on the list of favourite songs ever, too.

Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth As grandiose and epic as it is proggy as it is ear pummeling. I originally dismissed Sylosis as being too -core for my tastes based on looks alone. Big. Mistake. This album was one of the surprises of 2011 and still gets regular rotation on my commute. It's hard to pick favourite tracks because the whole album flows so well together, although Empyreal (both parts) deserve special mention.

Eluveitie - Slania Is it folk metal, or is it Gothenburg melodic death with a hurdy gurdy? I don't really know, but it's bloody good. I first heard of (and, indeed, heard) Eluveitie at Bloodstock '08. I rushed to the CD sales tent, only to discover that I had missed the rush and every copy of Slania had been sold in 30 minutes. Inis Mona is the definite highlight of this folk juggernaut.

Ghost Brigade - Isolation Songs I originally found out about Ghost Brigade from Last.fm, recommended due to my constant playing of Dark Tranquillity and Insomnium. I'm glad the recommendation engine worked this time! Possibly the most depressing death metal band I've ever heard. Highlights include Into The Black Light and Lost In A Loop.


I was also graciously allowed 5 "honourable mentions" for those albums that I love, but didn't make the top 10. To be honest this was harder to come up with than the first 10. There are so many albums I love  that narrowing it down proved difficult.

One in particular that gets regular plays is Skyforger by Amorphis. A random purchase at HMV led me to discover Amorphis, a sort of hybrid of melodic death and folk that's both heavy as a heavy thing and melodic as an, um, melodic ... thing. Aerolithe by Fall Of The Leafe (which led to the coining of the term "fotling", meaning "listening to Fall Of The Leafe") is another that I throw on a lot when I fancy something a bit more utterly nonsensical.

Perhaps a controversial choice because it is the least metal of anything I've put so far, but How To Measure A Planet by The Gathering is a long standing repeat listen. A fine work among a body of fine works. More recently, and definitely less controversially, is Woods of Ypres's final album Woods 5: Grey Skies And Electric Lights. Sure, it's depressing, but it's frankness and honesty elevates it from pointless morbidity into something far deeper and more philosophical.

And finally I can't forget to mention Monuments by Sheffield's own Northern Oak, the album I've seen played (in parts, at least) more than any other. If I fancy listening to it, I could put on the MP3s, or I could just pop to a local gig to enjoy it with an ale or five. 

Season of Riffs and Black Metal Folkiness

Winter holds a mystique all its own. The darkness creeps into all aspects of life, the cold biting and drawing the warmth out of every living thing. There is an almost palpable menace in the air, and tales of winters long past hang heavy with fear and foreboding. Pagan ritual and ancient folklore anthropomorphise this sinister essence and give it an almost spiritual quality.

Perhaps, then, this begins to explain the draw of black and folk metal at this time of year. More sombre, more haunting than folk music, and yet less raging than other forms of extreme metal. A genre that fits the mood of this frigid, disquieting season.

Over the last week I have had the pleasure of listening to several albums that capture the atmosphere of bleak and desolate winter cold. One of these that I recently reviewed, the stunning Marrow Of The Spirit from Agalloch, is perhaps the quintessential winter metal album. With heart-rending melodies and chilling vocals, it embodies the very heart of a winter dense with legends, ghosts and mythology.

Another recently reviewed album, Abrahadabra from Dimmu Borgir, is a very different sort of beast. Soaring orchestral scores punctuated by hard hitting black metal and rasping, eerie vocals. Where Marrow Of The Spirit captures the claustrophobia of winter snows, Abrahadabra covers vast landscapes, epic vistas and an angrier, more direct threat.

The most recent addition to my collection of black folk metal is Monuments, the new album from Northern Oak. While not capturing the essence of winter within the album itself, it is nonetheless an album heavy in folklore and emotion. A full review will follow, but for now suffice to say that it is easy to soak up this album and get lost in it, or to read carefully into the lyrics and follow the stories told within.

Last comes Eluveitie, who were the first folk metal band to catch my attention. Using traditional folk instruments mixed with melodic death metal, combining that with Gaulish vocals and Celtic themes, this is perhaps the most widely varied and complex folk metal band in this list. Their 2010 album Everything Remains (As It Never Was) continues this theme with evocative whispered passages among death metal riffs and intricate folk melodies.

Perhaps it is the weight of the air, the cold's constant nipping or simply the almost perpetual dark, but at this time of year I feel a certain morose wistfulness. Black and folk metal plays on that emotion and turns it into something beautiful. Something I can lose myself in, and let the music carry me away.


* With apologies to John Keats