Support comes from the youthful Seprevation, a Bristol-based death/thrash metal four-piece. Formed in 2011 with just an EP to their name, it seems the band have already cultivated a handful of fans towards the front of the venue. Morbid Angel-style classic death metal is conjoined with evil-sounding thrash metal to eventually encourage heads to bang. Despite probably being the youngest people in the entire venue, Seprevation's professionalism outranks many older metal acts as they engage with the audience and approach their stage show with a definitive certainty behind their music.
The highlight of the set for most is when guitarist and vocalist Lluc Tupman invites Exhumed frontman Matt Harvey on stage to join in on vocal duties for a growled (obviously) cover of Iron Maiden classic 'The Trooper'. Unsurprisingly, the audience perks up substantially in approval of Seprevation's inclusion. After Harvey leaves the stage to the ambience of a solid applause, the quartet wraps up their set with a closing song that sees a sizeable portion of the audience breaking their necks with headbanging. This is definitely a band confident in their music and this could be enough to propel them to tour with other established extreme metal acts. The audience certainly devoured their performance.
Opening with the violent 'Necromaniac' from the consistently entertaining 'Gore Metal' debut, Exhumed instantly summon a tide of whiplashing hair in front of the stage. The Californians' take on death metal involves grindcore and thrash metal influences with three of the members straddling vocal duties between them, which makes it extremely dynamic live. However, the guitars are somewhat low in the mix tonight but this does not prevent the show from being compelling. Plenty of gory pre-reunion material is exhumed (get it?) from all the albums, including 'Slaughtercult', 'Decrepit Crescendo', 'Under the Knife' and 'Limb from Limb'. The latter track sees a presumably deranged long-haired 'surgeon' run through the audience wielding a chainsaw, frightening the audience and leaving the stench of petrol in his wake.
The same surgeon resurfaces during a guitar solo from Bud Burke, which is apparently so intense, it causes him to fall to the floor. The surgeon takes to the stage with a defibrillator unit to attempt to revive him, with drummer Mike Hamilton holding a sign reading 'CLEAR' after each unsuccessful resuscitation. However, the sign 'BEER' is lifted and the surgeon pours beer into Burke's mouth, which does revitalize him.
The setlist is not just composed of classic Exhumed numbers but also selections from the impressive 'No Guts, No Glory' full-length, including 'Through Cadaver Eyes' and 'Dis-Assembly Line'. Spurts of mosh pits surface through the set but the forest of headbangers is the audience's primary way to show appreciation, particularly to pre-encore closer 'The Matter of Splatter'. Leaving the stage has the crowd begging for more and fortunately, the band take the stage again. Harvey announces that Exhumed will be releasing a new album in summer and as lab rats, a new track will be performed for the beer-saturated audience, simply entitled 'The Rotting'. This song sounds like traditional Exhumed but with a more sinister vibe. It goes down a storm with the audience too but not as well as real closer Open the Abscess', injecting a final surge of mosh pit action before it's time to call it a day. Even marred with the sound issues, Exhumed still delivered and being their third year in London in a row, it can only be hoped they return next year (or even this year) with their new album in tow. Godfathers of gore!
article by: Elena Francis
published: 17/05/2013 15:01
FUTURE GIGS
sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.