These days, retro death metal acts are all the rage with new metal bands and home-grown talent is the order of the day as death metal fans make their way to The Boston Arms to catch old school death metal worshippers Vallenfyre headlining the capital.
Supports for this date were announced rather late and the result is Ancient Ascendant, certainly no strangers to the London metal circuit. Their metal is difficult to label, drawing on death metal snacking on melodic death metal sentiments with the odd thrash and heavy metal moment injected into their sound. Formed in 2005 and with two albums to their name, this youthful four-piece from Reading are certainly competent and confident musicians but their non-committal metal appears to isolate rather than intrigue the punters, undoubtedly many of whom have seen Ancient Ascendant on numerous outings. This is evidenced by frontman Alex Butler asking the audience to move closer and fill the void between them but the audience does not move.
Headliner Vallenfyre is the brainchild of Paradise Lost's main song writer Gregor Mackintosh complete with ex-My Dying Bride guitarist Hamish Hamilton Glencross and drummer in a multitude of established acts - including Paradise Lost, At the Gates and Cradle of Filth - Adrian Erlandsson. With two albums to their name, Vallenfyre play unabashed old school death metal (there are plenty of reflections of Paradise Lost's earlier death metal years) with quite a protuberant Swedish influence in the vein of Entombed or Dismember. Alongside the violent savagery, there are bone-crunching doom metal moments and nods towards punky crust to vary the pace. Opening with 'Scabs', the four-piece unleashed a violent assault that demands attention from the good-sized crowd.
This year saw these Northeners releasing sophomore album 'Splinters' and the setlist is evenly divided between this and their debut 'A Fragile King'. Well-executed highlights include 'Odious Bliss', 'A Thousand Martyrs', 'Ravenous Whore' and 'Cattle', all enjoyed by the crowd judging by their response after each track concludes. Unbridled aggression and bottomless misery are espoused in such a raw take on death metal that discards modernity and progression, resolutely treading paths that have existed for years although with the professionalism of these seasoned musicians. In spite of the tone of the music, Mackintosh's stage banter is playfully entertaining with a good portion of self-depreciation and interaction with the audience. The stage presence of the band involves an abundance of death metal headbanging, although Mackintosh does spend an unusual amount of time crouched down for some reason. Erlandsson is not behind the drum kit tonight but his replacement Waltteri Väyrynen is definitely a heavy hitter and occupies Erlandsson's role effortlessly.
The final song is the title track of the new album, a final thunderous rampage of early '90s death metal homage and explosively bids the audience good night.It would be fair to say the attendees of tonight's concert left feeling particularly satisfied by Vallenfyre's visceral death metal mania and the level of success they have garnered both at home and internationally is definitely understandable.
FUTURE GIGS
sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.