PARADISE LOST, Insomnium, Vried @Slade Rooms 25/3/12

Paradise Lost’s front man Nick Holmes isn’t noted for cheeriness at the best of times. But it seems he has a reason to grumpy tonight: “I had a curry before I came onstage,” he informs us. And it’s not sitting well.”

Holmes isn’t the only one in a bit of a mood. RTM is a little bit stroppy itself, as the early start time means we only get there for half of the outstanding Vreid’s set. We see “Raped By Light” and a superb “Pitch Black” so all is not lost. Hopefully we will catch the Swedes again.

Finland’s Insomnium are next up and their doomy brand of melodic death metal is perfect for this bill. They begin with a guitar solo, which is always worth bonus points, and its done on a Flying V, which is even better. When their set begins it is largely made up from their 2011 album “One For Sorrow,” with “Killjoy,” “Unsung” and the title track amongst many highlights.

Paradise Lost are one of Brit Metal’s true stalwarts. The Halifax mob have been knocking around for over 20 years. Clearly they are not the ticket selling draw they were in their mid 90s heyday. This tour sees them undertake a mammoth 13 date trek around the smaller venues in the UK, an impressive tour, but one which takes place on perhaps more cramped stages than they are used to – which Holmes remarks on a couple of times before deciding he won’t attempt backflips this evening.

Lost  have largely eschewed the mainstream and continued to put out brilliant records every couple of years in whatever style they choose. The just released “Tragic Idol” is another example of their never ending stream of quality.

It is with a track from “…Idol” they begin this evening, the riff heavy “Honesty In Death” – one of four new songs they play this evening in a largely career spanning set. A magnificent “Forever Failure” is the only entry from breakthrough album “Draconian Times,” perhaps understandable considering they spent 2011 celebrating it.

The band are in top form and aren’t in any mood to mess about with extended jams, racing through their set as if they all had the same dodgy chicken balti. However it is lead guitarist Gregor Mackintosh that is perhaps the true star of the show, with his exemplary work driving the gig.

If the main set – which included “As I Die” being dedicated to Birthday boy Frank Healey from Brummie Death Metal legends Benediction and ended with an epic “The Enemy” – was good enough, the encore is a revelation. Kicking off with “One Second” and taking in “Fear of Impending Hell,” arguably the best track on “Tragic Idol” before visiting “Faith Divides Us, Death Unites Us.” This is where most of the early shows had finished. Not here, though, as they treat us to “Say Just Words,” which in RTM’s opinion is one of the finest songs ever written.

A fine way to end a fine night as one of the most overlooked bands in metal has again showed how much they still have to offer. There are a lot of smiles about at the end and who would have thought that? Paradise Lost are still the masters of doom.

DRAGONFORCE, Pythia 18/4/12 @The Temple Birmingham

If it isn’t strange enough that Dragonforce are playing their only headline UK show until the autumn and doing so in the smallest room in The Institute (this is partly explicable by the fact that it’s a Kerrang sponsored gig and their radio station is just up the road) then surely its verging on the downright weird that this show is being billed as an album release show for the astonishingly good “The Power Within” record, but the aforementioned opus isn’t on sale at the merch stand.  

Not surprisingly, the small venue has resulted in a sold out show and most are in place to see London’s Pythia. The symphonic power metal band feature four fellas dressed in armour and lead singer, the classically trained Emily Ovenden. Not being familiar with the classical world RTM hasn’t come across her before, but she apparently has sold half a million records.

It is immediately clear that she is the group’s star turn and songs like “Kiss The Knife” are lapped up by the crowd.

The lack of loud music being played through the PA before the bands is another of the evening’s oddities, so Dragonforce’s intro tape interrupts people talking amongst themselves. But once they are on, the sense of excitement is palpable.

Here is a band that were on the verge of a real mainstream breakthrough, but have undergone something of a rebuild. Frontman ZP Theart has gone, to be replaced by Marc Hudson, who was introduced to the world at their support shows with Iron Maiden last year.

Now they are back, and “The Power Within” is a bolt statement of intent. A fine power metal album, it is pompous (and that is a compliment), technically superb and catchy. Not surprisingly, since this is a launch show, a track from “…Within” kicks us off. “Die By The Sword," in many ways this is a song that sums up where Dragonforce are in 2012.

There are four more songs from the new album played, including the single “Cry Thunder” and the almost thrash in tone “Fallen World.” These mix comfortably with the older material like “Operation Ground and Pound” and “Fury Of The Storm.”

There are – it seems – some subtle changes from the last time we saw the band. Back in the those days you were highly likely to see guitarists Sam Trotman and Herman Li trying to trip each other up as they played their solo’s, this time they are playing it more straight – although whether this is a strategy or just because there is no space on the tiny temple stage remains to be seen. That said, this a group that still has tongues a little in cheeks and who are clearly having fun.

Hudson has slotted in seamlessly and is a fine singer. And as the band returns for an encore of perhaps its best-known moment “Through The Fire and Flames,” which they follow up with “Valley of the Damned” it is clear that this could be a group with its best years ahead.

A fine evening that not even a string of technical issues could spoil,  ends with us walking past some pop group we’ve never heard of that have been playing downstairs and out into the street, where somebody is handing out fliers for the live debut of I am I. This new bands singer? ZP Theart. In metal it seems, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Roll on the autumn tour.

MESHUGGAH, Animals As Leaders @Slade Rooms 13/4/2012

In large part this blog owes its inception to Animals as Leaders.

It was while watching them last September at the Academy as they opened for US prog-thrash noiseniks Between The Buried And Me that I sat there thinking, “I would like to tell people how good they were.” And RTM was born a couple of weeks later.

And now, six months later they are back. Magnificent second album “Weightless” is in the bag and they are supporting Meshuggah on this Euro trek. I am happy to report that their stunning performance with BTBAM was no flash in the pan, and that AAL were stunning tonight.

The fretwork of guitarist and band leader Tosin Abasi is what has built the groups following, and there is no doubt that he is magnificent, but for RTM’s money the true skill of the three-piece is that you don’t miss the lyrics.

With most instrumental bands (think Karma to Burn) the riff gets played and you think of lyrics in your head, however good that riff is. But with Animals as Leaders, Abasi’s work is such that you lose yourself in his monstrous soundscapes. If you haven’t seen this band live, move heaven and earth until you do.

It has been interesting to chart the rise and rise of Meshuggah over the last few years. They have gone from an critically acclaimed – but relatively obscure – Swedish technical thrash band to the heads of a “scene.”

It’s the patronage of the metal magazines, in particular Metal Hammer who practically invented “djent,” that probably accounts for the fact that the Slade Rooms is rammed tonight, but none of that would matter if the songs didn’t match up. ‘Shuggah, thankfully, have no problems in that area, new album Koloss is a crushingly brilliant affair, as was ObZen before it.

It is the new album that most concerns the group tonight. Indeed, they kick off with one of its tracks in “Demiurge” and play five more during the course of their 100 minutes onstage, including a heavy-as-hell rendition of “I Am Colossus.” There is a brief interlude while “Minds Mirrors” is played, before they return for an epic “In Death,” before the main set closes with “Rational Gaze.”

The group are technically flawless with singer Jens Kidman and guitarist Fredrik Thordendal impressive, although it is perhaps sticksman Thomas Haake who emerges with most credit, keeping the punishing beat going for as long as he does.

By the time “Koloss’” closing instrumental “The Last Vigil” has played us out there is a feeling that you have been bludgeoned for an hour and three quarters. There is a suspicion too that, for all their obvious brilliance Meshuggah aren't the most exciting of live acts, that they could do with some light amongst the shade and that this gig is more a recital than a viscerally exciting thrash show.

But not every band can be as experimental and diverse as Dream Theater, say, and not every band needs a light show like Kiss. Sometimes mere songs and the outstanding ability to play those songs live is enough, and on those fronts Meshuggah delivered tonight and then some.

Helmet @The Institute Temple 7/4/12

Even for Digbeth there is a high chav quota about tonight. Lots people in their teens and early 20s hanging round in their best make up and best clubbing gear.

As much as RTM would like to report that Helmet had somehow crossed over into the mainstream and sold out the main room at The Institute, the real, upsetting truth is that Cher Lloyd from the X Factor is here tonight along with a band of spotty Herbert’s called No Lights At Lockdown.

Unfortunately the hype surrounding the evenings real gig, the one we are here to see (and as an aside the doorman asks us what we are there to watch, despite RTM wearing a Thin Lizzy shirt…) is less pronounced. It has been moved into the tiny Temple Venue upstairs from the rather bigger library, and even still, despite a decent smattering, it’s far from sold out.

Still, Helmet main man Page Hamilton isn’t unduly bothered. Actually he seems in rather good spirits as he arrives jauntily onstage saying it is the “most intimate show of the tour” and asking if “Cher still does Gypsies, Tramps And Thieves.”

This is a celebration of Helmet’s past as much as looking to the future. It’s 20 years since their seminal moment “Meantime” was released, and they are here to play it in full. But not before they have warmed up with three others including “So Long” and “In Person” from 2010’s outstanding “Seeing Eye Dog” opus.

Soon, though, its “Meantime” errr time. But there’s a twist. They are playing it backwards. As much as that is a rather natty take on the current “Album tour” fad, it is, you suspect, for rather more prosaic reasons. Most of the crowd pleasing songs on the record are towards the start – although it is a consistently fine album that RTM still loves like we did in 92 - and any gig needs momentum.

So off we go with “Role Model” and backwards from there. Watching the set you are struck by three things. First, you marvel at how ahead of their time Helmet were as “Meantime” still sounds modern, second you remember just what an outstanding song “Unsung” is and third, you sit there thinking, “blimey, The Wildhearts were more inspired by this band than I had realised.” Ginger’s mob had covered the aforementioned “Unsung” but a lot of the riffs could have come off early ‘Hearts b-sides.

However, if The Wildhearts borrowed from Helmet, they could have reciprocated by giving the New Yorkers some of their legendary diversity. And a lot of the songs on show here do sound the same. Not that this in itself is a massive issue, after all bands as brilliant as AC/DC are hardly experimental are they? But when they come back for an encore that includes “Pure” they could actually be playing “Meantime” again.

The encore did, however include one of the great gig lines of 2012. Asked to dedicate a song to a couple that is getting married, Hamilton instead says: “Married? Imagine that? The same pussy for the rest of your life…” Best we leave the sentimental pop crap to the people next door at the Cher Lloyd gig, eh?

With that RTM walks back to the car, to find an excited gaggle trying to get autographs by a massive tour bus. We would be willing to bet these “people” (including a couple of grown blokes that you hope were on a register somewhere) weren’t hanging on for Helmet – but they were certainly tools.

FURY UK, Voodoo Vegas @Tamworth Sports Bar 6/4/12

This is evening is a night of firsts.

The first first of all is that it’s the opening show of Fury UK’s latest tour, and the second first – if I can put it like that – is it’s the first time RTM has been to a gig in a snooker club in 21 years of concert attendance.  But, it is in the upstairs room of Tamworth snooker club that we find we are spending Good Friday, along with some like-minded souls.

Voodoo Vegas are opening up on this particular trek, and they do a reasonable job. Man mountain frontman Lawrence is happy to be here and happy too with the revamped décor (“you’ve painted it black since I was last in this room,” he says. “It’s a proper rock club now its black.”) He also has a rather idiosyncratic approach to crowd participation. Faced with a group of disinterested punters, he jumps off stage and confronts them until they join in – he’s a very big man so you probably should do what he says, and soon the chaps are clapping along,

Vegas are everything you would expect a band called Voodoo Vegas to be. Taking their cue from the bands of the Sunset Strip circa 86-91, they offer a catchy brand of sleazy rock. Their website tells you all you need to know. They are, it says “rock n roll the way it used to be” and according to the profiles the last album that Nick, one of their guitarists, bought was “Slave to The Grind by Skid Row. Whether that is true or not, who knows, but it says much for their ethos.

They posses one excellent song in “King Without a Crown” and a bunch of pretty good ones. Ending their set with two untitled new ones gives a rather lopsided feel though.

What can we say about Fury UK? A band that RTM has supported for years. Upon seeing them in November supporting Iced Earth we said: “they are a damn fine metal band who deserves to succeed……but you wonder when the breakthrough will come.” And that remains the case.

In a just world, where talent and great songs were all that counted, then the Manc three piece would be cover stars, that they aren’t tells you all you need to know about the way things are right now in the music business. And if the opening slot for Iced Earth was that breakthrough we talked about, it hasn’t translated into extra punters, no more than 50 die hards greet them here.

This is Fury’s second show of 2012, following an appearance at Hammerfest. The tour is in support of their new DVD, but moreover, you suspect because this band belongs on the road, and they treat us to a well-honed and familiar set. Beginning with “I See Red” and taking in a mixture of tacks from second album “VR” and third “A Way Of Life.”

New track “We Drink Blood” is a welcome addition and hints that album number four might be another fine affair, a crushing, yet catchy song it ticks all the boxes you want from this band.

It’s the more epic moments that you suspect the band enjoys most, however and both of their best moments are aired here. “The Remainder” (which is often cut in the support sets and was only played during in impromptu encore when we saw them in 2010) is a meandering beat of a song, which like the always standout  “Death By Lightening” is built around a quite stunning solo from Chris Appleton.

The only downside to the evening is a slightly muddy sound, with feedback hindering Appleton’s vocals – and clearly vexing him on occasion. Unfortunately, as bands like Fury UK know only too well, on the gig circuit they are on the PA’s aren’t always great. For so many reasons Fury UK deserve better.

The new album is due in October. All we can do is keep our fingers crossed that finally it will be the one that gets this superb band the recognition it deserves.

STONE AXE, Cultura Tres, Stubb, Trippy Wicked, Banda De La Muerte @Scruffy Murphys 5/4/2012

The cramped, dark confines of Scruffy Murphy’s basement suit this gig. Actually, it’s not so much a gig as mini festival, with six 70’s influenced bands on one evening. And it’s a League of Nations type of affair with people coming from all over to be with us this evening.

The early start time and work commitments mean that RTM misses Birmingham’s Alunah, who were originally slated to come on second. A shame, because last year we were impressed – ironically enough when they opened for Stone Axe at The Asylum, and were looking forward to seeing how their Sabbathy psych-rock had developed.

However the sliver lining to the late running order swap is that we are there to see Argentina’s Banda De La Muerta. And they prove that metal music truly is a universal language. Singing in their mother tongue they are no less enjoyable for that. Their obvious debt to the classic British Heavy Rock sound means they were always going to go down well here.

Like Alunah, Trippy Wicked And The Cosmic Children Of The Night were with Stone Axe last year. Since then Axe main man T Dallas Reed has lent his mellotron skills to their new album, and their set is a fine one. Wicked are perhaps the most overtly experimental of the bands on show tonight and they play a riff heavy take on psychedelica. New track “I Want Another Drink,” with its key line “I got my weed and my Innis and Gunn” about sums them up. This is all about having fun.

Following them are Stubb. Keen students of the Brit underground scene would know that three piece contain two thirds of Trippy Wicked. Bassist Pete Holland (guitarist and singer in Trippy) and drummer Chris West are joined by frontman Jack Dickinson and offer a more straight ahead rock option. Their just released self-titled debut album (produced by the ever busy T. Dallas Reed) is a magnificent affair and its highlight and opening track “Road” is ripped into here. Ones to watch.

Final support band are Venezulas Cultura Tres. They are the heaviest band on show by quite a way, with a quirky, sludgy sound. Most of their tracks are Spanish, although, like Banda De La Muerte this barely matters. Their message is one of hope and inclusion and the fact that music can bring everyone together and there is nothing wrong with that.

There is nothing wrong, either, with Stone Axe. RTM – and we will admit it – are totally besotted with the four piece from Seattle and have been since hearing the marvelous “There’d Be Days” a few years ago.

Here is a band that – almost literally given the t-shirts they are wearing – wears their influences on their sleeves. A little bit of Led Zep, a bit of Free some Sabbath and a whole heap of Thin Lizzy all adds up to a sound that is both retro and superb. Playing the UK is something of a double-edged sword for them since, as singer Dru Brinkerhoff, only half in jest, notes: “You guys know where we stole this from.”

We know and we don’t especially care either, to be frank, Not when songs as good as the aforementioned “…Days” are rubbing shoulders with stone cold (or should that be Stone Axe?) classics in waiting “Shine On” and “Chasing Dragons.”

They are called back for encore that proves either they genuinely good actors or genuinely weren’t expecting to be, and they finish with the song that might well be on their epitaph “It’s Still Rock N Roll.”

With the classic rock revival in full swing (and serving us rubbish like the execrable Morning After) you would love to think there would be some way for the likes of Axe to break out of the basement shows. We all know, though, that the music business being what it is they will always be something of a cult.

For those of us in the know, however, they are the best-kept secret in rock music. Join in, you might just find your new favourite band.

UFO, Heavy Metal Kids @Wulfrun Hall 31/1/12

Whilst you could probably prosecute the Heavy Metal Kids under the trades descriptions act, given that they don’t actually play heavy metal nor are they kids, you probably would let them off as they are pretty entertaining.

With Justin McConville taking over on lead vocals after John Altman left last year they appear less of a laugh and more of a serious band than they might have been when they first reformed, and with original (and only surviving) members guitarist Cosmo and drummer Keith Boyce in the line up they are an interesting proposition.

A cover of “Rock Candy” is perhaps unfortunate as all it does is make you wish you were watching Montrose instead, but their best-known track “She’s No Angel” is full of pub rock swagger.

You do have to feel a little sorry for UFO. Around since 1969 and with a cannon of very fine songs indeed, they never seem to get the same treatment as some other bands do on those history of Heavy Rock shows that pop up on Sky Arts or BBC4 from time to time.

Of course the Schenker/Way glory days are behind them, but that rather misses the point. For not only do UFO have a back catalogue to envy, they have with their last three releases post reformation in 2004, been on top form. 2012’s “Seven Deadly” is a marvelous slab of hard rock that should be somewhere near RTM’s end of year best of. 

As such this evening is a both a celebration of old and new. “Mother Mary” from 1975’s “Force It” opens things before the outstanding “Fight Night” kicks off four tracks from “…Deadly.”

There is a large crowd in a sweltering Wulfrun and they lap up the older songs, such as “Only You Can Rock Me,” “Lights Out” and “Rock Bottom.” The latter is used as an excuse for Vinnie Moore to showcase his formidable talent and he plays an astonishing solo to solidify his reputation as one of the finest guitarists around.

Singer Phil Mogg, by contrast is struggling a little. Not vocally, in fact he sounds great, but not only does he have a cold, he is in a rather forgetful mood. He can’t recall the name of the new record, nor does he know the setlist running order and finally he thanks us for “spending Sunday night with the band.” Bless.

Thankfully he does recall the lyrics to encore numbers “Doctor Doctor” and “Shoot Shoot” which round off a very fine evening indeed. An evening that has seen UFO underline the fact that not only are they only one of the most under-rated bands in British Hard Rock history – they are also one of the best.