DRAGONFORCE, Alestorm, The Defiled, Cavorts @Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton 30/9/2012

Perhaps the best value – and most eclectic for that matter – metal bill of the autumn so far sees Barnsley’s Cavorts opening things up. Their sound is tough to quantify, sort of like a classic rock take on metalcore. According to the group themselves, they create loud, heavy noise rock – that seems to cover things. They have just put out their first EP and are very much worth checking out.

The Defiled are not new. For a few years they have been bothering British stages looking much like a kind of UK Black Veil Brides. In truth, though, they have very little in common with the terrible US make up wearing brigade. Tonight they here for a party, keyboard man The AvD enters the stage swigging from a bottle of Jager and they play a sort of modern brand of Nine Inch Nails with aplomb.

“Call To Arms” appropriately kicks things off, and they end as always with the massive chorus of “The Resurectionists.” In between they play a new song entitled “As I Drown” which shows that album number two promises more of the same. These boys are still destined for bigger things, you feel.

There really is no one quite like Scotland’s Alestorm. Their ethos is summed up thus by singer/keyboardist (ok one of those weird keyboards that looks like a guitar) Christopher Bowes: “Do you like Pirates? Do you like songs? Do you like songs about pirates?” Enough said.

The genre might be restrictive, but the boys are on album number three and are just about the most fun metal can be. Stick Steel Panther, their godawful pastiches, up your arse. Who needs them when you have Alestorm playing “Shipwrecked, “Keel-hauled” and “Captain Morgan’s Revenge”?

They might be dogged by technical issues which sees Bowes’ keyboard guitar thing give up, but he plays a toy axe that someone has in the crowd. It was that sort of evening.

And it was an evening that just needed Dragonforce to be on form. There were no disappointments.

If the set begins somewhat strangely with no intro tape, the lights go up to reveal new singer Marc Hudson (on his first proper UK tour with the band) adopting what Soundgarden might have called the “Jesus Christ Pose” with the spotlight on him – what better way to usher in the new and help us forget about the loss of ZP Theart?

Hudson is a fine singer and has grown into his frontman role with aplomb – he looks and sounds far more confident than when RTM saw the band play a warm up show in April. Appropriately the 70 minute set begins with “Holding On” the lead track from new album “The Power Within” before taking in songs from each one of the group’s five albums.

“…Within” songs “Die By The Sword,” “Heroes” and “Cry Thunder” are so good they sound they have been played for years, while the songs that have – like “Soldiers Of The Wasteland” – sound just as good as ever. Plus, if you can get past just how much like “Hotel California” “Through The Fire And The Flames” sounds that remains the band’s anthem.

Here is a band that has been through some rocky moments and come through in style. Producing tonight, one of the gigs of the year. 

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.