GHOST, Gojira, The Defiled @Academy Birmingham 23/3/13

With the awful, unseasonable weather robbing Hawk Eyes of the chance to open this show (and as an aside it struck me as odd that the different opening acts for this Jagermeister sponsored jaunt weren’t local anyway – its not as if we don’t have plenty of decent acts) it is left to The Defiled to kick the evening off.

The band are ones RTM has seen on a numerous occasions as they criss-cross the UK opening for anybody and it doesn’t matter how many times we see them, it always takes a while to get over the fact they look like some dirty version of the Black Veil Brides.

Strip away the image, though, and what there actually is a very good metal band. And one that, evidently, is going places. Their new album has been produced in Florida by Jason Suecof (Trivium, Job For A Cowboy) and is coming out on renowned metal label Nuclear Blast. They premier a track from it this evening in “Sleeper” and it sounds huge. It sits alongside older material like “The Ressurectionists” and the still catchy as hell “Call To Arms” and as always, The Defiled leave with some new fans.

It is something of a shock to RTM that Gojira aren’t headlining this shindig. The French titans have been to this country enough over the last 12 months (this is the third time we’ve seen them) to build up a pretty big fanbase. They played the venue next door last June and sold it out, before a rammed show in Wolverhampton in November. A proper international metal act, they have no problems in a 50 minute support slot tonight.

Of course, it helps that Gojira are, to be frank, brilliant. The act is well-honed. The band all racing around the stage during in second number “Flying Whales”, just as they have twice before, they give an airing to the aptly named “Heaviest Matter In The Universe” and play a magnificent version of the title track of their most recent record “L’Enfant Sauvage.” Quite fantastic.

It is however Ghost (or Ghost BC) if we were in America) that are the closing band tonight. They have a stage set that befits the occasion – and their ludicrous nature – as they mock up a church and the crowd to be far adores them over the course of the next 75 minutes.

For us, though, it is a joke that is wearing a trifle thin. We saw them back in December 2011 way down a Metal Hammer bill at the Wolves Civic Hall and for half an hour they were spellbinding. After this we got the album and (whisper this quietly because everyone seems to love them) we thought it was a little bit dull.

And that is exactly how we feel about them tonight. The eight songs they play from that debut album “Opus Eponymous” are good, but -  “Ritual” aside – RTM genuinely can’t see what the fuss is about. Bands like Merciful Fate were doing this type of thing better 20 odd years ago and, this is our first listen to the five new tracks and honestly, none of them grabbed too hard.

That is not to say that Ghost aren’t enjoyable, they are big dumb fun, but if we ever hanker for a band that doesn’t reveal either its face or its name, then we will reach for the first four Kiss album and the first two Slipknot records, which are genuinely exciting.

The organisers of this gig deserve great credit, the £5 entry fee is astonishingly good value, but for our money – and we are in a minority of one -  the wrong band headlined. 

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.