Last Tuesday night at the Islington Academy felt like stepping into a Black Mass on account of Swedish black-metal infernalists Dark Funeral occupying the joint as part of their winter Let the Devil In tour.
They did a good job of easing their audience into the main event with the aid of their supports. First came French merchants of melodic deathcore Kami no Ikari, who kicked things off with a nice caustic bounce, the likes of ‘Interitus’ and ‘Theophobia’ laying good groundwork for the sets ahead (shame I totally overlooked the album at the merch stand!).
Then came Roman-themed Canadian melodeath squad Ex Deo—my most anticipated band of the night—who gave a great showcase of their material, clad (with the exception of drummer Oli Beaudoin) in the appropriate armour. Standouts from the set included opener ‘Imperator’, ‘Vespasian’ from their then-upcoming EP Year of the Four Emperors (which I *did* manage to grab a copy of, in advance, from the merch section), and the ferocious closer ‘Romulus’, which featured some delightful dual headbanging from bassist Dano Apekian and lead guitarist Stéphane Barbe. Frontman Maurizio Iacono put out a strong vocal performance throughout, with some impressive alterations and repetitions at certain points.
As for third and final support act Fleshgod Apocalypse, I’d only previously heard their Labyrinth album with distinctly male vocals, so I was rather surprised to see a rather Rubenesque lass step on stage with an Italian flag and start getting operatic: turned out said woman is Veronica Bordacchini, who joined up past said album’s release. Shortly, the rest of the band, including frontman Francesco Paoli, joined her to give the audience a rather extravagant set full of piano arrangements, said operatic feats, and, of course, meaty metallic instrumentals. I admit to not being especially blown away by what I’d heard of band on record, but I found their set considerably captivating nevertheless, ‘Sugar’, ‘The Fool’, and ‘Pendulum’ being notable moments.
However, Dark Funeral turned the extravagance up tenfold, taking to the stage in full Satanic splendour, frontman Heljarmadr arrived aptly cloaked for opener ‘Nosferatu’ before shedding said garm for a set emphasing both their earliest and latest material. They even added a few numbers from the points in between, such as ‘The Arrival of Satan’s Empire’, which was preceded by one of the evening’s most memorable moments, Heljarmadr leading the audience in a chant or several of “Hail Satan!”.
Musically, however, the strongest numbers were the relative slow-burn of ‘When I’m Gone’, ‘Open the Gates’ from their storming self-titled debut EP, along with ‘In the Sign of the Horns’, and the title track from their latest release, ‘Let the Devil In’ (constantly recommended to me by the YouTube algo for the past few months, but that’s another story). Heljarmadr, the band’s fourth vocalist, sounded powerful and prominent throughout the set, and the instrumental section put on a suitably tight performance, particularly lead axeman and band founder Lord Ahriman, who, quite aptly, was a tremelo-picking demon, strumming his strings at what looked like 666 square RPM!
So, yes, a strong start to yet another year of promising gigs, many of them of a similarly genred vein—AVE FUCKING SATANAS!
~MRDA~