After the semi-disaster that was the previous night’s Manson gig, Saturday night’s visit to Helgi’s was just the redress I needed. Having missed them on their first visit to the capital in June due to gig clashes, I made a point of checking out Brum black/death/crust/doom contingent Deathfiend, headed by none other than the musically prolific Mr John Pickering, a.k.a. Johnny Doom, who, among other things, has been a Facebook friend for nearly/over a decade (memory’s shot!). Prior to the start of events (which, contrary to official advertisement, had Deathfiend stepping on stage *before* the night’s other band, Sardinian black-metal outfit Vultur), we sat down for a nice, though brief, chat on politics, religion, and, of course, music. Having kept up with each other’s postings on such online, it was great to finally have an in-person chat.
It was also great to finally witness Deathfiend in their live glory too; Johnny and his bandmates—bassist Rick Farn and drummer Andrea Pisu—put on a sterling, musically tight show, playing a selection of tracks (though, sadly, not initial single ‘Beyond Life’) from their double-album discography. Favourites such as ‘Rise from Decay‘, ‘Cyclic War‘, and the crushing ‘Watch Them Crawl‘ sounded absolutely fucking stellar, Johnny’s full-throated growls and bellows playing as well with the finely honed instrumentals live as they do on record. In short, an impressive set that lived up to expectations.
Next came Vultur with 50-minutes of immersive, tremelo-picking goodness. Contrary to what I expected, the setlist was composed of material yet to be released, meaning my favourite song of theirs, ‘In the Throne of Chaos’, never got a look in. In another surprise, they had a guest frontman in the form of Piero Paranoia, the vox of London-based fellow Sardinians Cogas, who I last saw put on an impressive support slot for Nervosa a couple of years back.
Occupying the middle of the floor, he delivered the same intense performance as with his main band whilst Vultur went all out on those textured, unrelenting black-metal instrumental work, regular frontman Attalzu interjecting with the occasional vocal line. Going by tracks such as ‘Cultores lapides et lignea’, ‘Su spegu’ (dedicated, by Piero, to “Camden posers”), and ‘Umbras’, their upcoming album, Cultores de perdas e linna, could indeed be worth a gander.
So, yes, a throughly satisfying night of doom-laden death and black metal at an suitably eerie, intimate venue, enhanced all the more by a rewarding interaction with a longstanding online presence. Look forward to doing it all again, Mr Doom.
~MRDA~
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