The first show in the Cosmic Insurrection tour on the month’s penultimate Wednesday was the perfect cap-off to my distinctly black-metal April of gigs.
At least that’s what I’m typing in another universe, where things didn’t go arse over tit.
It started off strongly enough with Vestia, last seen taking to the stage in support of Taake just weeks prior, once again opening the show. Although the Black Heart’s smaller stage prevented guitarist Giannis from exhibiting the full abandon he did at the Underworld, he and the rest of the band knocked out another tight set, playing a few familiars (‘Unknown Goddess’, ‘Hex’) plus a newer track, ‘Spirit of Elysium’, which turned out to be the highlight of the too-short four-song set.
Vorga, by contrast, went on for a bit too long. I dug the Teutonic “cosmic black metallers” bringing an industrial aesthetic into proceedings, the members of the band looking like they’d stopped off at Cyberdog a bit further down the road before the show. I also dug tracks like ‘Starless Sky’ and ‘Comet’, the latter, especially, being a highlight of the set for me. The problem was that the standout tracks mainly came from their first album, Striving Towards Oblivion, their follow-up, and latest, Beyond the Palest Star, striking me as rather bland and unengaging by comparison. In the end, after the peak of (the sadly unrecorded) ‘Comet’, the ensuing tracks, mostly from the latest, make for an outstayed welcome. Least I’ll be able to capture the ‘Comet’ when I see them again as part of August’s Doomsday Fest in Brighton.
Then came my biggest draw—and biggest disappointment—of the night.
Having seen Sidious deliver a strong support set for Woe at the same venue back in October, I’d looked forward to another blast of their UKBM brutality, minus the sound mix issues that impeded them last time. The fact that, contrary to official promo, they were the night’s highest-billed band only added to the anticipation.
As such, the announcement, by guitarist Indomitus (Steffan Gough), that vocalist Isfeth (Mark Antoniades) wouldn’t be performing due to a “personal emergency” (hope all is well) was quite the deflation. Sure, the decision for the rest of the band to play a five-track instrumental set was heartening, and Indomitus and co. played their bollocks off with precision and panache, no less, but the absence of Isfeth came across with favourites like opener ‘Blood-Soaked Mist’ and ‘Thy Place Yond the Threshold’. It especially came across with new number ‘Blooodlust Command Infinite’, a blisterer of a track that, at times, ventures into Aussie blackened thrash territory, borrowing some of the bounce and jaunt from Down Under–originated acts like Deströyer 666, Assaulter, Razor of Occam et al, making it all the more disappointing the frontman wasn’t present to showcase its full potential. Guess I’ll have to wait till next year, when the upcoming album and subsequent tour breaks forth.
In short, the London start of the Cosmic Insurrection was a potentially promising one marred by two shortened sets, one stretched-out one, and the unpredictability of emergency. The best laid plans of mice and men….
~MRDA~
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