NEVERMORE
PLUS: Death Angel and Cauldron
O2 Academy Islington, London
18/05/2010

Words: Andy Whittle Photos: Daniel Gray

Tonight was a very exciting one: the return of Nevermore to the UK; a band whom seldom come over here, for whatever reason. This was their first UK show since their Bloodstock Open Air performance in 2007. Since then, the line-up is ever so slightly different. Chris Broderick left to find his fortune in Megadeth and has since been replaced by Hungarian axe-wielder Attila Vörös. Whether or not this will be a permanent fixture remains to be seen.

The first band on tonight are Canada’s NWOBHM-inspired Cauldron; along with their ingeniously bad 80s mullets and fringes. Unfortunately, the guys appear to struggle to get the crowd going. Vocalist/bassist Jason Decay appears nervous and lacks power in his voice. Throughout the set, it’s fairly difficult to make out much in the vocal department, but the sections that cut through are generally underwhelming. It’s also necessary to mention the painfully self-indulgent drum and guitar solos featured during this performance. It was uneasy to tell if they were deliberately being cliché and ironic, but I fear that they actually weren’t and these were seriously meant to enhance the performance. There’s clear potential with Cauldron, with well-structured and catch songs. Maybe they just need to work on things a tiny bit more and then they can be the modern-day Angel Witch they clearly aspire to be.

Next up tonight were American-Filipino (a bizarre combo if ever there was) thrashers Death Angel; who definitely don’t disappoint. The band are true performers, tearing around the stage with epic amounts of headbanging and windmilling. Opening with ‘Lord of Hate’, Death Angel go down a storm. The audience are wild and untamed throughout the delicious morsels of thrash Death Angel provide, including ‘Dethroned’, ‘Thrown to the Wolves’, ‘Buried Alive’ and the truly excellent ‘Kill As One’. Death Angel bring an assault of energy to the evening and get everybody nice and warmed up for heavy metal titans Nevermore, closing with their new track ‘River of Rapture’. There’s a lot of excitement and atmosphere surrounding Death Angel currently, and after this performance, this reviewer will certainly join the hordes of fans they quite clearly deserve.

Finally the time came for Seattle’s Nevermore. Opening with the brutal ‘Beyond Within’, the audience become a wild and un-tameable force. Next up is some classic Nevermore in the form of ‘The River Dragon Has Come’, greeted by pumped fists and screaming fans and a fairly large mosh pit. The next track was a brand new track ‘Your Poison Throne’ from Nevermore’s new album ‘The Obsidian Conspiracy’. Even though the material’s brand new and no-one knows it (because obviously no-one downloaded the album illegally before it came out…) it still goes down an absolute storm. After this it was time for what has become an integral part of Nevermore’s setlist ‘Born (The Retribution of Spiritual Sickness)’. Frontman Warrel Dane announces that it’s probably a good thing that the photographers at the front’s 3 songs window has run out, as he has a feeling that the audience are going to go pretty fucking crazy. He’s right. Featuring one of the most brutal riffs Nevermore lay claim to, ‘Born’ sees the venue erupt into uncontrollable amounts of crowd-surfing and huge mosh pits. The next song (‘Empitiness Unobstructed’ from the brand new album), Dane announces that they will be filming the performance for a video. Hilariously, after they finish playing, Dane announces that he ‘fucked up the lyrics’ and they needed to play it again and get it right. Even more hilariously, they screw it up again the second time, possibly more noticeably. Nevermore continue to storm through their setlist including ‘Inside Four Walls’, ‘The Seven Tongues of God’ and another new track ‘The Termination Proclamation’. The brilliantly progressive ‘This Godless Endeavour’ goes down a storm, sounding significantly better with the addition of a rhythm guitar player behind it (as opposed to just Jeff Loomis on the last tour). Warrel Dane announces ‘The Heart Collector’ as “the ballad that even makes dudes in Deicide shirts cry”. To end the set, we are given the title track from the new album ‘The Obsidian Conspiracy’ and finally an encore of possibly Nevermore’s most popular track ‘Enemies of Reality’. Nevermore are one of those fantastic live bands whom never disappoint and the only possible criticism of their set is it’s far too short, ending after just 12 songs (well, 13 if you include the repeat). Nevertheless, it’s clear to see that Nevermore have a die-hard following amongst fans of all metal sub-genres and their return to the UK will be very much an anticipated one.

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