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Gig ReviewsReviews

[Review] Emperor @ Forum Theatre, Melbourne 17/05/2023

Review By Mitch Charlton

“Melbourne, are you ready to embrace the Nightside!?” I’ve always said in my reviews that I love The Forum in Melbourne, it makes every band sound and look amazing, and tonight was no different. The line out the front tonight shivers in anticipation for seeing one of the greats in the genre play one of their most prolific albums brought out. This is the second time in my life I have managed to see one of the founding bands of Black Metal play a classic album in its entirety. I was fortunate enough to see Mayhem play De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in full a couple of years back, Cradle of Filth have been here with Cruelty and the Beast album and tonight, Melbourne gets to witness Emperor play In The Nightside Eclipse in full. If Satyricon can come play Rebel Extravaganza in full here, I’m pretty sure that would be my favourites done! HINT HINT!!

Ten years ago, I first saw The Amenta support Cradle of Filth, I’d never heard of them before that show, they then left an incredible impression on me that I went out and found a copy of their Flesh is Heir album and thrashed it for months! Then the announcement that they would be going on hiatus. I was shattered! Fast forward to 2021, The Amenta come back with a brand-new album, Revelator in 2021 and my hopes of seeing them get a little bigger, THEN comes the news that they are supporting the almighty Emperor! What a rollercoaster!

As soon as doors open, the crowd start packing the venue, although not completely sold out, it is still pretty damn full. It’s great to see the place over half full already before The Amenta start and also seeing such a diverse crowd, there are old schoolers and also younger people in the crowd, it just goes to show how influential Emperor have been over their career.

The Amenta slither out on stage to start the opening track, dressed in white shirts, ties and the skin masks from the Sere Money film clip, and then Cain, front man of this repulsive abomination of an outfit, storms the stage, in all black suit and red tie, in perfect contrast to the band. These guys have always had a flair for the theatrics of what they do, they take the art of their craft seriously and it shows in their performance tonight.

The Amenta are just as good as I remember, Cain is a commanding presence on stage and the band plays with machine like tightness. He occasionally jumps down to the bar at the front and stalks the crowd, getting in their faces, bringing them into his world of madness. They are able to create the same atmosphere live as their haunting tracks do played at home which is an incredible feat. Cain works the crowd as the band run through old tracks and new like Sere Money, Ego Ergo Sum and Teeth, just to name a few. The mix is great, everything is clear and crisp, I put it to being this venue, everyone sounds great here. The Forum tonight learns that The Amenta are back to shock and bring them into their dark world of disgust.

The reason we have all ventured out tonight, Emperor, one of the best in the business when it comes to epic sounding black metal, they walk out to the screaming crowd and kick straight off with Into The Infinity of Thoughts. Ihsahn’s voice is exactly the same as on the record, it’s incredible to hear this live, I never thought I would get to see Emperor live but seeing this album in full has been one hell of a show. I got to see him play his solo work live a few years back and he threw in a couple of Emperor tracks but this is next level, this is the true thing from start to finish. A minor technical issue causes the stop of a song a couple of tracks in and with minimal muck around they kick straight back into Towards the Pantheon. I am The Black Wizards gets the desired effect from the crowd, everyone goes nuts and when I say nuts, fans go from standing with their arms crossed, nodding to the beat to, horns up and whole-body head banging, there is minimal moshing when it comes to these types of crowds. The movement and excitement continue into Inno A Satana before they take a quick break to then come out for classics from Anthem to the Welkin at Dusk.

Watching Emperor perform was inspiring, what they have accomplished over their careers, their musicianship and skill in performing these songs, was a true sight to behold. As mentioned earlier, without the slight hiccup of a tech issue, this would have been just like the CD being put on. To play an album from start to finish as good as it was, maybe even played a little better now after decades in between, is such an amazing feat. It’s unreal to see these albums in full live, these have been some of the bands turning points in their careers. I hope that a few more bands do this type of thing when anniversaries come up. Melbourne embraced the Nightside whole heartedly! Hail to Emperor!

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Gig ReviewsReviews

[Review] Mayhem @ Croxton Bandroom, Melbourne 21/01/2023

Even if you’re not into Mayhem or Black Metal, you would have heard stories of this band, they are one of the most notorious acts to play stages around the world. You don’t go to see Mayhem, you go to experience it. The last time I saw these guys they played De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas in it’s entirety and THAT was mind blowing! This time around, well… we will get there.

This was my first time heading to the Croxton Bandroom and it’s a pretty decent venue, just a bit smaller in capacity to Max Watts in the city but the layout is great as you can get a good view of the stage anywhere in the room. I stood to the side of the sound desk, as is tradition, cause you know, there is no better place to hear it than standing next to the people mixing it.

Kicking off tonights disorder is Melbourne’s own Werewolves. I have been wanting to see these guys live since hearing their album What a Time to be Alive back in 2021. These guys came out and gave the crowd a complete 30mins of solid machine gun precision blasts, it was incredible, they did not let down my hype or expectations at all! The room was filling up pretty quickly and I did have a bit of a laugh to myself as it was stereotypical black metal fans in the crowd, standing, arms crossed and nodding their heads in time, a couple of people were head banging and getting into but yeah, just a bit funny when people play the stereotypes, in saying that, each song was met with applause and screams of appreciation so everyone was still into it. If you can, go and catch these guys play, Dave Haley is one of the best drummers going around and watching him is always impressive. Ending on their first single of What a Time to be Alive, I Don’t Like You with “Don’t get the shits now, this is out last track” got the reaction they wanted from the crowd with more movement and involvement, Im really keen to go and see these guys play again somewhere.

Next up is Ulcerate from New Zealand. Coming off the back of blistering blasts and thrash guitars these guys had a polar opposite approach, with their Progressive Doomier style of playing, no less impressive though. Their drummer is unbelievable, his fills and playing style had me focusing more on him than anything. Ulcerate had a 45/50min set and played probably the same number of songs as Werewolves had in 30mins, they seemed pretty long and intricate. There were a couple of issues when the guitarist changed to a cleaner tone, I found that it got lost in the mix and unfortunately the room was pretty damn full at this stage so there was no chance of getting closer, what a shame that they played to a 3/4 full room. A quick thank you to the crowd was the only interaction from Ulcerate, they came out and got the crowd in the mood for the instilling anarchy coming up next.

By the end of Ulcerates set, the room is completely full, looking around, people are getting hyped and excited for what we are about to witness. As I watch the stage set up and looking up at Hellhammers drum kit is nuts, its massive! You can’t see him playing it, you just hear it. The stage goes dark, smoke fills the air, then everything goes red and the opening track of Daemon, Falsified and Hated explodes. Atilla takes the stage like a ghoul that has just come out of the grave, the guy is next level. Cloaked, painted and baring a bone cross he moves erratically and with the strobe lights, it even looks puppet or animated, eerie effect but goddamn it just adds to the experience of The One True Mayhem. They play 3 Acts through the set, first 5 or 6 tracks are newer material with the likes of Malum and Bad Blood, then they dissapper and all come back fully cloaked to give us tracks from De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. The crowd go absolutely nuts for Freezing Moon. I could never get sick of hearing those drums live, the amount of reverb on them is crazy. The Third and final act was the Deathcrush EP, banners showing black and white pictures of the original or line up from the ep, and the band coming back out to Silvester Anfang then kicking into Deathcrush itself! This is the second time I’ve seen Mayhem, the first being De Mysteriis… in it’s entirety, now that was unreal, seeing a classic album played in full but I left being greedy and at least hoping to hear Deathcrush, finally hearing it live was just incredible and to the effect that these guys put in on stage, it definitely hit home.

No one left disappointed that night, full house, all bands played tight and incredibly well and the set had songs from all eras of the band, how could you be disappointed? As I said at the start, seeing Mayhem, one of the greats of the genre is an experience and anyone that is into Black Metal should be trying to see these guys at some stage. Clearly Australia gets it with 2 out of 4 shows sold out.

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