Pitch Black Summer Live Review // Carach Angren, Wolfheart, Thy Antichrist and Nevalra at Audio, Glasgow, Scotland

You don't get many "nice days" in the UK, a nice day being practically any day the sun can be seen. Luckily, today was a nice day to travel to Glasgow for the Pitch Black Summer Tour. This was Carach Angren's first headline run across Europe, and first visit to Scotland. With them, Finland's Wolfheart and America's Thy Antichrist and Nevalra. Four bands, a couple hundred fans and a very intimate show at Audio.

Black Metal newcomer's Nevalra kicked the night off, fast and heavy. Nevalra's debut album, Conjure The Storm, just came out in June of 2019, but these guys played tight as hell and did nothing but wind this crowd up right off the hop. Between a small mosh pit starting almost instantly and the audience getting absorbed right into Nevalra's brand of Metal, I have a feeling it won't be very long until we see more of them on the road. Highlight of the band's set was the closing track "Prophet For Profit", it's aggressive, it's catchy and it's intense. The audience loved it and people wanted more.

After a short intermission, to darkness and fog, Thy Antichrist hit the stage. Donning full stage garb, frontman Antichrist 666, looks more like an undead shaman than a Metal vocalist. Majority of Thy Antichrist's set is made up of track from their newest release, Wrath Of The Beast, and that's exactly what these guys sounded like. They were releasing the wrath of the beast. Aside from the pure force these guys drop live and the level of musicianship they all possess, they also write some catchy lyrics. "The Great Beast", off the aforementioned new album, has one of the catchiest choruses you'll hear in an Extreme Metal track, "Time by time / piece by piece / I'm possessed by The Great Beast".

 
Main support for this tour is Finland's Wolfheart, who were easily the most mellow of the band's on this package. While they had some good hooks, a large chunk of the crowd seemed to take this as a chance to catch a breather. The pit settled down to practically nothing while the headbangers took full advantage of the melody that Wolfheart brought to the table. Wolfheart fit in as much as they could from their career through their set, with an emphasis on their newest album Constellation of the Black Light. It was a solid set, but a bit out of place compared to the blitzing power of the two bands prior.

Finally, for the first time ever in Scotland, Carach Angren hit the stage. Drummer Namtar was first to step on stage, in a mask to the sound of "Electronic Voice Phenomenon". Followed by touring guitarist, The Butcher. Symphonic horror master and keyboard player, Ardek. Finally, vocalist Seregor joined them on stage. Just like from the band's 2010 release Death Came Through A Phantom Ship, the aforementioned intro is followed directly by "The Sighting Is A Portent Of Doom". The crowd was wild, instantly and the venue very quickly became a sweatbox. Carach Angren's setlist was filled to the brim with their strongest songs and almost getting something from every album, only missing out on This Is No Fairytale. Right off the top, they got their main pit song out of the way, "The Carriage Wheel Murder". The band's stage show is impressive, particularly "Blood Queen", where the band uncover their mannequin of Jane Doe, a faceless, bloody and beat woman. "Who wants to be my blood queen?" Asks the frontman, eagerly met by one of the fans at the front of the stage. After cutting open Jane Doe's throat and licking blood from some more intimate places, the frontman shares a kiss with his blood queen, covering her in blood. The end of the set consisted of one of the most intimate songs in the band's discography, "The Funerary Dirge of a Violinist". During the slower parts, frontman Seregor played an invisible violin using a knife as the bow, while keyboardist Ardek marches (on the spot) to the beat of the drum. The set ends the way it always has, "Bloodstains On The Captain's Log". The crowd got the last of their energy out during this track and come the end, everyone left the show thrilled. Carach Angren delivered on their first Scottish show and the only complaints were the lack of This Is No Fairytale songs and the fact they didn't play longer.

Top 10 Albums of 2017

               Hello everyone, Welcome to Five Magics Music's top 10 albums from the past year of 2017. With so many great records being released this past year, much like most years, it was a tough decision, but we got there so without any further hesitation here is the top 10 albums from 2017!

10. Slave One – “An Abstract and Metaphorical Approach to Deceit” – Dolorem Records

                This was an incredibly surprising release to me. Death Metal is always kind of touchy when it comes to checking out new bands, there are far too many that follow the same copy and paste formula with a slightly different sound and expect to make it to the size that Cannibal Corpse or Obituary have reached. Slave One though, have a different tone to them. This is a band that knows how to take the formula and shake it up, “An Abstract and Metaphorical Approach to Deceit” deserves it’s spot on this list solely for the balls it took to include a Death Metal cover of Dimmu Borgir’s “Blessings Upon the Throne of Tyranny” which brought a breath of life back to a dormant and momentarily stale band.

check out our review of the album

North American Cover

European Cover

9. Kreator – “Gods of Violence” – Nuclear Blast Records

                I’m sick of hearing “there were no good Thrash metal albums this year” when the year kicked off with probably one of the best Thrash Metal albums out there. Kreator has a little bit of.. let’s say numbness, with song of their past albums, while “Phantom Antichrist” stood as an anthem to me when it came it “Gods of Violence” brought back the extremity and intensity of Kreator for me. Songs like the title track “Gods of Violence” and “Satan Is Real” have become synonymous with the band at this point while the album continues to create more anthems with “Hail to the Hordes”.

8. Warbringer – “Woe to the Vanquished” – Napalm Records

                So again, how were there no good Thrash Metal albums this year? Warbringer dropped this monster “Woe to the Vanquished” and it is straight to the point. The biggest draw I find in Warbringer is the war focused lyrics, war, having always been an interest of mine, it entices me. With some of the most intense Thrash Metal songs you’ll hear this year like “Shellfire” and “Descending Blade” along side the heavier and slower tracks “Spectral Asylum” and the epic “When the Guns Fell Silent” there was just too much to miss on this latest record for any real Thrash Metal fan.


check out our review of the album

7. Astaroth Incarnate – “Omnipotence – The Infinite Darkness” – CDN Records

                Black Metal and Death Metal have always gone hand in hand, but none more than the first EP released from Toronto’s Astraroth Incarnate. Compared to the bands original demo, it is night and day the change in maturity in this band, the vocals sound less demonic as a turn but come out much more frightening in the end and with tracks like “Curse of the Black Plague” blasting you away alongside “Unfleshed” and “Re-Creation” this was a release that should have made it into the collections of any Black Metal band.


check out our review of the album

6. Aborted – “Bathos” – Century Media

                Another EP release, Aborted dropped “Bathos” and fans were stoked, best thing about Aborted is their consistency with music, releasing stuff far more often than most bands do and the quality of the music is always outstanding and nothings shows this better than this release. Consisting solely of two tracks, it’s an EP you can listen to on repeat for hours, there is so much packed into the two songs that thinking about it, it should be an overabundance, but instead comes out as the essential mix of Grindcore and Death Metal that most bands miss the mark on.


check out our review of the album

5. Alestorm - “No Grave But the Sea” – Napalm Records

                The pirate based Power/Folk Metal band are back with another set of tales upon the high sea. “No Grave But the Sea” is simply a whole lot of fun, everyone who knows the band knows they don’t take themselves too seriously, that being said, each of the musicians take the music itself seriously. Tracks like the heavier “Alestorm” which consists mostly of keyboardist Elliot Vernon’s harsh vocals and the softer “Fucked With An Anchor” which, while it sounds like it should have the harsher vocals, is actually more of a ballad, show off that the band cares about the music, the lyrical content itself may be silly but the songs are very well written. As much as some of you may like the most extreme of the extreme, this is the kind of music that’s fun to drink and enjoy yourself to.


Check out our review of the album
Check our our interview with Chris Bowes

4. Trilateral - “Elliptic Orbits” – Independent Release

                Jazz infused Technical Death Metal band Trilateral dropped an incredible album pretty close to the beginning of the year. This twelve track release should be enough for anyone looking for the more Technical side of things to get their rocks off. Songs like “Whalefall” and “Nomad” are the real standouts, pulling the entire things together, the jazz influence comes through incredibly blatantly and it’s actually the real draw the album has, most Tech Death bands hide the more jazzy tone underneath the insanity, but much like Beyond Creation, Trilateral put it upfront on display.


Check out our review of the album

3. Unbowed – "Through Endless Tides" – Independent Release

                This is a band I’ve had a soft spot for ever since I saw them for the first time back in 2014 opening for Battlecross, Unbowed have always been the kind of band to drop an album unlike anything they’ve done before, every single release has become more expansive and intense than what came before it. The original “Unbowed” EP was a Blackened Death Metal release along the vein of Behemoth, then came “Collapse the World” which incorporated a more Melodic side and “Dogma” to infuse it with a bit more of Symphonic element. “Through Endless Tides” is the next heir to the throne for Unbowed infusing a more modern sounds, I hesitate to consider it a “Metalcore” sound, but it’s not completely off the mark. Becoming much more focused on the overall sound and quality, not to say the quality of anything in the past was bad by any means, the focus became the end product this time around instead of what more can be added into the music and much like Metalcore which is a genre that seems to always have incredible production compared to its more extreme counterparts, it made Unbowed’s latest release sound HUGE and gave the band the last push it needed to find the key sound it deserves. Through 4 releases and a lot of hard work on the bands side, “Through Endless Tides” is the end product they deserve and it’s hard to imagine how they’ll step up from here.

2. Carach Angren – Dance and Laugh Amongst the Rotten – Season of Mist Records

                The latest story from Carach Angren is one of the harder ones to follow, not in a bad way. The past releases from Carach Angren have become a little less on the nose with the story they write, “Where the Corpses Sink Forever” was a split up story that crafted an overarching story and “This Is No Fairytale” was one you had to read a little more into for the full story. Carach Angren have figured out how to make more diverse stories and less obvious stories, “Dance and Laugh Amongst the Rotten” follows the trend, based around Ouija boards and possession, you’re introduced to our main antagonist Charlie. Things continue to get strange as we discuss the strange “Blood Queen” and “Pitch Black Box” are outstanding tracks but the album ends on a high note with “Three Times Lightning Strikes”. Carach Angren get better with each release, the struggle is getting gathering the story at this point, it gives the album replay ability, makes it easy to listen to over and over again.

1. Artificial Brain – “Infrared Horizon” – Profound Lore Records

                While these have been in no particular order, Artificial Brain’s “Infrared Horizon” is easily my favourite album of 2017. This monster of a Death Metal album takes you on a Sci-fi journey though the post-apocalypse, I would say it’s a pretty safe bet that the character on the cover would be our narrator. While the music itself may be incredible, that isn’t the stand out factor, that honour is for the lyrics, throughout the album there is a conversation happening, the narrator has dialogue. This is such a unique thing to concept albums and while I’m not 100% sure his classifies as a concept album it already makes me excited for the third album from Artificial Brain.