PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
The combination of it being a Monday night – and the coldest and stormiest one of the year so far – and the fact that half of Belfast’s metallians had decamped south of the border for the first of the Megahuff/Lamb Of God co-headline arena shows did not initially bode well for this visit to Belfast by High On Fire, who in turn were kicking off a short run of dates on the back of their appearance at this past weekend’s Damnation Festival. As it is, however, a healthy contingent of the local hallion battalion have braved the elements and ignored the counter-attraction to welcome the Californian power trio to our fair city’s oldest rock venue.
Things don’t start well, though: as a small knot of fans shiver outside, the door time comes and goes, as openers Bask haven’t even soundchecked yet! In fact, piss poor event management (nothing to do with anyone connected with the venue, I must stress) is obvious throughout the night, as the doors eventually open more than half an hour behind schedule. Thank fuck that the quality of the bands who welcome us inside is far superior to the lack of professionalism demonstrated elsewhere…
When they eventually take to the stage – almost five minutes after their originally scheduled finish time – North Carolina’s Bask slowly build their levels of psychedelic doom with trance-like evocations of sound stabbed with moments of clarifying heaviness. Their darkly evocative rhythms mix with dense melodies and discordant, descant melodies, while intermittent vocal punctuations pierce through the seething mire of regressively hypnotic instrumentation. Their darkly exciting set earns them a rousing round of rapturous applause at its conclusion.
With the advertised main tour support Black Tusk not having made it across the Irish Sea, local crew Slomatics step into the breach. With things running drastically behind schedule, numerous onstage technical difficulties, especially with Marty’s kit, during the overlong changeover do not help things. However, again, the wait is worth it, as the band deliver a characteristically heavy set of slow, grinding doom with huge, downtuned twin guitar harmonics and thumping, brain-numbing riffs of molten dankness. The pinpoint sound mix greatly enhances their evil etherealness, which matches the atmosphere both within and without the venue.
There then follows another mammoth, and completely unnecessary, gap of almost 45 minutes – much of with little or no activity on stage apart from a tech wandering back and forth with guitars, with the result that it gone ten o’clock before the headliners make an appearance – a full hour and a quarter after they are scheduled to do so (and, in fact, around the time they were due to be quitting the stage!). However, the triumvirate that is High On Fire – Matt Pike makes sure everyone knows exactly who the band are, by introducing themselves no fewer than three times in as many songs – appear unperturbed as they launch into their heavy, grungy suvern-tinged doom, with its dark, grinding riffs, dense, dynamic melodies and solid rhythms that let the harmonics play out. Again, the sound mix is nigh on perfect, with enough of a combination of clarity and grunt to bring out every aspect of HOF’s sound.
Pike is a commanding figure onstage, stripped as he is to the waist, exposing his rather exquisite body art (and, it must be said, almost as impressive beer gut!), and interacts with the audience with a laconic ease, as he, Des Kensel and Jeff Matz deliver their dark, thumping noise dragged from the farthest, most shit-clogged gutters of Hades into the screaming darkness of this hallowed old venue, where the disciples nod and sway in fervent appreciation. Unfortunately, however, the numbers start to dwindle quite early in their set, as the extreme over-run means that those relying on public transport have to rush for the last buses and trains home. Which is a pity, as the triumvirate live up to their monicker, delivering a tight and proficient set characterized by the seamless interaction between the three players on stage, and which is as intense as it is dignified.
- Photographs by The Dark Queen. All content © PlanetMosh 2015.
- High On Fire play Bristol, Exchange tonight (Wednesday 11 November) and London,Scala tomorrow (Thursday 12 November).
