Obey album launch – The Underground, Stoke.

If Saturday night’s alright for fighting then surely Friday nights are alright for obeying as Stoke based metallers Obey unleashed their seismic new studio album Swallow The Sun at the well attended Underground in Stoke.

A four band bill saw openers The Secret Elephant and Banzai Pipeline bring the noise hard and heavy followed by  party starters Silverchild and after their set I found out 3 of them had been partying beforehand unlike their very professional manager/lead guitarist Vic Silverchild but it was all great fun as they won the crowd over with a full on delivery and aired 2 new numbers ‘Hands Off’ and ‘Drive On’.

I was fortunate to hear Swallow The Sun last weekend as I gave it a 5/5 review for Planetmosh but of course in a live setting it would be a completely different animal, point proven by set opener ‘Call Of The Judderman’ as the perfect sound from a crushing p.a system gave the riffs from Steve Pickin and Dan Ryder blast out like an aural shockwave over the superhuman drumming of Ryan Gillespie. They played the album in full but not in the same order as the CD so I had to wait until near the end of the set for my personal highlight, the headbanger that was ‘Back Home’ that opens the album.

‘Aberration Day’ and ‘All Or Nothing’ was aired from previous album Maelstrom and ‘Eroding Through’ was dug up from their debut Doom Laden. Their 15 song set contained 2 covers. The first a pummeling cover of ‘Bulls On Parade’ introduced as ‘Balls On Parade’ by Steve due to his recent vasectomy and set closer a beefed up version of ‘Superstition’.

Obey gig setlist :-

Intro.

Call Of The Judderman.

Drive.

Vultures.

Esmeralda & The Doom Blues.

Bulls On Parade (Rage Against The Machine Cover).

Star Crusher.

Swallow The Sun.

Aberration Day.

All Or Nothing.

The Mountain.

Back Home.

Emerald Eyes.

Eroding Through.

‘Superstition’ (Stevie Wonder cover).