The term ‘black metal’ carries a set of understandable assumptions about the music you’re about to experience. Whilst this gig brought some of the sensory overload you might expect of bands operating in the genre, it was also a celebration of what can be achieved when bands are happy to play fast and loose with genre conventions. There was precious little corpse paint or fake blood in sight, but it demonstrated the richness and beauty that can be found by those operating at the extreme end of the musical spectrum.
Due to parenting duties, I miss Doodeskader but I make it there just in time to catch Svalbard, the band who had spurred me to buy tickets for the show in the first place. Proponents of blackgaze, their brand of black metal marries the onslaught of the genre with the muscular crunch of hardcore and the euphoria of shoegaze.
Live, their sound is punishing. It’s not as though they sound like the Jonas Brothers on record, but their live sound is even gnarlier, chugging hardcore guitar lines blending seamlessly with guttural screams and Serena Cherry’s soaring tremolo guitar lines. At first, the thundering drum beats drown everything else out, but as my ears and body attune themselves to things, the disparate parts of their sound come into focus. Black metal and shoegaze are genres that wrap the listener in an aural blanket, bathing you in a wall of sound, but in Svalbard’s hand this is accompanied by the physical heft of hardcore, leaving music that envelops you in its arms whilst battering you at the same time. Ferociously heavy enough to elicit some furious headbanging, it also sweeps you along in a wall of noise. Its atmosphere and sound it pitch black, but there are rare shards of beauty that shoot through the darkness like beams of sunlight through a darkerened sky, rendered all the more beautiful for their contrast with the surrounding darkness. The band also bring a very British approach to the genre, maintaining earnest declarations of pain but swapping po-faced seriousness for a dry sense of humour. ‘Defiance’ is introduced as being similar to a song in Wicked, and the band’s final song is announced as being another cheery one about being “really fucking depressed”. The end result is a highly cathartic half hour of tunes that explore the worst of what the world throws at us whilst also exhibiting moments of blinding beauty. Although hailed and beloved by those in the know, Svalbard deserve to be much bigger than they are.
Having had my sensible dad drink of a glass of tap water, the main room is rammed by the time I return. My vantage point from further back in the room is actually perfect, though, for Alcest’s set, which ends being quite a gear shift from Svalbard. Twisting black metal in different directions, their sound is softer and even more widescren, leaning towards the post-rock of Explosions in the Sky or Mogwai whilst still retaining the occasional violence and aggression of the back metal genre the band wanders widely from. They are helped by a crystal clear sound mix, lilting guitar lines ringing out gorgeously over the venue.
Where Svalbard were a whirling band of frenetic headbangers, Alcest stand almost immobile, long-haired, loose-clothed shamanic druids watching out over their flock. There is something of a ritual to their show, the songs drawing the listener into an almost catatonic state. As they meander towards their peaks and troughs, and in an inverse of Svalbard allow moments of darkness and brutality though, they provide their own brand of longer form catharsis.
Two hours fly by in a blur of semi-conscious head nodding, and by the time I am slipping out of the door just before the end of the final song to beat the rush, I have a broad smile on my face and a surprising sense of inner calm. My body also feels exhausted, but in the satisfied manner of the aftermath of a workout. You can keep your gym trips and your Sunday church visits, though. Watching two bands at the peak of their game is enough physical and emotional restoration for me!
Words by Will Collins
Picky Bastards 