Battle Beast - The Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton 22.03.2017
For a Wednesday the event pulled in a good number of people …quite surprising variety of people too!
‘Gyze’, were the opening act, a melodic death metal band from Japan. I believe most of their set was played with a backing track which really added depth to the music from the 3 piece band… which also meant their set was incredibly tight! The drums sounded epic! Shuji their drummer has a great feel to his grooves and is possibly the happiest Death Metal drummer I have ever seen! Haha Their lead man Ryoji, for a small guy, man he’s got a set of lungs on him! Brutal vocals, Awesome solos, great front man! Overall, an outstanding performance! \m/
‘Majesty’ were the following act, a Heavy Metal band from Germany, but I would put them into the Power/Viking style Metal. I definitely can’t fault them for energy, bringing in some synchronised guitar moves on song accents and Tarek (Vocals) got the crowed involved on quite a few occasions, which the crowed responded well to! However, the sound really let their performance down, it sounded really flat, no instruments were cutting through on solos, the drums sat quite low in the mix so there was no thumping 2 & 4, it spoilt their set for me, my friend and I could quite comfortably talk to each other over the band!? That being said, it was no fault of the band, their set was still an energetic and enjoyable performance!
‘Battle Beast’ a band until a couple of months ago I had never heard of! I was looking through the list of bands playing in Wolverhampton and came across their name, I put it into Spotify played their latest album (and tour album) ‘Bringer Of Pain’ …Instant love for this band!
From the second they fired up, I knew this was going to be good! This band grooves so hard! Catchy riffs, rock solid drums, synths, tasty solos and mind blowing vocals! What you hear on the record, they are even better live! Noora was a standout member for me, her vocals are incredible, absolutely effortless vocals smashing the highs and great control on the lows. There was one song where she goes from low seamlessly through to a powerful and ear piercing falsetto note! That being said, every member is a master of their instrument and each had their time to shine during the set. Juuso and Joona (Guitarists) are fierce riff machines!
The band was very engaging with the audience… Eero (Bassist) was a key member of the audience interaction. They even had a bunch of Metalheads singing ‘Last Christmas’ …In MARCH!!!? When I clicked what was going on, I was like "Oh No! This is going to go down like a lead balloon!" Haha But fair play to the people in Wolverhampton, they played ball! =P Then there was the beer chug by Janne (keytar) to the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars! He is going to be absolutely hammered by the time they finish the tour!!
The sound engineers got the sound absolutely spot on (Which made me question more what happened to Majesty’s sound). Battle Beast played a seamless set and I am going to put their performance up there with some of the best I’ve seen! I am going to be keeping an eye on this band for any future returns to the UK, a very worthwhile watch.
Battle Beast - https://www.facebook.com/battlebeastofficial/
Majesty - https://www.facebook.com/majestymetal/
Photos & Review - Matt Jones Design And Photography
