ARCTURUS + VULTURE INDUSTRIES + ATTIC + CARONTE + KRAKOW – THE DOME, LONDON – 07/05/2015
When I arrived to the venue, KRAKOW where already onstage. Their early start due to the schedule changes made it impossible for me to be there for the beginning so all I could see where a couple of tracks from this band. The four piece band from Bergen where presenting their brand new “Amaran” album, a record that goes deep into their progressive, somehow avantgarde-ish approach to Stoner Metal. With Frode Kilvik from AETERNUS on bass and vocals and Ask from KAMPFAR on the drums, they provide a strong, dense wall of sound that pretty much captured me from the start, too bad I couldn’t listen but two songs.
Italians CARONTE jumped on stage to continue promoting their 2014 album “Church Of Shamanic Goetia”, offering the yet not too crowded audience a big slap of old dark, mesmerizing Doom, the kind that can either make you day-dream of psychodelic images or crush your soul and bones with the riffing heavy density. With songs like “Temple Of Eagles” (most probably their biggest hit yet) or “Horus Eye” the band, and particulary their singer Dorian Bones, tried really hard to get us into a very special place where time is no more and we no longer now wether we are on the 70’s or ten years ahead, with a very psychodelic, HAWKIND inspired riffing and melody development. Still a young band on their own, they undoubtedly have the energy and means to be an important act in the Stoner/Doom scene withing a couple of years.
Everybody will agree ATTIC pretty much resemble the sound of long missed MERCYFUL FATE. This King Diamond fronted band is an absolute classic and one the most unique-sounding acts in the history of heavy metal, having released such iconic albums as the much whorshipped “Melissa” or my personal favourite “Don’t Break The Oath”. Truth is ATTIC‘s “The Invocation” is an odde to that sound and has allowed the band to enjoy a noticeble status from a very early stage of their career. And they really try to live up to it, with a very strong performance, going really wild onstage. The band is a total blur, rampaging all along the stage with singer Master Cagliostro’s high pitched vocals flooding the place. This is a pure heavy metal show as you can imagine: wild, energetic, sincere, with the audience enjoying every song more than the previous one and the band sweating their lifes for the music and our entertaiment. Shows like this must be the reasong it is so often said this music is more of a lifestyle. This was no act, this was pure passion and wether you are a fan of the style or not, it’s almost impossible not to fall for these guys performance, so I guess the only possible solution is, as their song sais, “Join The Coven”.
Finally it was time for the much anticipated show from norweigans VULTURE INDUSTRIES. Having become one of the most unique (some might even say weird) acts in the scene during the last couple of years, the band went of stage ready to amaze the now considerable crowd. They’re still presenting their 2013 “The Tower”, and album that put them in the list of every fan of progressive and avantgarde-ish sounds. Starting with the title track from that album, the band showed their unique live show, with a delirant performance during which singer Bjorn Nilsen claimed the stage conquered bit by bit and song by song, taking us into “The Pulse Of Bliss” and jumping off it to meet the crowd on the dance-floor, a movement he is starting to be known by. VULTURE INDUSTRIES is probably as good as it gets for an ARCTURUS support, giving they started with a very similar approach towards music and have shown an alike taste for experimentation. The intimate sound and ambient really worked for all four bands so far and with VULTURE INDUSTRIES it made songs like “The Hound”, “Grim Apparitions” or the last “Blood Don’t Eliogabalus” something trully special. Energy and their own personality, that’s basically what VULTURE INDUSTRIES banner is, and they poved it.
Finally it was the turn for ARCTURUS to conquer an audience that by now had almost completly crowded the venue. To have this band onstage again is a great pleasure and the anticipation grew even bigger thanks to a quick peak at the setlist, seeing that they were not going to focus only on the new “Arcturian Sign” album, but also play a lot of old stuff from albums like “Sideshow Symphonies” or “La Masquerade Infernale”. Unfortunetly the sound, that was good enough for the other four bands, didn’t really make any favour to ARCTURUS. Hellhammer’s strong 
playing and the overall density of their riffs and melodies was a little bit too much for it and the result was a too dense, sometimes almost indescifrable sound. Tracks like the opener “Evacuation Code Decipher”, “Nightmare Heaven” or the new and celebrated “The Arcturian Sing” weren’t as good as they could have been. Either way, the band showed their unique style and provided the audience with an intense performance, proving they are as a special band as it gets. With songs in the likes of “Painting My Horror”, “Deamon Painter”, the wonderful “Alone” or the intense and personal favourite “The Chaos Path”, the band kept growing on the stage. They’re clearly a band due for bigger shows.
ARCTURUS continued their show with “Pale”, “Hibernation Sickness Complete” and “Master Of Disguise”, preparing the audience for an epic show ending with the medley “WintryGrey/Du Nordavind/Morax” and the very well received “Shipwrecked Frontier Pioneer”. After the show, even though they didn’t enjoy the best of sounds, once can only conclude ARCTURUS are simple one of a kind.
