Unfortunately time restrictions meant AMON AMARTH couldn’t bring their ongoing tour with AS I LAY DYING and SEPTIC FLESH, which just stopped off recently in London to all corners of the UK but the band haven’t forgotten their fans and wanted to get back to the North, South, East and West.

Frontman Johan Hegg comments:

‘We’re excited to be coming back to the UK and Ireland with a proper headlining show. We’ve been looking forward to this since our support tour (with CHILDREN OF BODOM) in April, and it feels great that the it is finally happening!’

GRAND MAGUS will join them on all dates except Hammerfest.

AMON AMARTH + GRAND MAGUS

March 2012

13th – Glasgow – ABC
14th – Belfast – Mandella Hall
15th – Dublin – Vicar Street
16th – Wolverhampton – Civic
17th – Prestatyn – Hammerfest @ Pontins (not GRAND MAGUS)
18th – Cardiff – Solus

AMON AMARTH have been a huge success since they hit the metal mainstream in the UK a few albums ago, and it has been great to see them develop and evolve their sound, as well as earn the credit they deserve over the last 12 years or so since I first discovered them.

With new album, ‘Surtur Rising’, being released the Monday before the gig, the fans had a few days to familiarise themselves with some new material before their set tonight. Three new tracks were on offer tonight and set opener ‘War of The Gods’ is one of the best opening songs to an album and a live set I have heard in some time, whilst the impressive ‘Destroyer of The Universe’ also sounded excellent in the live arena.

Unfortunately, with only a 45 minute set to play with, a lot of material was going to be omitted, and classics such as ‘Death In Fire’ and ‘Cry of The Blackbirds’ were the ones to miss out. The majority of the set was made up from their last opus, ‘Twilight of The Thunder God’. The title track of that album along with ‘Varyags of Miklagaard’ and ‘Live For The Kill’ were set highlights as the fans literally couldn’t get enough.

Their set flew by, and before you knew it, Olavi was playing the intro riffs to ‘The Pursuit of Vikings’, a song that has become the final entry in their set for the many tours I have been to see them on in the past, which brought a close to decent set, with only a couple of minor drawbacks for me. One was there seemed to be slightly too much reverb on Johan‘s mic, and another is a personal opinion really. I really love the old material, and it would have been nice to hear just one early track, but I guess when in a support slot, it’s hard to please everybody. Let’s just hope a headline tour is around the corner where this is more likely to happen.

Having lost count of the number of times I have seen CHILDREN OF BODOM, I have always walked away from every single one of their sets having been entertained by both their music and by their antics on stage, and tonight was no different. Let’s face it, it must be awesome being in a band who no matter what, can deliver a killer set whilst also having a good laugh on stage.

The chants of ‘Bodom, Bodom’ swept around the venue and soon enough, the fan’s idols took to the stage opening up with ‘Not My Funeral’, one of a number of tracks played tonight from new album ‘Relentless Reckless Forever’. Credit must be given to the sound techs as it was clear from the off that the guitars were too low in the mix, with them being easily overpowered by the bass. This was fixed pretty much half way through the opening song, and the rest of the set was spot on sound wise, as this would have deterred the set’s enjoyment given the technicality of BODOM‘s music.

As with any new album tour, there was plenty of new material to show off, and the likes of ‘Shovel Knockout’, ‘Roundtrip To Hell And Back’ and ‘Was It Worth It?’ all sounded superb live as the crowd lapped up every second of shredding genius from Alexi. With songs from all but one album being given an outing in the set tonight, set regulars in the form of ‘Needled 24/7′, ‘Hate Me!’, ‘Angels Don’t Kill’ and ‘Downfall’ all played their part to make up a great set, despite the apparent omissions of classics such as ‘Silent Night, Bodom Night’ and ‘Everytime I Die’, whilst a real set highlight was a blistering rendition of the self titled ‘Children of Bodom’ getting a rare outing, as well as the fist pounding ‘In Your Face’.

Janne usually messes about with some cheesy tune intros on his keyboards at some point during the set, and tonight’s treat was a bit of BON JOVI. The set was rounded off nicely with the headbanging anthemic jewel that is ‘Hate Crew Deathroll’, with everybody joining in to sing the chorus which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. CHILDREN OF BODOM are one of best live bands out there, and are still going strong based on tonight’s exceptionally tight performance, which every single member of the Manchester Hate Crew enjoyed. So, until we welcome those crazy Finns back to our shores, Silent Night, Bodom Night!

Ratings:

Photography By Alex Shaw (Children of Bodom Photos)

On the back of a very strong performance at Bloodstock Open Air this year, it was nice to see they reworked the set for this upcoming tour, as so many bands just leave it the same, and even the new album has been out for over a year now, this is the first headline UK tour they have done in promotion of the new album, so it wasn’t a surprise to see the new material get the majority of the set.

Opening up with ‘Twilight of The Thunder God’, followed closely by ‘Tattered Banners And Bloody Flags’, these were two of the tracks on show from the latest album. Other tracks on show from the new album were ‘Varyags of Miklagaard’, ‘Guardians of Asgaard’, and ‘Live For The Kill’ (complete with APOCALYPTICA backing tracks).

There were also a couple of surprise inclusions in the form of ‘Hermod’s Ride To Hel’ and an awesome rendition of ‘Where Silent Gods Stand Guard’, which were both well received by the crowd tonight who were lapping up every second of this rather intimate show, and needed no persuasion from Johan Hegg to mosh and headbang whenever necessary. It would have been nice to hear some more old school material than the few songs we got, but that didn’t detract from what was an thoroughly excellent and energetic performance.

Other crowd favourites made up the set tonight with the likes of ‘Death In Fire’ and ‘Asator’ went down an absolute storm while everybody was singing the chorus to ‘Runes To My Memory’. A special dedication to the untimely passing of Mike Alexander was made for an apt song in the form of ‘Fate of Norns’. With the closing of the main set with the usual ‘Victorious March’, the encore followed with two songs which AMON AMARTH have become known for, ‘Cry of The Blackbirds’, and the usual closing song of ‘Pursuit of Vikings’ with all of the crowd pumping their fists in the air.

This closed another outstanding performance from the Vikings, and everytime I have seen them, they have performed at these extremely high levels, and for the past couple of years, they have been getting the recognition they deserve in the UK as they do in Europe. Lets pray to Odin that it isn’t too long before they are marching back again to our venues taking us to metal heaven in Valhalla.

AMON AMARTH Setlist: Twilight of The Thunder God / Tattered Banners And Bloody Flags / Valkyries Ride / Asator / Varyags of Miklagaard / Hermod’s Ride To Hel (Loke’s Treachary Part 1) / Guardians of Asgaard / Where Silent Gods Stand Guard / Live For The Kill / Fate of Norns / Death in Fire / Runes To My Memory / Victorious March / Cry of The Blackbirds / Pursuit of Vikings

Photography By Alexander Shaw (Photo gallery)

AMON AMARTH

October 2009

22nd – Cardiff, Souls
23rd – Belfast, Spring & Airbrake
24th – Dublin, Academy
26th – Nottingham, Rock City
27th – Norwich, Waterfront
28th – Wolverhampton, Wulfrun Hall
29th – Newcastle, Northumbria University
30th – Glasgow, Garage
31st – Manchester, Academy 2

November 2009

1st – London, Koko

Next up were MASTODON, a band whose techincal, progressive, yet heavy-as-fuck metal, isn’t exactly the easiest to get in to. Live, their musicianship is spot on, but with so much going on in their music, the live sound has to be perfect to do it justice, and tonight, it wasn’t. This resulted in the band sounding like a mish-mash of riffs and intellible vocals, with only the odd melody standing out amongst the racket. The fact that the band had zero interaction with the crowd also didn’t help matters and other than those who were into MASTODON before tonight, I can’t imagine anyone being impressed by this sadly forgettable set.

The sound may have been bad for MASTODON, but the sound for TRIVIUM could only be described as truly awful. It was far too loud, with the loss of all clarity, making it almost painful to watch the show. TRIVIUM’s new album ‘Shogun’ is a little better than the bland ‘Crusade’ record, but still doesn’t come close to matching the excellent ‘Ascendancy’ record that broke the band into the big time. 18 months ago, TRIVIUM were headlining this venue on their own, and sold it out. Tonight, there seemed like a distinct lack of TRIVIUM fans about, thus proving that their dip in song quality has resulted in a corresponding dip in popularity.

Frontman Matt Heafy did at least have a go at interacting with the crowd, but his over-used line of ‘move your bodies you pussys’ (or very similar variants) got a bit tiresome when it was said during every song. After withstanding the dreadful sound for as many songs as I could handle, it was time to seek sanctuary at the bar. If TRIVIUM are to get back to their best, they need to get a new live sound engineer, and they need to write some better songs. Anyone who thought TRIVIUM could give SLAYER a run for their money was sadly mistaken.

Just before SLAYER took to the stage, I noticed the sound engineer had changed, and fortunately this guy knew exactly what he was doing. It’s hard to understand how SLAYER could sound so good when the previous bands sounded so bad. After all, it’s the same venue, same mixing desk and same PA! SLAYER were on outstanding form tonight and within seconds of the opening blast of ‘Flesh Storm’, the Civic Hall stalls turned into a brutal mosh pit, and one that didn’t subside until the very last note of encore closer ‘Angel of Death’.

It was great to see SLAYER back in a slightly smaller venue. For me, they just don’t have the same intensity in the large arenas and on festival stages. Tonight it was in-your-face and the intensity of the music was as fierce as it gets. The combined sound of the ferocious drums of Dave Lombardo, the irate vocals of Tom Araya, and the dual lead guitar wizardry of Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King is unmistakably SLAYER - and as a live unit, very few metal bands come close to matching the sheer ferocity of this band.

Although AMON AMARTH were enjoyable, ultimately SLAYER’s terrific performance had saved the ‘Unholy Alliance’ from being a disappointment. It would be great to see SLAYER do their own tour playing some of the larger club venues and universities – it is in these more intimate venues that the band are undoubtedly at their best, and hopefully tonight’s show will go a long way to helping them realise that surely that’s what most of their fans would rather see.

SLAYER Setlist: Flesh Storm / War Ensemble / Chemical Warfare / Ghosts of War / Jihad / Cult / Disciple / Seasons in the Abyss / Dittohead / Live Undead / Dead Skin Mask / Raining Blood / South of Heaven / Angel of Death

Ratings:

AMON AMARTH Photos

'Free Wil Sacrifice' follows up, and although slower in pace, it loses nothing in heaviness with parts of it going just straight death metal in style. 'Guardians of Asgaard' sounds like a viking war anthem which they would march to in years gone by, with 'Where Is Your God?' opting for a more straight up death metal approach from start to finish. Johan Hegg's vocals are as impressive as ever with even more rawness which gives an awesome effect to the tracks. Perhaps it's his crisps and whiskey method that has given this sound?! Whatever it is, it sounds awesome.

Although the only down side of the album is probably the fall in production since 'With Oden On Our Side', the dual guitar attack of Mikkonen and Soderberg is as impressive as ever, whilst finally Lundstrom's  bass is louder than ever which makes a nice change. The drums of Fredrik Andersson, although audible do seem to take a back seat resulting in a thin sounding production.

The album continues solidly with 'Varyags of Miklagaard' and 'Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags' which I thought at first listen were the same song combined given the similarity of the riffs used, but you can tell the difference after a few listens. The former being the better of the two tracks, but both are classic AMON AMARTH full of melody, guitar harmonies and riffs, which if they dont get your fists pumping into the air and head at leats nodding to the rhythm, there's something seriously wrong with you!

Another standout track on the album has to be the anthemic 'The Hero'. This is just an absolutley fantastic track and would fit into a live set with ease. The way it breaks down and changes tempo, with it building back up into a faster paced is brilliant. Penultimate track, 'Live For The Kill' is a faster number and 'Embrace of The Endless Ocean' brings the album gradually to to a close with a more softer approach than that of any other tracks on the album, yet it is still packed with some good riffs and melodies.

So with that, the 43 minute length album has flown by. All in all, this is a really good album from start to finish with some truly outstanding tracks on it, oh and the artwork for the album isn't bad either! Any metal fan, let alone any AMON AMARTH fans will be happy with this. It's full of their usual traits, with some progression which shows that the band are maturing and are still able to write kick ass records. I for one, can't wait for their Viking ships to set sails to these shores once more for a tour.

Rating: 4.2/5.0

Adam Fredericks

Released: 22nd September 2008

You can catch AMON AMARTH on the upcoming Unholy Alliance Tour with SLAYER, TRIVIUM and MASTODON. Datesare as follows:

October 2008

27th – Manchester MEN Arena

28th – Birmingham NEC

30th – London Hammersmith Apollo

31st – London Hammersmith Apollo

November 2008

2nd – Cardiff CIA

3rd – Glasgow SECC