It’s great to see sub genres of metal sticking together as was the case tonight. All too often nowadays, their seem to be a lot of tours where the support are not even in the same sub genre as the headline act, which makes you wonder what why they were chosen?! But it was good to see that Finnish doomers SWALLOW THE SUN were chosen, and they really did serve as the perfect warm up act.

The last time I saw SWALLOW THE SUN was a couple of years back at Bloodstock, and while their set may have lost a little of its gloomy atmosphere given it was outside and the sun was out, that was certainly put right tonight. With the heavy riffs and keyboards bringing a certain aura to the set, coupled with the rough style vocals of Mikko Kotamaki, they really did create a great atmosphere in the venue and songs like ‘Sleepless Swans’ and ‘Swallow’ went down extremely well with the crowd.

Back on UK soil after a successful tour supporting PARADISE LOST late last year, Swedes KATATONIA were back, albeit with two guest musicians filling in. It was pretty much guaranteed we would hear more material from their latest album ‘Night Is The New Day’, I just didn’t expect so much of it to be played given the number of gems in their extensive back catalogue.

The only new track that got a showing in their set last year, ‘Forsaker’, opened up tonight’s set closely followed by another new one, the sublime ‘Liberation’ which sounded as good live as it does on record. Other highlights from the new material on show tonight were the impressive duo of ‘Onward Into Battle’ and the heavier ‘Day And Then The Shade’, while the first single, ‘The Longest Year’ was also received well by the Wolverhampton faithful.

There were a few surprise omissions to the set in the fact that nothing off the brilliant ‘Brave Murder Day’ album was played , whilst other set regulars like ‘Soil’s Song’ and ‘Consternation’ were also A.W.O.L. in favour of some of the material not usually played by the band, most notably, ‘Saw You Drown’.

Even with two substitute members in the band, the material sounded as you would expect it to with the regular members and it just kept on coming and before you knew it, the set was coming to an end with the excellent renditions of ‘Dispossession’ and ‘Leaders’. Even with a few surprise omissions (well you’re not going to please everyone are you?!), KATATONIA played an impressive set which went down brilliantly with everyone. It’s just a shame there wasn’t a few more people to witness these majestic Swedes in action.

Ratings:

Photography By Alexander Shaw

(SWALLOW THE SUN Photos)