By Jase Walker
Another freezing cold day in Manchester sees me travelling across the city to Victoria Warehouse for a night of some legitimately heavy shit. Trivium, Heaven Shall Burn and Malevolence all in one show? Terrifying.
The venue’s already heaving by the time Malevolence starts the show off and I’ve got myself a perch on the mezzanine as I usually do at this venue, but this time specifically to catch the pit size. They’ve barely gotten through one song and the central part of the crowd is already kicking the ever living shit out of each other, standard. They sound bloody fantastic tonight too, every single chug is felt through the floor and is shaking my legs all the while they orchestrate the sheer madness of their show. “Still Waters Run Deep” as the second song choice though? Definitely not messing around with this set.
They did not disappoint with their provoking one of the biggest circle pits I’ve ever seen at Victoria Warehouse, the floor area at this venue is huge and quite literally a third of the entire area was hundreds of people running around in it, madness. They’re not just a one trick pony in this regard though, softer songs have every bit as much of an impact, the audience lights up the room with phone torches and lighters in response. Only Malevolence could be a band that gets a special request for extra security for the amount of crowd surfers they’re due to get as well. ‘Keep Your Distance’ and ‘On Broken Glass’ make up the last two songs of their set and while short in the grand scheme of things, Malevolence have shown why they’re one of the best rising stars of the ÜK metal scene. Absolutely mental.
Next up is Heaven Shall Burn. Admittedly I’ve not listened to these before but am always keen to be introduced to an act first hand live! I feel right at home with their sound though when they kick off, this sounds like some good old fashioned melodic death metal similar to Dark Tranquillity, old In Flames and maybe At The Gates, excellent. Yeah I’m really into this live performance, it sounds fantastic although not *quite* as ground shaking as Malevolence but that doesn’t take away from it at all. There’s little room for a breather in this visceral assault of riffs, accentuated by melodies that go along with them, a melodeath staple. One sound they announce, ‘Übermacht’, sounds bloody fantastic too and it’s got me in full gurn mode. What a riff!
Admittedly the crowd isn’t quite as engaged as they were with Malevolence, although I would put this down to the difference in terms of crowd interaction. Heaven Shall Burn focus primarily on playing and maintaining a tight show, which isn’t wrong, just a different approach, they do pull off an impressive wall of death later though! Their performance is obviously well rehearsed, the light show is fantastic and it comes across overall as just a great show. Later on they announced a familiar song name to me, ‘Black Tears’. I LOVE THIS SONG! I actually had to do some quick research because I knew this song from ‘Eternal Tears Of Sorrow’ and it turns out Edge of Sanity did it originally all the way back in 1994! That was a nice surprise.
And finally, it’s time for Trivium, hidden behind a stage curtain and warming the audience up with Iron Maiden’s ‘Run To The Hills’. The curtain drops and shows one of the most incredible stage aesthetics I think I’ve ever seen next to the likes of Amon Amarth. Several panels adorn the floor behind the band showing Japanese dragons with two large statues on either side of the stage against a massive backdrop of a similar look. The crowd is already going berserk and I didn’t expect a real throwback with “Like Light To Flies” to come so early in the set but I don’t think the waves of crowd surfers are complaining about this! I also love the fact that there’s five mics on stage that are clearly all set to be “lead” mics so each of the guitar sporting members can easily wander around the stage and still fill.their vocal parts in.
It says a lot about how Trivium cares about their fans and the audience considering they stopped more than one song in order to make sure that someone they saw going down was okay: that’s fantastic. The energy of this crowd here tonight is incredible, the centre has been going nuts consistently for the entire show so far, the front clusters around Matt with arms raised screaming the words back. A guest feature of Josh from Malevolence for ‘Drowned And Torn Asunder’ sees the crowd amp up their energy even further, punching the air, starting a massive circle pit and launching yet more crowd surfers overhead.The security have really got their work cut out for them tonight, fishing a ridiculous amount of people over the barriers at the front.
And finally to the end, we’ve finished up with arguably two of their biggest singles, ‘In Waves’ and ‘Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr’, an excellent way to close a fantastic show out. These guys have been a slow burn getting to shows of this size, but they truly deserve it. An enduring band that still has so much more to give.
- PHOTO CREDIT: Photos © The Dark Queen/Über Rock. Taken at The Ulster Hall, Belfast, 9 January 2023.
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