By Monk

In these days when many bands consider a “tour” to be a single date in any given territory, such as obligatory dates in London or Manchester paying lip service to covering the entire ÜK, thus forcing devout and hard cash-paying fans to travel hundreds of miles and spend perhaps the same amount of their hard-earned pounds to see their favourite acts in the flesh, it is refreshing to see one which genuinely brings their show to the people who play their bills. But, it perhaps should be no surprise that Night Demon arguably play more gigs, pro rata, in this postage stamp corner of the Überverse than anywhere else, as frontman Jarvis Leatherby has called the island his home for the past number of years… which leads us neatly onto our raison d’être for climbing the stairs to our favourite venue this humid Tuesday evening, and that is the third of this four night run of geographically confined dates to mark the tenth anniversary of the unleashing of the #CurseOfTheDamned upon a then unsuspecting metalverse…

Opening proceedings are a band who’ve made made a distinctive (in the literal sense of the word) on the previous two occasions on which I’ve seen them (both as part of the Bloodstock Metal 2 The Masses competition) so far this year, particular in relation to their stage gear, which looked more suitable for a wedding after-party than a night of delivering intense riffage.

Tonight, they’re stripped down to a more “street” look of leather jackets and T-shirts, but that doesn’t detract from the theatrical sensibility which pervades their brand of dense neo-gothic classic rock-infused doom. Their set, understandably, is centred on their debut self-titled album (which I made a point of purchasing after the show), with highlights being the cheeky ‘Necromantic Girl’, the faux epic ‘The Witches Of Pendle Hill’, their “Black Sabbath rip-off song” ‘Morning Star’ – which they naturally dedicate to Ozzy – and their imaginative take on the Zombies deep cut ‘Time Of The Season’.

Devilsome could be seen as something of a side project, as their guitarist is a certain Joe McGuigan, best known for fulfilling a slightly less-stringed role in Irish thrash oiks Gama Bomb, but this is a serious machine in its own right, as proven by the dominant force of Garth Kidd, who confidently and convincingly preaches to his congregation of ‘Children Of The Night’ and doubtless will continue to win more followers, especially with a second album on the way…

As is tradition (and fuck knows we’re big on tradition in this part of the Überverse), the Night Demon himself leads the three musicians through the crowd to the accompaniment of their titular theme song, the stage suitably drenched in blood red lighting before we’re all raising our voices high with our very own ‘Screams In The Night’ in celebration of a night of heavy metal at its loudest and proudest.

Although the set is primarily a run-through of the aforesaid ‘Curse Of The Damned’ album, it is interrupted after ‘Satan’ has taken a stroll around the increasingly sweaty room for the obligatory Sabbath tribute, which is delivered with obvious affection and received with same.

There are no airs or graces about Night Demon. They do what they do. And that is deliver classic metal built on big riffs, massive melodies, a shit ton of positive attitude and a huge sense of fun in doing it, all laid down in the perfect sweatbox of a back street pub. But it’s not all heads down, “see you at the end” riffage: an hour into the set they hit the power ballad ‘Darkness Remains’, which sees the initial crowd roar fall to a respectful silence and then rear back up into an appreciative crescendo, proving that metal possesses so many layers of nuance and subtlety that most outsiders miss (or choose to ignore…).

A brief power failure threatens to bring proceedings to a premature end, but the band still manage to bring the set full circle by unleashing the ‘Night Demon’ himself before leaving this small but avidly enthusiastic crowd of worshippers more than satiated with the knowledge that this has been an evening of classic heavy metal delivered in classic heavy metal style – and we really couldn’t have asked for much more than that, could we?