By DJ Astrocreep
Another gig, another trip over to Manchester, this time to catch a double debut album release tour of Finnish prog metals Wheel and fellow Scandinavian act Múr, who venture a little more on to the fusion and experimental side. It sadly starts off very poorly, as the Rebellion door staff are once again shocking when it comes to any kind of access needs. It should not take multiple requests and someone getting close to collapsing due to their inaction to finally just gain access to the venue and a seat that is quite desperately required. Past that and our support band are about to take to the stage.
Whilst I have previously seen Múr’s name bandied about before, I wasn’t sure if I’d actually heard their music. Reading up in advance, they’re labelled as experimental, which grabs my interest. They’re definitely a mix of a lot of things heavy, with blast beats reckoning in with a fusion of black metal, grind and hardcore at different times. They’re not ideal support in terms of sound, being quite a bit heavier, but are a quality live act in their own right. The crowd is swelling as they get through their extended support set, clocking up around 50 minutes of set time and there’s definite appreciation of their talents, despite that extra visceral musical approach in contrast.
It’s a tight performance and while they serve as a palate cleanser from listening to prog metal on the train over, they’re a great live act, even more accomplished when looking at the fact that they’re only on their debut release.
Our headliner comes on and it’s clear quite quickly that this is absolute Tool worship at times, which is perfectly fine by me and apparently a fair few other people! Wheel are, of course, more than just a tribute act, which their performance shows. The crowd is swelling further still now, which is a good showing for a less known band on a Tuesday evening and warming the venue up that little bit more as the band gets into the set a little more.
The band themselves are absolutely top notch. Tight, melodic and very little speaking inbetween songs to give them as long as possible to actually perform on stage. Both the sound and lighting techs are on great form, too, doing an excellent job of creating more of an audio visual performance than just a live music act. The spotlight is not on individual members, but on the music as a whole, so even though we do get rambling solos at times, it’s still a cohesive part of the whole, adding to the layering rather than detracting from it.
An hour 40 minutes set gives us a total of 13 songs – normal for a prog act! No encores, no bullshit, just pure prog metal and everyone seems well and truly up for it! The set spans across their full history, with a fairly even split between their full lengths, with latest release ‘Charismatic Leaders’ having five of the set. ‘Porcelain’ and ‘Saboteur’ make for good first half of set highlights, while finishing on self titled song ‘Wheel’ is a superb way to close the set.
A great performance.
- Photo by the author.
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