Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Urban Bolta
Venue: Viper Room / Vienna / Austria
Concert date: 12.02.2013
Attendance: 300
Ticket price: 21€ / 25€
»If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain« could have been the motto of our latest visit to the Austrian capital, where last Tuesday the Hunting Across Europe tour rolled in, bringing Grand Magus, Angel Witch and Enforcer together under one roof. On the sunny side of the Alps, the touring schedules of cult bands from all sorts of metal genres have been pretty well covered in recent years, but you can hardly say the same for heavy metal. So to meet the ever-mightier standard-bearers of Swedish stoner metal Grand Magus and the unlucky would-be champions of the underground NWOBHM scene Angel Witch, we had to drive all the way to Vienna.
The tour stopped at the local club Viper Room. It’s a cozy live venue about the size of our Gala hala, with a distinctly elongated shape, so the acoustics are very good. When you enter the club, you first have to head down to the underground level, where you end up in a space that feels like a tunnel. Right at the end of that tunnel is the stage, jealously guarded on both sides by the merch stand and, of course, the bar. Although the club is right near the city center, it runs by the rules of some kind of semi-autonomous zone, which is especially pleasing to all the smokers and a bit less so to those of us who aren’t exactly fans of the smell of cigarette smoke.
When we walked into the club at eight in the evening, Enforcer were already tearing it up on stage! That meant we had missed the evening’s opening act, the local metalheads Lowbau. On the current tour Enforcer are presenting their freshly released record »Mesmerized By Fire«, put out by Nuclear Blast, which for them means a big leap from a half-amateur existence onto the big stage. We’ll see what that brings the Swedes in the future, considering that in the past few years they’ve already become darlings of the underground heavy metal scene. With their express-train speed metal tempo, Enforcer delivered the most energetic performance of the night. The Swedes, with their carefully cultivated revivalist look, bet on the tried-and-true formula of short three-minute songs, and they stormed through the gig without a break, not giving the crowd a chance to catch even a single breath! Interestingly, their debut album »Into The Fire« (2008), with the songs On The Loose, Scream of the Savage and Into the Night, still bites deep into the played setlist, even though Enforcer have launched two more records since then, which in my opinion are even better. One of the highlights of the gig came with the new song Take Me Out Of This Nightmare, because it captures the whole philosophy of these young Swedes: harmonies in thirds, shredding shoulder to shoulder, an insanely catchy chorus with multi-part vocals, and a total explosion all over the stage!
Next up to take the stage were Angel Witch, legendary NWOBHM metalheads from south London. The anecdote goes that EMI had serious plans for them, but in the end decided to back Iron Maiden instead. The latter fill stadiums around the world today, while Angel Witch console themselves with the occasional gig in club dives. They too have a new album in their pocket, »As Above, So Below«, their first in a quarter of a century, and its promotion was the reason for this new European tour.
Of the original members, only vocalist / guitarist Kevin Heybourne is left in the veteran British heavy metal outfit these days. The man is a pure perfectionist when it comes to studio releases, since you won’t find a single weak moment on any of their four albums released to date, but judging by what we saw, sadly the same can’t be said for their live shows. Heybourne approached the Vienna night a little too casually and kept making himself heard even in the middle of the gig, so after the song Guillotine there was even a longer break while he sorted out all the technical problems. Apart from that remark, the gig was a total bomb! Angel Witch cultivate a completely homegrown version of heavy metal, in which, besides the standard NWOBHM elements, you can hear a strong influence of the gloomy Black Sabbath school, and the resulting combination worked almost magically in the intimate club atmosphere, literally in the Viennese underground! The feeling of being squeezed in was amplified by dark songs like White Witch and Sorcerers and by Heybourne’s unique vocals, which in 2013 still sound as mysterious as they used to. Heybourne and company slotted a few songs from the current album in among the material from the cult debut »Angel Witch« (1980), but sadly this time too they steered clear of both records from the mid-eighties. I don’t know the reason, maybe copyright is at play – given how excellent they are, that seems to me the only logical explanation for why Angel Witch act so ignorant toward that period of their career. The big finale of their set came right at the end, when they played the epic Angel Witch, which for the first time that night forced the entire club into simultaneous participation.
With Grand Magus a different wind blew into the club – if the bands before them had been playing in the realms of old-school heavy metal, the Swedish trio hit the brakes and gave the guitar sound a heavy, gritty coloring. Ladies and gentlemen, before us stood one of the finest monuments of European stoner metal, and the club knew it, breathing in tight sync with the band from the opening song on. At first I thought Grand Magus had swapped their frontman, but from the vocal tone and stage moves of the musician on the left side of the stage I recognized Janne »JB« Christoffersson, who has completely changed his image in the last two years. He’s grown out his hair and a bushy »ZZ Top-style« beard and dressed himself in a washed-out Rainbow T-shirt with the cover of the album »Rising«, in a getup I surely couldn’t have pictured him in a few years ago. In the sound mix, Fox’s bass line had real punch, breathing much-needed energy into the dirty riffs and somewhat neutralizing the morbid mood of the cold Swedish doom metal school. Over the years of seasoning, Grand Magus have become true masters of building a live atmosphere, as through the set they gripped the crowd ever tighter in the vise of a direct, organic barrage of tremendous power, which peaked right at the end with the songs Iron Will and Hammer Of The North.
The trip to Vienna lived up to every expectation – we hung out with the young, hard-charging Swedish force Enforcer, gave ourselves over to the immortal classics of Angel Witch, and finished off by surrendering to the elemental flow of Grand Magus. Let me add a bit of a personal note to wrap up. Although Grand Magus were the tour headliners, which also earned them the most playing time and the most intense reception of all the acts, as I write these lines today I’m incredibly happy that I finally managed to catch one of my all-time favorite heavy metal bands, Angel Witch, on stage. The whole trip to Vienna and back was paid off by them alone.
Setlist
ENFORCER:
1. Death Rides This Night
2. Mistress from Hell
3. Mesmerized By Fire
4. Katana
5. On The Loose
6. Crystal Suite
7. Scream of the Savage
8. Take Me Out Of This Nightmare
9. Into the Night
ANGEL WITCH:
1. Atlantis
2. Confused
3. Dead Sea Scrolls
4. White Witch
5. Sorcerers
6. Gorgan
7. Guillotine
8. Dr. Phibes
9. Angel of Death
10. Baphomet
11. Angel Witch
GRAND MAGUS:
1. Kingslayer
2. Sword of the Ocean
3. I, The Jury
4. Ravens Guide Our Way
5. Silver Into Steel
6. Starlight Slaughter
7. Wolf’s Return
8. Like The Oar Strikes The Water
9. Drum Solo
10. The Hunt
11. Valhalla Rising
12. Iron Will
——————
13. Hammer Of The North
Photo gallery
