It’s a Saturday night in Nottingham and the queue for Rock City stretches back, way past the car park and up Talbot Street. Despite the early hour (doors at 6pm), there’s an air of anticipation as this particular line up, boasting hot newcomers Shvpes, reinvigorated British metallers SikTh and American heavy metal monsters Trivium (still riding high on the success of ‘silence in the snow’), is a particularly strong one.
Opening the evening, Shvpes (8) head onto the stage as the crowd are still filtering in. With their debut album ‘Pain. Joy. Ecstasy. Despair’ the band delivered a selection of impressive songs, but it is on stage that these truly come alive and, over the course of their short set, they deliver a number of highlights including the album’s title track with its post-hardcore interludes and a potent ‘God warrior’. Shvpes are ones to watch and live the smooth edges of the well (perhaps overly-) produced debut album are roughed out to give the band a more satisfyingly abrasive edge.
Having returned to action in 2014, few bands could lay claim to working as hard as SikTh (9), who seemed to spend practically the whole of 2016 on tour. The result is that band are now a truly fearsome proposition, tearing across the stage with unbridled confidence and yet retaining the enthusiasm you might expect from a band far earlier in their career. Opening with a blistering rendition of ‘Philistine philosophies’, the lead track from 2015’s ‘Opacities’ EP, twin vocalists Mikee Goodman and relative newcomer Joe Rosser bound across the stage working the crowd and unnerving the photographers in the pit who spend half their time trying to track their subjects like gunman at a clay pigeon range. A pair of tracks from ‘death of a dead day’ (‘Part of the friction’ and ‘flogging the horses’) show just how far ahead of their time the band were with their coruscating, djentish riffs and dual vocal assault, whilst the band’s debut is well represented with the likes of ‘Pussyfoot’ and a particularly menacing ‘skies of the millennium night’ which has the audience chanting along. It’s rare to see a support band get almost the same level of love and energy as the headline act, but SikTh are a truly special band within the English metal scene and the warm afterglow of their return to action has yet to wear off. The only slight regret is that the band didn’t play the new single, ‘No wishbones’ which is promising great things for their forthcoming new album (due out at the end of May) but aside from that, it’s a pretty much perfect set from a metal institution who only seem to have improved over the years.
Another band who seemingly live for life on the road, Trivium (9) are back again, ending a cycle of touring for ‘silence in the snow’ that has stretched out to over a year. Whereas last time they played rather more out-of-the-way locations, this time it’s a more traditional tour with the band laying waste to London’s stunning Roundhouse and the ubiquitous Rock City, a venue that is every bit as influential in rock history as The Rainbow, CBGBs or The Marquee. With Maiden’s ‘Run to the hills’ blasting from the PA, a track that draws attention to the band’s own classic rock proclivities, Trivium don’t so much run as explode onto the stage as the eerie strains of ‘the end of everything’ announce the blistering ‘rain’. Trivium know how to work a crowd and from the second song onwards, audience members are tumbling over the barriers with alarming frequency and the venue security have their hands full sending them back into the pit. ‘Following a rousing ‘forsake not the dream’, it is ‘down from the sky’ that threatens to plunge the audience into the cavernous venue below as the entire pit jumps in unison and the very frame of the building shudders. Few bands can whip up an audience-wide pit but Matt Heafy, who calmly informs the eagerly waiting throng that London has been the tour highlight to this point, taps into a collective mania that gives him the seeming ability to control their every move. ‘Rise above the tides’ and the mighty, unassailable ‘entrance of the conflagration’ allow the band to test their puppet-master skills as the crowd obey their every whim, the sweat pouring from overheated bodies in rivulets as the band give it their all on stage. ‘The deceived’ and ‘dying in your arms’ sound simply huge and, just in case the energy levels weren’t already screaming in to the red, the band tear into ‘strife’ (one of the highlights from ‘Vengeance falls’).
The set remains crowded with highlights from across the band’s back catalogue. ‘Silence in the snow’ already sounds like a classic anthem with its soaring chorus and gruelling riffs, whilst the evergreen thrash monstrosity that is ‘a gunshot to the head of trepidation’ remains a feat of technical dexterity that sends the manic air-guitar-playing front row into a foaming frenzy. ‘Until the world goes cold’ is a mass singalong that will see more than a few throats raw this morning, and then the set comes to a none-more-brutal conclusion with ‘pull harder on the strings of your martyr’. A moment’s respite ensues (albeit one that is filled with rabid Trivium chants) before ‘capsizing the sea’ plays over the PA announcing that the band will return with one last salvo, the stunning ‘In Waves’, a career highlight that has the audience bouncing off the walls. It is the perfect finale and, as the audience stream out into the fresh night air, there’s a feeling that this was one of those nights where band and audience came together as one, feeding off each other’s energy in a display of symbiosis that lies at the heart of any truly brilliant rock show.
Three bands, a truly satisfying night, this Nottingham show bought the UK leg of Trivium’s European tour to an astounding close (if you’re in mainland Europe, check the tour poster below for remaining dates). A band that have gained an intensely loyal fan base over the years, Trivium are well on their way to becoming a headline act in the mould of Metallica with their stadium-sized melodies, blistering twin-guitar harmonies and engaging stage presence. On the strength of this showing, Trivium will be returning to larger venues on their next trip to the UK.
