DARKEST HOUR / VENOM PRISON | LIVE REVIEW
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Mon 1 May
Local exports, Venom Prison, are Darkest Hour’s tour-support and their crushing, hardcore-inflected take on old-school death metal is an ideal appetiser before the main event. Their debut LP, Animus, has earned them comparisons to scene figureheads like Morbid Angel and as they blast, groove and roar their way through a brutal set, it is not hard to imagine them achieving similar status.
Their songs are complex but punchy, achieving a fine balance between pummelling grooves and incisive guitar work; the riff on Celestial Patricide, for example, scythes through the ears and lodges itself as an unlikely earworm. Onstage, they offer an intense experience, playing under minimal lighting, with little regard for audience interaction; frontwoman Larissa Stupar, a howling, platinum-haired blur, concentrating instead on dispensing storm-force bile through her microphone.
Darkest Hour offer an altogether different experience, though no less bruising, as they steamroll in with opener Knife In The Safe Room from the recently released Godless Prophets And The Migrant Flora, their ninth full-length record. Seasoned pros, they waste little time in engaging an initially lukewarm Monday-night crowd, with vocalist John Henry requesting mosh volunteers and livewire founding guitarist Mike Schleibaum grinning and leaping around as if to lead by example. God Forbid guitarist Doc Coyle (filling in temporarily for the absent Mike ‘Lonestar’ Carrigan) is a seamless addition, banging his head as he solos and peels out gigantic riffs.
Between them, they present the smiling face of melodic death metal, a genuinely fun experience, who seem to be enjoying their riff-laden show as much as anyone in Clwb tonight. They close on a powerful version of The Sadist Nation, with Scheinbaum pausing to high five the front row, before launching into the song’s monstrous breakdown climax, and leave a grinning audience of satisfied metalheads in their wake.
words and photos HUGH RUSSELL