Music / Reviews
Review: Epica, O2 Academy
There’s no shortage of eager anticipation for what must surely be the best-value bill of the year so far, with three great metal bands fronted by women who sing in very different styles. Texans Oceans of Slumber draw something of a short straw, as their lengthy, introspective, melancholic songs are hardly built for a brief opening slot.
The USP here is Cammie Gilbert whose rich, powerful voice frequently alternates with the harsh vocals of guitarist Anthony Contreras and occasionally gets lost in the mix during the more delicate passages. On paper, the notion of a soul diva fronting a dynamic prog-metal band whose instrumentation recalls early Anathema and their fellow travellers in the influential ’90s UK doom scene threatens an ugly clash of styles. But it all works surprisingly well, with Gilbert’s vocals proving a highly effective vehicle for the songs of sorrow and loss from new album The Banished Heart, which was fuelled by bereavement and divorce.
is needed now More than ever
The solo project by multi-talented Danish multi-instrumentalist Amalie Bruun, Myrkur (that’s ‘Darkness’ fact fans) is ostensibly an odd fit for this bill, as she’s often been claimed by the snooty demographic alarmingly known as “hipster black metal” who wouldn’t touch the uncool symphonic metal of the headliners with the proverbial bargepole. But who cares about them, eh? Myrkur’s extraordinary Mareridt (‘Nightmare’) was one of the best albums of 2017, taking a diverse bunch of influences (folk, Scandinavian classical music, black metal, the old-school 1980s theatrical metal of her follow countrymen Mercyful Fate/King Diamond) and melding it into something transcendently unique. This is metal with Viking and folk elements, but not Viking metal or folk metal as we know it, the closest spiritual comparison probably being Norwegian progressive experimentalists Ulver.
But could she pull it off live? The roadies bring on her twig-augmented microphone stand and hang the Danish flag in an orientation that makes it resemble an inverted crucifix. As if to underline their relative anonymity, the black-clad guitarist and bassist stroll on in hoods seemingly purloined from Sunn O)))’s dressing-up box. Then Ms. Bruun arrives radiating confidence and the entire audience is rapt for the next 40 minutes. Frequently unaccompanied, her strong, high clear voice is a thing of extraordinary beauty; in a metal context – augmented by the occasional yelp and banshee shriek – it’s simply breathtaking. Ulvinde, the song that everyone knows, sounds even better than the studio version, and she concludes with the traditional Viking lament Villemann og Magnhild, beating out its tribal rhythm on a folk drum. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture the pressure she’s likely to come under to drop the metal and become a mainstream coffee table act of the Sigur Ros variety. Let’s hope she resists.
It’s all change for admirably restraint-free headliners Epica, who use their own grandiose orchestral Eidola – a cinematic piece incorporating the much-copied Hans Zimmer Inception brass effect – as an intro tape, leading in, as it does on The Holographic Principle, to the melodic, furiously catchy Edge of the Blade. Considering that they’ve been touring this album around the world ever since its release in late 2016, the Dutch sextet don’t seem remotely jaded, underlining their reputation as the world’s most high-energy symphonic metal band – not to mention the only one to encourage their audience to participate in a ‘wall of death’ – as they gallivant around in front of a backdrop incorporating a vast wall of lights.
This music might be ambitious and occasionally grandiloquent, but there’s no pretension in the presentation. Indeed, it’s all smiles up there as they take turns pissing about with Coen Janssen’s pleasingly absurd perambulating and revolving keyboard, while mezzo-soprano and, erm, lifestyle blogger (no, really) Simone Simons is more engagingly chirpy than many in the operatic metal game. Band founder and guitarist Mark Jansen, meanwhile, ensures they keep one foot in melodic death metal with his growled vocals.
Janssen straps on his even-more-absurd curved portable keyboard for Dancing in a Hurricane. And while they can hardly reproduce all those the choirs and orchestration on stage, they do play two big choral songs from both ends of their career back-to-back: the rather lovely Cry for the Moon and Unchain Utopia, which Simons describes as her favourite of all their material.
Things are taken down a notch for the suitably haunting set closer Once Upon a Nightmare, for which we’re encouraged to do that mobile phone-waving thing (the modern elf’n’safety equivalent of lighters aloft). But there’s no sign of flagging when Epica return for the encore, prompting mass audience bouncing during Beyond the Matrix and finishing with an – there’s no other word for it – epic Consign to Oblivion. It’s a fitting climax to a magnificent show.
All photos by John Tucker
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