Review: Gorgoroth, The Fleece

Lately, there appear to be two distinct factions of black metal. There’s the hipster kind with bands like Deafheaven at the forefront, who neatly wrap their cacophony into something that looks good in a flannel shirt. They have all of the blast beats and beauty, but none of the grit. It’s very nice music to stroke your beard to.

Then there’s classic black metal – ready for battle in camouflage trousers and spiky armour. It’s aggressive, it’s stern, it’s necromantic. Steeped in powerful satanic imagery, band members glare through their corpse paint – creating that image of foreboding that their fans find so alluring.

The bands of tonight’s triple bill definitely fall into the classic category. Gehenna, Kampfar and Gorgoroth have all been around for over 20 years. They represent the 90s era of black metal that was dominated by satanic Norwegians burning churches to the ground.

The evening kicks off rather mutely with Gehenna, who have donned the stage without their trademark makeup. They proceed to thump out doom-laden black metal with as little energy as possible. Musically, their dissonant dirge is hard to fault in all its brooding atmosphere; but their delivery is remarkably lacklustre. It’s almost as if they don’t want to be there, which is a shame when the headbanging crowd clearly do. But at least while Gehenna are static, they’re getting all of their pentatonic riffs note perfect. 

Kampfar, on the other hand, treat their middle slot at The Fleece as though they are headlining a giant open air festival. The singer gestures wildly when he’s screaming, and headbangs even wilder when he’s not. Every grimace, every contorted demonic pose is larger than life, which makes their brand of folky metal hugely entertaining to watch. A mighty delivery of Ravenheart proves to be the highlight of their dramatic whirlwind of a set.

Since 1992, Gorgoroth have earned themselves a notorious reputation for causing controversy. Lawsuits, sheep’s heads impaled on spikes, endorsing the burning of churches; not to mention their revolving door of band members (20 and counting).

With guitarist Infernus as the only original band member playing tonight, now’s the time for them to show that the tunes precede the tales. Opening with a blistering rendition of Bergtrollets Hevn, they set the pace extremely fast and roll of a range of material spanning their 23 years without allowing the crowd a moment to catch their breath.

Live vocalist Hoest (from fellow Norwegian black metallers Taake) has a voice so raspy, so cutting that he raises their harrowing yet melodic songs to a new level of harshness. When they blast out the classic Destroyer / Incipit Satan, this allows the hypnotic element of Gorgoroth’s sound a real chance to shine. It’s extreme music at its most gripping and glorious. Covered in corpse paint, they may look dead; but Gorgoroth are still very much live and kicking against the trendy metal grain.