Music / Reviews
Review: Graveyard/Kadavar/Polymoon, SWX
In keeping with the seventies flavour of the evening, Finland’s Polymoon look rather like early Styx. “This is our first time on your lovely island,” remarks their singer/keyboard player, who favours a Sammy Hagar-esque red outfit. Theirs is a busy, proggy sound with clear vocals, excellent guitar work and terrific drumming. They only have time for a handful of their lengthy compositions, concluding with the aptly Floydian Viper at the Gates of Dawn. The early birds are swiftly won over, which suggests a return club tour would be an excellent idea.
Berlin’s Kadavar are clearly in a mood to upstage the headliners. Taking the stage to the strains of the Fabs’ All You Need Is Love, they waste no time in hitting their Sabbathy groove with All Our Thoughts and the magnificent Last Living Dinosaur. Less hairy but just as beardy as the first time we saw them at the Exchange back in 2013, the expanded four-piece eschew the leftfield experimentalism of their latest Isolation Tapes album and also don’t play anything from its predecessor For the Dead Travel Fast.
is needed now More than ever
Instead it’s back to their earlier proto-metal with the likes of the Simon and Garfunkel-quoting Come Back Life and a magnificent Die Baby Die. Frontman Christoph Lindemann is on splendid form, churning out riff after riff; Simon Bouteloup plays his bass like an extension of his lanky frame, hitting some tooth-rattling notes; and hard-hitting drummer Christoph Bartelt remains quite the showman. They climax with an ecstatically received Purple Sage, the lengthy closing track from their debut album, now repurposed with a trippy Krautrocky/Hawkwind-esque keyboard intro. Kadavar are truly a class act who really could and should be headlining shows like this.
Sweden’s Graveyard have somehow managed to become heroes of the stoner/desert rock scene without sounding much like any of the genre’s ‘heads down, see you at the end’ leading lights. Their roots are in heavy blues-rock, with plenty of intricate guitar interplay, and there’s little in their repertoire that would have felt out of place if they’d taken to the stage in 1971 rather than 2023. There’s also a soulful edge to Joakim Nilsson’s gruff vocals, plus plenty of authentic blueswailing guitar from Jonatan Larocca-Ramm, which set Graveyard apart from their peers.
Their much-acclaimed (Swedish) chart-topping breakthrough album Hisingen Blues still forms the backbone of the set, though this is also our first opportunity to hear songs from 2018’s Peace performed live. They soon hit their stride after a fairly laidback opening and it’s rockin’ all the way from Cold Love onwards, particular highlights being Slow Motion Countdown and a storming Ain’t Fit to Live Here. It’s a commendably tight, well-executed performance, clearly benefiting from the fact that this tour has been trundling across Europe since the middle of April, with the UK leg peaking at Desertfest – proving that there is something worth visiting the capital for this weekend.
Read more: Metal & Prog Picks: May 2023
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