Review: Long Distance Calling, Exchange

The Scandinavian metal invasion of Bristol continues. Snarling Swedish black metallers Marduk are over at the Fleece. Here at the Exchange, things get off to a more sedate start with singer/songwriter Petter Carlsen, peddling atmospheric soundscapes from the far north of Norway. This isn’t as odd a fit as it might at first appear, as Carlsen has previously collaborated with Anathema. Later tonight he will also showcase an entirely different and more powerful vocal style as guest with the headliners. Armed with just his electric guitar, he delivers a short but sweet set of dreamy, beautifully crafted and mildly melancholic songs. It’s easy to see why Carlsen is so highly rated by fellow musos, even if his accessible tunesmithery has yet to reach the wider public. Rare too to hear an evocative song about a musician’s aunt at a metal show.

Fellow Norwegians Rendezvous Point offer something very different, namely heavy duty epic melodic prog-metal with plenty of tricksy time changes and an extraordinarily versatile vocalist in Geirmund Hansen – a veteran of the Norwegian version of The Voice who gives it the full Geoff Tate. Less riff-driven than many of their peers, they incorporate a battery of keyboard sounds, from Tangerine Dream-style sequencer to electric piano. These guys (and lady) met as university music students, which certainly shows in their accomplished musicianship, with Baard Kolstad playing up a storm on the drums despite being squeezed into a tiny corner of the stage. In truth, much of their material struggles to stand out in a genre in which the bar has been set very high indeed, but these are early days and they’ve only just released their debut album.

It’s a tad lazy to apply the term ‘motorik’ to every band that comes out of Germany apart from the mighty Scorpions, especially as preposterously talented Munster instrumentalists Long Distance Calling are much more rhythmically complex than that. But atypical opener Getaway from new album Trips is pure Kraftwerk-on-steroids of the variety that is certain to receive a nod of approval from Julian Cope. The suitably driving Momentum underlines the exceptionally well-drilled, genre-dodging quartet’s appeal to earnest math rock enthusiasts and prog-metallers alike, being grand and complex without succumbing to fiddliness or losing its way in a frenzy of virtuosity. Black Paper Planes from Avoid the Light is another stand-out, recalling Mastodon in its marriage of heaviness and melody.

The danger of the format is that these lengthy workouts can seem like instrumental breaks in search of songs, so Long Distance Calling’s decision to work intermittently with a variety of vocalists is a wise one. Petter Carlsen makes a mid-set return, proving just as adept at the heavier stuff as he is with his own gentler material and briefly bringing the number of guitars on stage to three. Then it’s back to the instrumentals, concluding with a breathtaking Metulsky Curse Revisited, which builds from a gentle opening to metal riffage at its heaviest and climaxes in a tidal wave of pure euphoric melody. It’s a mystery why this lot have yet to transcend their cult status, but also a privilege to witness them at such close quarters.