Dark Funeral

w/ Rotting Christ and Lamort

Billboard The Venue, Melbourne – 4th Jan 2010

Click here to see photos from the night.

When a local band get a support spot on a bill as big as Dark Funeral and Rotting Christ, but not a single person you ask has even heard of them before, it’s quite intriguing. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t just some shithouse amateur band who only got the spot because they’re mates with somebody involved, but instead quite a solid band. Melbourne’s Lamort don’t play the most unique brand of melodic black metal, but they do it well. Well written and organised songs, with a nice balance of dark and light, keyboards that don’t sound cheesy and horrible, and some very unexpected clean vocals that actually worked perfectly. A good mix with audible keys (a rare thing for metal gigs) certainly helped, but the small crowd didn’t. The one thing that the band failed at, was pulling off the whole corpse paint and spikes look. They just didn’t seem tough enough.

From what I’ve heard, Rotting Christ seemed to be one of the surprise bands at Screamfest in Sydney. They were a band that many had heard of, but not actually heard. I wouldn’t be surprised if, with a name like that, people wrote them off as some uninteresting Immortal-esque band. But thankfully it seems people were shocked, and they picked up a stack of new fans. The Melbourne crowd however, was pretty average, with the venue maybe a third full and not much of a response during the failed singalong attempt. It’s sad, because the band slayed. Despite slightly muddy sound at times, the songs really take on a new life live, with the marching beat that they often use really giving the music that extra bit of balls. The new material was a nice bonus to top things off, as I somehow missed the news they were working on a new album entirely. All in all, a killer set from a killer band.

By this stage, I was bloody hungry. So I figured I’d quickly duck across the road to grab a burger and come back in between bands. Fuck whoever decided not to allow pass outs.

So as I tried to fill that hunger void with a few beers, Dark Funeral roared onto the stage. Unlike Lamort, these guys can pull of the black metal look. The vocalist towered over the rest of the band, giving the band an even stronger stage presence. Even with such a good sound (if a bit loud), a bloody tight drummer, great stage presence and an entertaining frontman, they dragged on. Let’s face it, the band doesn’t really vary their sound between songs, and it’s even more evident live. The first few songs were just awesome in every way, but it might as well have stopped there. By the end of the set, you really hadn’t heard anything more. The crowd hadn’t built up much from the opening band, which is a shame for bands that have come so far to play here. Straight-up black metal fans probably left the venue with wet pants, but for everyone else, the band were tight but just uninteresting. And seriously, why the hell do bands even bother with planned encores? That’s a trend I want to see end.