(((O))) Live: Igorrr • Amenra • Der Weg einer Freiheit • Hangman’s Chair

A touring juggernaut entered London on Saturday 11 March. A huge four-band bill featuring Hangman’s Chair, Der Weg einer Freiheit, Amenra, and Igorrr – four bands celebrated in their own right, touring with one another. Is this the shape of tours to come? The equivalent of a mini festival weaving around mainland Europe and large enough in collected stature to ensure that it’s financially viable to make the trip across the channel?  It seems so.

Each of the four bands playing on the bill are artists I have enjoyed or adored on record on a sliding scale. It was puzzling to me to see the four of them on the bill of a gig together, though. As I have alluded to, seeing those four names next to one another immediately recalled the ad hoc, excitable line-up of a festival, rather than the cohesion one expects on a tour. Despite all the bands coming from the underground of the metal scene, it’s safe to say that they all operate in different genres and that few of the bands evoke a similar – for want of a better word – vibe. I was curious to see how the evening would progress and how long each band was getting to play on the tour.

As well as these aesthetic concerns of mine, another news story was brewing for the underground scene to debate, as Igorrr posted hours before the gig that after attempting (and failing) negotiation with the O2 Forum at Kentish Town, they would be making a stand by not selling any merchandise that evening. The venue had demanded a whopping 25% cut of all merch sales from all four bands and Igorrr had decided this was beyond the pale. Solidarity with the band. If they are financially able to make that stand, then full power to them. I truly believe standing up to these corporations who run our larger venues across the UK is necessary when an artist feels they can do so. The other bands on the bill did sell merch because, no doubt, they were relying on sales – albeit only 75% of them in London – to keep their touring finances liquid. There’s no shame in doing what needs to be done and still being vocal in objection. Those fans who can’t see the subtlety of the situation need a lesson in basic touring economics and/or to come back to reality.

So, our evening already started in a less than auspicious atmosphere. Not that one would know it from entering the venue. Arriving only ten or fifteen minutes after doors opened, Hangman’s Chair are already taking to the stage. We’re only just past 6pm and it feels rough they’re on so early. That said, this is less the venue, and more the tour dictating such tight timings, and mercifully the audience in London this early evening seems to have been charitable, as the Forum is surprisingly full already.

Hangman’s Chair • Photo: Talie Rose Eigeland

The band from the neighbouring nation’s capital, Paris, play a head-nodding traditional doom with piercing clean vocals with occasional growls interspersing their groove-leaning sludge. The quartet are clearly adept musicians and by the end of their half hour set have their fans cheering away happily and some others at the front less accustomed to them, starting to headbang and nod their appreciation. Perhaps the French group get a little too carried away with their own performance, trying somewhat too hard at times to get the audience going and to look good on stage, which results – I think – in a few sloppy passages of play, when their simplistic, yet effective doom really does rely on being completely tight on timings and dynamics. That said, overall, the band make a good account of themselves, and I’m sure some in the audience have made a mental note as their heaviness is potentially the most palatable of all four bands tonight.

In the blink of an eye Der Weg einer Freiheit are on the stage. In all but fifteen minutes the band have had to rush on stage and it’s a credit to them and their crew that they manage to get their atmospheric props out, too.  Each band come with their own entourage of people, like many a tour, and each band also has a different aesthetic that includes different lighting, large logo banners, props, film and different set-ups of instruments and back-line. A logistical nightmare for the techs, no doubt!

Der Weg einer Freiheit  • Photo: Talie Rose Eigeland

The Würzburg, Germany quartet play a fantastic forty-minute set of atmospheric, progressive black metal. I’ve been lucky enough to see the band a number of times as they’ve gained notoriety and popularity, and I have to say that on this evening, they weren’t at their full-throttle best. I’m still unconvinced, if I’m honest, about most forms of black metal being on a very large stage. Maybe I’m a bit of a luddite, or purist, but seeing the band play The Black Heart to around one-hundred people, all of whom loved them, where they were allowed to play very loud and with a room size that didn’t dull and muddy the intricate, complex work their compositions offer on record, was much more enjoyable than seeing them at the Forum. The German black metallers certainly gave it their all, though, and on pure spectacle and an amazing light show they stole some London hearts. They played from across three LPs, but it was notable that it was the most recent material from 2021’s Noktvrn that translated best to the larger arena; so perhaps they are on the correct trajectory after all.

Such a busy stage to clear and not consistently sharing a backline meant that the next change over, while still ridiculously quick for such critically acclaimed bands with strong fanbases in their own right at a venue the Forum’s size, was a little slower.

After a little while, Belgium’s Amenra took to the stage.

Despite the inconsistent nature of the touring parties, perhaps it was the Flemish quintet who were truly the odd one out – easily the most punishing, and arguably the most ‘artful’ of the lot. No doubt part of the tour to bring in another element of the scene, as well as touring with the headliner to expand their own reach, when the band flung themselves, as they do, into opener ‘Razoreater’ there felt like a collective step-back from the Kentish Town audience.  They were not expecting that.  Nor were they anticipating the gorgeous, contemplative but sometimes disquieting/disturbing film work flashing behind the band as they played.  Neither, perhaps, were they ready for the sludge/post-metal unsettling frontman that is Amenra’s vocalist, Colin H. van Eeckhout.  He’s someone you can’t keep your eyes off, even when some might desire to look away, a metronome of ferocity, someone who channels pure emotion on stage, albeit with his back to the audience for the vast majority of their set.

Amenra • Photo: Talie Rose Eigeland

The collective play less than an hour which feels wrong for such a band of their stature, but due to the sizeable bill and need for changeover, it feels unavoidable. We are treated with the heart-breaking, unbelievably moving, and powerful closing duo of ‘A Solitary Reign’ and ‘Diaken’, though. I am transported, as I always am when witnessing Amenra, and lose myself entirely to their engulfing, crashing riffs as they blow many of the audience into submission. I do say many and not all, however, as the London audience while supportive by being present right from the start for Hangman’s Chair through to the final ringing notes of Amenra’s set, are incredibly loud throughout all the support sets, especially as they – unlike the headliner –  often have large dynamic swings to their music, with soft, quiet lulls to release tension before often building to an even larger crescendo. These were, unfortunately, rather ruined by people ordering drinks loudly or bellowing to one another, catching up on their comings and goings the week before. I’m not going to make this an “opinion editorial” on quite why many gigs are getting worse for this, particularly in London and the wider UK, but it really was unwelcome.

Undeterred, Amenra have put on another incredible show. They never miss. One of the best in the game – and one of the best, in my opinion, to ever do it – if you are yet to bear witness to a set from Amenra, please do attempt to remedy this oversight at your earliest convenience, please and thank you.

Igorrr, I learn, will play eighty minutes. That seems… fair.  But also long, having been at the venue for nearly four hours already. While I have appreciated the band on record, they’re not exactly my favourite iteration of what extreme metal can do. One of my highlights on those records was not the insane amalgam of electronic glitch and chuggtastic “avant garde” metalcore (those inverted commas are purposeful, I’m afraid…), but rather the male and female vocals, that, while somewhat overwrought and dramatic, clearly evidenced serious talent. Unfortunately, it seems that I had completely missed that both these vocalists had been relieved of duties and left, respectively, around the time of the pandemic. I was certainly sad not to see Laure perform, as I have been a huge fan of her incredible solo work as Rïcïnn as well as working on the Corpo-Mente and Öxxö Xööx projects.

IGORRR • Photo: Talie Rose Eigeland

The experimental Baroque Breakcore group,helmed by multi-instrumentalist Gautier Serre, played through an impressive array of songs, with the vast majority deriving from 2020’s massively popular Spirituality and Distortion as well as from their Metal Blade debut, Savage Sinusoid (2017). Despite the four-band bill and no doubt the desire for each to pull in their respective audience, it became immediately apparent from the opening notes of the first track that the vast, vast majority of those present are there for one band only – Igorrr. Fair enough – and on cue they go absolutely crazy for them.

I have only ever seen Amenra as a headliner or as part of a festival where I have had the opportunity to decompress after seeing them. Seeing the Belgian heavyweights play an incredible, emotionally dense set (as always) and then have an “entertainment/hype” band like Igorrr play afterwards felt incredibly jarring. I couldn’t really rouse myself to get involved in the bouncing crowd, so allowed myself to fade further back to allow those having fun to get that little bit closer.

Igorrr are certainly good at what they do, and – as I alluded to – I haven’t minded listening to them once or twice on record. But live the deficiencies and naivety of the compositions came to the fore, loud and unwelcome.The layperson might claim that many extreme metal bands put a number of disparate genre elements into a pot, mix it unevenly, and the result is a noisy mess. Those of us accustomed to the heavier sonic palette can usually discern a sliding scale of quality – it’s why Echoes & Dust have lauded bands such as Imperial Triumphant in the past, and why Kayo Dot is beloved by so many. However, the general public’s analogy sort of bears out for Igorrr’s live odyssey.  Grab as many different sounds from the aisle as you can, Supermarket-Sweep-esque and then chuck that into a slightly damaged doorless washing machine and press “Go!” Witness the cacophony that follows. Okay, okay, I’m being a little harsh, but after about half an hour I had become numb to their trickery and found it hard to enjoy much beyond that mark except for momentary sections of genuine musical virtuosity or vocal strength. Because there’s no doubt Igorrr is a talented entity, and no doubt they are worshipped by some fans… so, just not for me.

IGORRR • Photo: Talie Rose Eigeland

This is a long review for a long evening, and before I finish this essay-like check-in from the London gig frontline, I do need to circle back to this tour line-up. It’s too many bands. Too many bands, not enough time, way too demanding a turnover between acts (day 30 of this is going to be punishing for all involved, I assure you), and not enough overlap between styles and audiences. I really do hope this isn’t the shape of touring to come. We need artistic, aesthetic and community crossover in our scene for it to survive and offer a, urgh, “product” that is appealing and makes sense to a music fan. We needed a London or at least UK-based band, preferably new/young, to have an opening set. No doubt the bands get on with one another, but we need them to get on with one another sonically too, to create some sort of cohesion for an evening of music. And we need venues to never, ever gouge artists. Period.