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THE ARCHIVES
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Morrigan's Pit has closed down as of November 2006. The site and its articles will stay online as an archive until September at least, but probably longer.
The Archives
2002-2006
» CD REVIEWS
» INTERVIEWS
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DEMONS OF THE OPERA
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Umeå (S)
April 2nd 2004
http://www.botniamusik.se/static/sv/370/
When I read about the Demons Of The Opera festival for the first time, I immediately was interested in seeing this. The Umeå based bands Nocturnal Rites, Persuader and 6th Awakening were to play with a complete symphonic orchestra in Norrlandsoperan, the opera house of their hometown. I can't say that I'm really a fan of these bands but I generally like metal/classic music collaborations and since it was also time for me to pay Sweden a visit again (I'm always going there on vacation) I thought "Ok, so Umeå then. Why not!?" Each of the three bands played an identical set of around 40 minutes each night (the festival took place on two days but I only attended the second day) and each night four local bands got to play afterwards during a regular club gig. On April 2nd these bands were Assailant, Spinning Black Circle, Lesra and Naglfar of which I only saw Assailant and Naglfar though. But let's start from the beginning.
I met up with two Swedish buddies of mine, one coming from Lycksele and the other one coming all the way up from Sandviken. Thanks for your company you two - you made it all much more fun!
We were actually quite a bit late, so when we got there the first band, 6TH AWAKENING had already started playing. Also much to my dismay we didn't have tickets for seats but for the "pit" in front of the stage. I had been so much longing for a cosy seat after I had been walking around all day ;) Anyway, I had not known 6th Awakening to this very day and had only briefly read a short bio about them before I left home. As some of you might know, female fronted bands are for the most part not much of my liking....but I have to admit that Lovisa's performance was impressive. She switched from clean singing to growls like it was the most natural thing in the world. Thumbs up girl!! As I don't know what the band normally sounds like it's hard to judge how much their songs had been altered to match the orchestra.. but no matter what, it fitted pretty well. Too bad the sound was quite bad and muddy though.
This didn't get much better with PERSUADER. Sometimes guitarist Emil was soloing his ass off....but could not be heard at all. Generally their performance was clearly more powerful, simply because the music itself is. This on the other hand didn't make them appear as one with the orchestra as it was the case with 6th Awakening. In fact, for long parts the band was playing without support of the orchestra anyway. Highlight of the their set was probably "Godfather". They were also presenting a new song but I can't recall the title. I really like watching and hearing these guys but I think their music just isn't really meant to be performed that way.
Just like between the change from 6th Awakening to Persuader the orchestra played on its own until all members of NOCTURNAL RITES had found their way on stage. I might not be a big fan of theirs (although there are quite a few tracks that I really like and I was listening to the "Afterlife" album a lot when it was released) but they were hands down the best band there playing with the orchestra. I was also very looking forward to see bassist Nils again - that man simply steals everybody elses show! As usual he was constantly running around and he was still louder than all musicians together when he was screaming. He's insane - and I mean that in a positive way. They also definitely got the most response from the crowd that also got to sing along here from time to time. Among the songs they played were "Iron Force", "Shadowland" and "Afterlife", six songs in total I believe. During one song one of the violinists even hopped off the platform the orchestra was located on to perform a solo. He got some extra applause for this and in response threw the horns at us :) Other than that frontman Jonny asked the crowd if the show had been good. He repeated the question two or three times to get the loudest result possible. Then he said he wanted to ask the orchestra if they thought it had been good as well...and hell those roundabout 50 orchestra people were just as loud as the crowd when they yelled "yeeeaaaaahh"!!
The two hours felt like nothing and in the end all the bands came back on stage, some members were even handed flowers by the opera staff - that was quite odd :)
An hour later I went to see the first band in the Black Box, another hall within the opera building. ASSAILANT (who have descended from Eplictica if that tells you something) were totally unknown to me but I really liked what I heard. It's hard to describe the band's music as they blend so many different styles together....it's aggressive yet melodic, contains a little bit of everything....simply check out the (unfortunately very short) samples on their website and hope that there's something coming out soon (be it full mp3s, a demo or a proper album or whatever). I think (I didn't write anything down the whole night) among the songs they played were "Eternal", "Soulless" and "My Awakening" and they definitely enjoyed presenting those tracks. Good luck with your music guys!! I will for sure follow what's going to happen with Assailant.
I didn't get to see the next two bands. I was hanging out outside the hall and I also once again was proven that the world is a small place. I travelled estimated 2000 km and who do I meet there in the North of Sweden? A German guy working at the university in Umeå who originally is from a place 20 km away from where I live. Crazy.
But I returned to witness NAGLFAR's first live show in the new line-up. After the departure of vocalist Jens bassist Kris took over the role of the frontman and left the bass to new member Morgan. Unfortunately by the time Naglfar started playing a lot of people obviously had went home already as the turnout in front of the stage was a little poor to say the least. From an optical point of view Kris did pretty well, he wore a long black coat and stared into the crowd like a maniac, trying to appear as evil as possible. If you think he has already done that before then wait until you see him now. He definitely suceeded in that aspect. I'm just afraid that he's gonna get a serious problem with his voice during the upcoming European tour...but we'll see. Among the songs the guys played were quite a few old tracks such as "Emerging From Her Weepings", "Horncrowned Majesty" and "Blades" but also my probably favourite track "I Am Vengeance" (the last track and they had a little bit of a timing problem there) as well as a new song from the upcoming album "Pariah". Didn't really understand the title though. The demands for an encore were not intense enough to make the band return for a song and so unfortunately the Demons Of The Opera festival was over.
submitted by Cora 04.04.2005
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