Amy Bowles
Camden locals, Overthrow kick off the night with a tight blend of black, thrash and death metal. Amassing a decent sized crowd for the first band of the night they hammer through the four tracks of their latest EP Ascension Of The Entombed; the harmonised catchy riffs and blast beats in ‘Ruptured Nebula’ and intense heaviness of ‘Caustic Vengeance’ being particularly well received. However, it’s their cover of Cannibal Corpse’s ‘Hammer Smashed Face’ concluding the set that warrants the biggest reaction from the crowd sending bodies colliding and heads banging.
Hailing from Helsinki, savage crossover thrash outfit Foreseen erupt onto stage with an injection of fast-paced clobbering energy. The 5-piece have mastered the fusion of blistering metal riffs and hardcore ferocity bolstered by the band’s rampant energy and vocalist, Mirko Nummelin’s non-stop brutish stomping across the stage throughout the duration of their set. ‘Dead Injection’ unleashes absurd noise which, combined with their vigour onstage, seizes the admiration of the crowd triggering violence in the pit. Their set is rounded off as thrilling as it started with furious track ‘Power Intoxication’ featuring a false ending providing one last whip of ignorant wrath.
The first of the two Texas powerhouses on the bill tonight, Creeping Death waste no time captivating and conquering the attention of the riled up crowd releasing groove-laden bludgeoning riffs and punishing drum beats that fill up your chest and make your belly ache. Smashing straight into the title track of their monumental latest album, Boundless Domain, their set exemplifies how consistently colossal their sound is intertwining more recent tracks with older thunderous bangers such as ‘Bloodlust Contamination’ and ‘Humanity Transcends’. Aside from sounding impeccably tight and indistinguishable from their records, the band’s stage presence is somewhat of a spectacle, from the impressive amount of hair being swung around on stage to the enthralling spin kicks of lead guitarist, Trey Pemberton. At no point during this set have Creeping Death offered any solace, persistently serving ravenous death metal and sinister bellows from vocalist Reese Alavi, until the final note of monstrous concluding song, ‘The Common Breed’.
A sold out Underworld feels cosier than an Arctic Research Station as headliners, Frozen Soul take to the blue-light-illuminated stage. Chad Green promptly douses the crowd with fake snow as they crash into thick-riffed titan ‘Invisible Tormentor’ from focal album, Glacial Domination. As blast beats pelt into the crowd like a hailstorm and Green’s raspy growls bellow out, it is evident this band are on a mission to create as much carnage as possible demanding pits and stage-divers aplenty with the crowd rising to the challenge during ‘Arsenal of War’ and ‘Death and Glory’, the latter being dedicated to anyone who has been bullied.
Excitement builds as ‘Morbid Effigy’ fills the room with more force than an avalanche, following another covering from Chad, flakes of snow fill the air being kept airborne by the motion of headbangers as the crowd justly lose their minds. The final tracks of the set revisit their earlier mammoth record, Crypt of Ice continuing the brutal onslaught of sound and the hurricane of havoc, the pit opening up to press-ups demanded by the frontman during the aforesaid title track.
Returning to the stage and rounding off an immense performance with an encore of Mortician’s ‘Witches Coven’, Frozen Soul have proven it’s not just glaciers they are dominating. Simultaneously making you feel like you’ve taken an ice pick to the skull and warm from the infectious passion of this band, tonight’s show demonstrated Frozen Souls triumphant power whilst reminding us to strip back the seriousness and just have fun.