Almost between the grasps of an entire year since the clans marched through the streets of bloody England, Heavy/Power Metal phenomenon Grave Digger return to a numbingly and winterly-fresh metal fanatic infested Tuffnel Park; naturally embedding their herculean calibre inside the deep chasms of London Town, whilst elegantly escorting home the path of the lionheart with the most efficiently tasteful musicality and heavily grafted stylised musicianship. Astonishingly annexing to the masked and marked territory of the reaper are Swiss female-fronted Heavy/Power neophytes Burning Witches; bringing their own brand of consolably rich empowered metal with masterly euphonious levels to the drapes and spread of the soupy heavy metal buffet table. Incepting the solitary United Kingdom date of the ‘Fear of The Living Dead Tour’ are the Hexenhammer titans Burning Witches (8); brutally ushering wreckage to the megalithic and darkened halls of The Dome, whilst binding their possessive and personally frantic witches’ spell from the eternal black pits of their profoundly preternatural cauldron amongst the midst of the cavalry at the approved North London venue. Even from the continental whims of the mind-mauling passkey ‘Executed’, the exclamations of tonight’s crowd cry thunder and bellow into the unlighted passages of the deep dark night; bloodthirstily leading into showering wavelengths of demonically crunchy numbers ‘Metal Daemons’ and ‘We Eat Your Children’, before eventually drifting into the title track of the ferociously-feisty outfit’s 2018 sophomore and wicked effort Hexenhammer. Gathering the storm of the blackened grapes of the masses are always proceeded with the utmost tension and supernaturally commanding ability, however Burning Witches succeed with each and every intention of the hair-raising novelties dwelling in the basis of sentimentally layered individual tracks; seizing the bundles of hearts in surveillance tonight, delivering the goods with the barbarous hard hitters ‘Bloody Rose’ and ‘Black Widow’ before reaching the towering peaks of a magisterial closing rendition of Dio’s ‘Holy Diver’. With the lifeblood of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Warlock implanted in the pulsated veins of the Swiss quintet, Burning Witches bring a fresh and piquant execution to the table; warming up the flock for the fundamental paths and the seductive measures of Grave Digger to take the realms at Tufnell Park in a traditional Heavy Metal fashion. When the Tattooed Rider comes to the sectors of your town and the congregation of Zombies come out to cavort, many will know it is time for the ultimately awaited return of the reaper, and for the magnificent divine ascension of Gladbeck’s exceedingly devoted Heavy/Power quartet Grave Digger (6) to embrace the decks of the Heavy Metal podium once more. With a prodigious setlist to get through on this momentous evening, the elected open the heavily-submerged exhibition with a contemporary entry from the most recent offering ‘Fear of the Living Dead’, the band begin proceedings with other fan treasures ‘The Clans Will Rise Again’ and ‘The Bruce (The Lion King) before being directed to the additionally competent entries ‘Call for War’ and ‘The Curse of Jaques’; bringing back the law of Heavy Metal to the glorified spheres of the land and kingdom. Nonetheless, with all the room of substantial affairs running smoothly, Grave Digger just do not quite seem up to the mark this evening and they suffer dramatically with a lacklustre accommodation of encompassing dullness on the board of the vessel’s core; bloating out the ambience of tonight and slipping down the stems of the ladder into the pools of a black atmospheric trench. However, Grave Digger are an ornamentally accomplished act and are a stupendously muscular unit with a colossal back catalogue of hits charming their way into ears of surrounding listeners around the world, but tonight on the other hand it was not the unsurpassable outcome it should have been on paper. Arguably amongst the burrow of the footed lows, there was issuing evidence of an assemblage that included higher peaks with the incisive appearances of favourable melodious preferences ‘Excalibur’ and ‘Rebellion (The Clans Are Marching); wandering gently into the arms of the protracted and durational contents of the historical setlist. Moreover, the extensive highlight of the night was the stand-alone and modern Grave Digger number ‘Zombie Dance’, totally twisting the pretence of the bulk of the band’s work down a differentiating avenue; bringing the output of a nearly full house crowd participation going through the notions of an exceeding maximum. All-inclusively, Germany’s Heavy Metal veterans Grave Digger will surely soon bring the clans back home to the shores of the United Kingdom once again in the near future, however tonight’s gratitude was not up to par with the usual quality one would expect from such a musically powerful and talented outfit, therefore let’s hope next time around the scythe of the reaper will reach the towering heights from where Heavy Metal was once born.