Live Review: Green Lung and Inhuman Nature | KK’s Steelmill, Wolverhampton | 30/11/2023
Proto-metal worshipping Albion pagans Green Lung are on their biggest tour to date supporting new album This Heathen Land. Kicking off the second leg of the UK tour in Wolverhampton, making their first ever stop in the black country with modern throwback thrashers Inhuman Nature.
Inhuman Nature
Stepping in as the opening act for the second half of the tour instead of Wigan’s groove masters Boss Keloid, London based five piece thrash outfit Inhuman Nature may seem like a slightly strange choice to open for the proto-metal pagans. With their 2023 live credits ranging from opening to tech-death magicians Cryptic Shift to suffocatingly heavy rising stars Heriot, their politically charged and relentless throwback thrash is noticeably heavier than tonight’s headliners. Taking to the stage and wasting little time, vocalist Chris Barling regularly takes control of the ample stage space, wielding a medieval battle axe whilst delivering his biting barks with a strange charismatic pull over the unforgiving instrumentals. The band are tightly locked in with one another, a thrilling display of rhythmic intensity and technicality in the form of Lead guitarist Ben Taylor’s ludicrous solos.
The band feel more at home on a bigger stage, the massive PA doing their oppressive and impressive thrash chops huge favours and filling the large warehouse venue. It is a world of difference compared to the murkier sound they’ve suffered from previously in smaller rooms and welcomed with open arms. Their staunch embrace of old-school metal chops resonates with the audience, slowly winning over more and more of them, the furious head banging to thrash riffs slowly spreading throughout their set like a virus seizing control. Inhuman Nature are on killer form, happily stepping up to the challenge of, and succeeding in, winning over the audience.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn
Green Lung
The room is incredibly busy, a palpable sense of excitement permeates the audience as they eagerly await the opening notes of tonight’s headliner. Originally slated to take place in the significantly smaller 200 capacity KK’s Lounge, the excitement surrounding Green Lung’s Wolverhampton debut has been so significant they’ve upgraded to the notably larger 1100 capacity format main room. A massive sculpted head of Green Lung’s unofficial mascot, the Dorset Ooser, sits besides the drums; the band’s stage banner hangs over an LED wall at the back of the stage, broadcasting subtle visuals behind the beautifully detailed backdrop as the prologue from new album This Heathen Land eerily introduce the band to the stage. They fittingly launch straight into opening track proper ‘The Forest Church’ to a ravenous reception; the audience clearly love the new material, singing along heartily with the chorus and frankly go a little silly as the Green Lung swiftly move to ‘Maxine (Witch Queen)’ and John Wright’s opening organ hook delights the crowd. Vocalist Tom Templar introduces the band at long last, talking up the city and the venue to massive cheers from the crowd before launching straight into the stoner grooves title track of their 2019 debut Woodland Rites.
As expected tonight’s primary focus is on new album This Heathen Land, playing nearly the whole album across their ninety minute set except for ‘The Ancient Ways’ being the lone missing song. The balance is excellent, making sure plenty of fan favourites are thrown into the mix from across the bands catalogue weaved between the new cuts. The epic power of ‘Mountain Throne’ seamlessly flows through to ‘Leaders Of The Blind’ from 2021’s Black Harvest. Green Lung even find the time to showcase the folk-inspired “Song of the Stones”, marking a perfect little tonal shift from non-stop riffs for something a little grander especially when Scott Black’s massive soulful guitar solo hails the end of the track. ‘Hunters in the Sky’ is introduced with its inspiration for the fight for “right to roam” in Dartmoor, something the yam-yams feel equally passionate about, they cheer heartily as Templar bellows “Tories and Landlords leave the hall”. The heavily Judas Priest inspired anthem is right at home at the venue owned by their former founding guitarist, especially when Templar belts out his massive falsetto vocals that are heavily reminiscent of metal god Rob Halford.
One of the heaviest the band have ever written, ‘One For Sorrow’, sounds absolutely monstrous thrown out of a massive PA and truly feels like a highlight of the set. Three back to back classics come in the form of the massive sing-a-long of ‘Ritual Tree’, another from the debut, and two more from Black Harvest with bombastic ‘Reaper’s Scythe’ and groove heavy “Old Gods”. Closing the main set with the saccharine vampire love song ‘Oceans of Time’ brings the performance to a close in dramatic fashion, the audience clearly desperate for more. Allowing themselves the well deserved and proper rockstar treatment of an encore, smashing out more back to back fan favourites with breakout hit ‘Let The Devil In’ and closing out the night with ‘Graveyard Sun’.
Green Lung were on unstoppable form tonight, their individual performances were spot on and as a unit have never sounded better. The band handily filled a ninety minute full length headline set with no dips, time flying by in an instant and it feels as though its over all too fast. Their hard work and dedication in the post-pandemic live environment clearly paying off in dividends on a night like tonight. With the large stage and vast room full to capacity, it gives a soothsayers insight into what to expect from the band when they hit the next rung of the ladder with larger performance spaces. If this tour is anything to go by, then there is nothing but big and bright things in Green Lung’s future. All hail the old gods of Albion.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn
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Church Road Records, #
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Wolverhampton