Dan Hillier
Much like all touring artists under the sun, the past several years have been unforgiving for tonight’s openers, The Hyena Kill. Whilst the Manchester band should have been shot into the upper echelons of the metal hierarchy in thanks to their phenomenal second full length A Disconnect, the pandemic sadly stopped the band from touring the record upon it’s release in early 2021. However, whether it be the band fuelled by the frustration of having the spoils of success ripped unfairly from them last year or them being empowered by supporting one of the best bands in post rock and contemporary shoegaze, The Hyena Kill are firing on all four cylinders tonight.
Tracks from the aforementioned record genuinely hit like a track tonight, with the band’s grunge influenced take on emotional alt-metal being delivered with equal parts vigour and phlegm-spitting rage. ‘Cauterised’, ‘Passive Disconnect’ and ‘Bleached’ – a track, like it’s namesake implies, is utterly sonically corrosive – are hammered with a sense of unfiltered and untampered rawness that only exaggerates the inherent senses of frustration that lies as the crux of The Hyena Kill’s work. Though, it’s the new ‘Power Trip’ that truly see’s the band tapping into something truly ferocious, with the upcoming track sounding utterly monstrous and unrelenting. Even though the band don’t indulge the now capacity Exchange in the harrowing meanings behind these tracks, the innermost traits of self-destruction and fatalism are perfectly, overwhelmingly resonated within their sound – and whilst they may be separated from the sound of Holy Fawn by quite some distance – such themes of dejection, isolation and ennui tether them to tonight’s headliners. Truly, it’s just another brilliant act courtesy of one the most criminally underrated acts within the UK; if there was any justice in the world, The Hyena Kill’s merch table would be ransacked after this gig.
Given both the atmosphere and sheer number of people within this room this evening, it’s easy to forget that this run marks Holy Fawn’s very first time crossing the great Atlantic. After all, given the South West’s renowned reputation for championing contemporary and truly atmospheric music, tonight feel’s like a homecoming for the band; something a touch surrealist given how the band have never even visited this city nor this continent ever before. But regardless, as the band majestically lurch into the dense translucence of ‘Dark Stone’, it appears to be a sentiment shared by all. Like their fatally gorgeous approach to shoegaze, post rock and post black metal alludes to, the Arizona quartet are intoxicating spectacle to behold, with the proceeding likes of ‘Candy’ and ‘Arrows’ effortlessly pulling all before them into the mesmerizing and enigmatic void that the band channel in musical form.
Related: Holy Fawn – Dimensional Bleed | Album Review
Whilst the band’s approach to atmospheric heaviness may harken thoughts of them being a static entity live, such presumptions couldn’t be further from the truth. Whilst they – like the rest of us within this venue – may be lost in the moment and art they manifest, they’re anything but fixed and physically stagnate. As they move onto material from their brilliant new effort Dimensional Bleed, Holy Fawn erupt into life, seemingly conducting the energy and mystical violence that’s inherent within their work through their own mortal bodies, thrashing in the thrall of gorgeous yet asphyxiating art that their music manifests as. ‘Death Is A Relief’, ‘Void Of Light’ and the crushing titular track from this year’s aforementioned record sound as punishing and overwhelming as they do exquisite and stunning tonight, especially given their dynamically vigorous delivery here within the confines of The Exchange.
As the band ring out this phenomenal set with Death Spells’ ‘Seer’, it once again hard to believe that this is Holy Fawn’s first ever journey to the UK. The past several years have seen a plethora of emerging bands – many of which from this very city – channeling the band’s arcane approach to the genre they master tonight, and with that in mind, it’s difficult to envision the state of the current national scene without their presence. But with the band here tonight, Holy Fawn have finally and physically become entwined with a rich tapestry of a scene they helped weave albeit from a vast distance away.