Ektomorf, Disbelief, Betzefer, By Night - Esquires, 17th October 2005
Reviewed by Steve Norman
Barely an Englishman in sight as By Night kick off this Monday night of multicultural mayhem, featuring some of the most metal bands on offer from Sweden, Germany and Israel. Relentless, high-octane pounding behind brutal guitars complimented by the odd thrashy twiddle is the order of the day here, all fronted by a bare-chested lunatic with all the intensity of Henry Rollins, off exploring his own little world in front of a backdrop of writhing hair! Clinically close to perfection… and only the first band on!
Up second is Betzefer, offering a slightly more traditional high-speed thrash metal that’s not a million miles away from ‘Cowboys From Hell’ era Pantera (but without the compromise). And here’s another lead singer you wouldn’t mess with! It’s just a shame the Esquires stage isn’t bigger – you could tell that the two guitarists were just dying to sprint across it, criss-crossing in the middle, classic metal style!
Third on is Disbelief. Now this is an entire band you wouldn’t mess with! Utterly desolate, doom-laden heaviness ensues. Imagine Slayer at their most guttural (and without the solos), dragged through a meat grinder to emerge this inedible mess with bits of gristle hanging off it. That’s how good they were!!! And god knows what to say about the singer! Hair spewing out of every pore is a start, but his vocals were unbelievable, ranging from Lemmy to Type O Negative with what I expect a pig slaughter gone wrong sounds like in between! Actually, the two meat references there were unintentional, but thinking about it my subconscious is obviously likening this experience to some dirty, dusty, fly infested Deep South abattoir that no one thought to take the rotting animal bits out of before they abandoned it. Absolutely awesome, all the same. Disbelief indeed!
Finally the headliners, Ektomorf. I think there’s an art to writing songs that drive a mosh-pit absolutely mental that few have mastered; Kerry King once said that if he writes a riff that he can’t imagine a mosh pit going mental to, he chucks it away. These guys are obviously from the same school of thought. This is pure energy battering you from the stage at more beats per minute than is healthy, punctuated by the briefest of barely noticeable pauses that are just long enough to give the bassist time to slide down the fret board and the drums to kick back in again with incredible impact to signal a new onslaught, when you hadn’t really noticed the last one ending. These guys have all the potential to be the new Sepultura, and I don’t say that lightly.
So what a night! Four incredible bands from Roadrunner and Lifeforce, here on one of only three UK dates. Bedford was honoured tonight by something it’s unlikely to follow for a very long time.