Natalie
Arch Enemy - O2 Shepherd���s Bush Empire London
After a storming performance at this year’s Sonisphere festival in support of their latest release Khaos Legions, tonight’s show is the only UK stop on Arch Enemy’s winter ‘Khaos Over Europe 2011’ tour. Expectations are therefore high, with many fans being forced to travel the length of the country in order to experience the only headline helping of Arch Enemy on these shores for this year.
On a bitter cold December evening, the atmosphere inside the Empire tonight is quite the opposite. The mood is one of feverish and heated anticipation, and as the beer begins to flow the gathered masses become restless, the outbreaks of demanding chants for Arch Enemy to hit the stage becoming increasingly and almost alarmingly frequent.
When Arch Enemy finally hit the stage, the venue erupts into a sea of flailing bodies, pumping fists and utter chaos. The band fly straight into the hard-hitting Yesterday Is Dead And Gone, the opener from the latest album Khaos Legions, before moving straight into an absolutely massive, anthemic Revolution Begins.
Whilst the twin guitar attack of the Amott brothers tonight is as heavy as we’ve come to expect from them, and the relentless double bass drums hammer the chests of everyone in the room, it is frontwoman Angela Gossow who’s summoning the voice of Satan himself tonight. It’s heavy, it’s aggressive, and whilst the vocals may be a little low in the mix for Onslaught Radio’s liking, tonight Arch Enemy really do embody the sound of Pure Fucking Metal.
A furious Ravenous and an epic rendition of Enemy Within follow, before a pumping My Apocalypse has everyone (including a few of the venue bar staff) banging their heads like they were trying to wrench them clean off of their necks. Whilst Arch Enemy seem to be able to knock out metal classic after metal classic, they’re also sublime masters of their instruments, and tonight they take no shame in showing off. Daniel Erlandsson busts out a typically metal, shredding drum solo, and although it’s the perfect solo for a night such as this, it’s gotten to the point where nobody can ignore the fact that he’s been doing the same solo every night for the past 6 years. As good as the solo is, when it gets the point where the guys next to you are saying things like “check out the next bit where he does this”, it’s definitely time to shake it up a bit. In fact, the drum solo readily identifies those who have seen Arch Enemy before and those who haven’t. Those who haven’t are going mental with applause and picking up their own jaws off of the floor, whilst those who have display the textbook body language associated to a feeling of “oh, this again”. It’s a great solo Daniel, but for God’s sake write a new one.
Under Black Flags We March follows, before a huge Dead Eyes See No Future has the crowd managing to drown out Angela over the PA (nobody behind the sound desk seems to have noticed that she’s a tad on the quiet side, but then again nobody around Onslaught Radio has either – maybe it’s just us). What follows is another solo section, this time for axemen Michael and Chris Amott. Whilst up until now the set has been mainly fast and furious metal, the brothers take their chance to show us some more mellow and melodic playing, as well as some tasteful phrasing as opposed to the furious thrashing riffery we’ve seen thus far.
After a few more punishing numbers, during which Angela continues to sound like the most evil being under the Sun, and man-mountain bassist Sharlee D’Angelo wields his bass like a weapon and rampages angrily around the stage like a bear with an incredibly sore head, the main set comes to a close with Dead Bury Their Dead (during which there is a very slight timing blip, uncharacteristic of this usually machine-tight band. And we’re talking very small here, like the size of Dino Cazares’ salad portion small) and a crushing We Will Rise.
Those who are left standing step over those who are have had their faces melted by the sheer power and brilliance of the force that is Arch Enemy, and make a desperate dash towards the bar to refuel before the band return to the stage for one last time, delivering a glorious Snow Bound before a play-through of Nemesis that’s so heavy it could kill a small child.
Tonight has been a raging success if ever there was one, and they finish off triumphantly and traditionally with Fields Of Desolation, with the house lights up and the grins plastered over the faces of those in attendance tonight for all to see. The band feast off of the rapturous and appreciative applause, which seems to last an age, before the assembled masses filter out of the exits and disappear into the cold night.
Tonight has been a spectacular gig, and is the epitome of what live metal is about. In fact, the manic, Cheshire cat-like grin left on my face actually made it difficult to get to sleep afterwards, and I’m sure that the thousand or so others who came out tonight suffered a very similar problem.
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Leigh Costanza - 17/12/2011 14:05:34
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