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LIVE review: Voodoo - 06/01/2017 - Uber Rock

PHOTO CREDIT: © Darren McVeigh/Uber Rock.

... A quick trip to the bogs and the bar, in that order, fills the changeover time before headliners The Crawling create a mood darker than the venue’s black-painted walls but joyous enough to welcome the sunshine of the next morning’s mid-winter dawn a few hours early.

Mainland readers might be familiar with the band’s name from their absolutely crushing set on the New Blood stage at last summer’s Bloodstock (funny how the Irish bands, from both sides of the border, absolutely destroyed every other act on the bill that weekend). For those unfamiliar with them, however, this dark destructive force deliver doom-infused deathly riffs heavy enough to wake the slumbering giant on the hill which overlooks the city, coupled with huge, gristly, throbbing rhythms with loads of fat on them, coupled with gnarly, growling harmonies driven by behemothic blastbeats that at times defy the laws of physics in their psychotic speed combined with practised precision.

The result is huge, dynamic soundscapes which belie the intimacy of both the venue and the occasion and, as referenced above, are equally as capable of decimating massive festival stages as they are tiny clubs. It’s loud, it’s aggressive, it’s don’t-give-a-fuck pure metal noise. It’s beautiful, in a purely dark and dank way.

The trio are one of the tightest bands I have ever seen, not just here in Northern Ireland but anywhere, and serve up the perfect start to another year of intense gigging. Bring it on 2017, you big, beautiful, bad ass bitch!

Mark Asby
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