17th November 2014
As ever the Roundhouse venue, beautiful in its surroundings delivered its usual sonic assassination of great rock music. I’m of the firm belief there is about a 2m square within the venue for which the sound is truly epic (stage centre 10m back if you’re interested). The rest just hear warped muffled reverberations from the circular brickiness of the…lets not gloss it up…”train shed”. This doubled with the abundance of pillars makes appropriate positioning essential, thankfully we made it to the sonic sweet spot only to be greeted with angry and agitated hard hardcore punkers Hatebreed who have disregarded sonic approachability.
It was fast, it was brutal, it was noisy, it was shouty, it was not everyone’s cup of tea. Endless razor-like power-chord chugging and indecypherable angst made for a tedious repetitive set that barely registered any dynamic shifts or semblance of a melody. Was an odd choice of support, one which backfired.
A warm welcome was received by Volbeat, the reining Danish kings of Scandinavian heavy rock. Their fine blend of diamond tipped rock, mammoth metal licks, exquisite vocal harmonies and epic pop choruses quickly soared into full flight. It was a wholly professional outing typified by the smoothness of the Hetfield meets Elvis vocals, the warmth of the guitar tones, the thunderous road of their amplifiers and the full voices of the onlooking crowd. It did seem like playing huge arena and stadiums are what they are used to and this smaller gathering felt a tad uneasy. Nevertheless all the hits were present and correct, good variety of old and new tunes, some sung in native danish (#puzzled) plus a few cool covers to boot. Huge and outstanding!
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