Review: Black Label Society, O2 Academy

“Sorry dear, but I’m going to be spending Valentine’s Day in the company of a bunch of loud, hairy American gentlemen.” It’s a tricky conversation to have and one can only wonder at the extravagant promises made and compensations offered across the city by tonight’s capacity crowd.

The lengthy queue was still snaking down Frogmore Street as Pennsylvania’s spookiness-fixated Crobot bounded onto the stage for their brisk and impressive 30-minute opening set of self-styled dirty groove rock. Energetic frontman Brandon Yeagley is a tight-trousered howler of the old school. He even whips out a harmonica for Necromancer, which whisks us all the way back to the first Sabbath album. But bassist Jake Figueroa is the main focal point, performing many an amusing dance move while hunched over his instrument, extravagant Cliff Burton-style flares flapping merrily around his ankles. Come back and play the Fleece soon, chaps.

Next up are Savannah’s Black Tusk, who make quite a racket for a threesome. But their rudimentary brand of punk-inflected swamp-metal is rather one-dimensional and attention soon starts to wander.

Hands up all those who remember Zakk Wylde’s first Bristol show with his Ozzy-era side project Pride and Glory at Mauritania (bottom of Park Street) back in 1994-ish. Zakk was a slim and handsome young devil back then and one feared for his rectum if he ever had the misfortune to wind up behind bars. These days, the bulked-up and fearsome Grizzly Adams lookalike would be more likely to assume the role of prison daddy. Black Label Society defy industry logic by selling more CDs with each release, largely because Zakk occupies such a unique position in modern music. His material slots in just fine alongside that of the most extreme contemporary metal acts while keeping one foot firmly and defiantly in melodic classic rock, with all its trappings (including, alas, the momentum-sapping 10-minute guitar solo). And despite that all biker gang self-mythologising, BLS remain very much the Zakk Wylde show, with only long-serving hobbity bassist John DeServio remaining from the line-up that played the Colston Hall in 2011.

Wax Audio’s inventive Whole Lotta Love/War Pigs mash-up Whole Lotta Sabbath announces the band’s arrival behind a giant curtain which drops to reveal – surprise! – a vast Marshall stack and a small posing podium centre stage. Zakk wastes no time in clambering aboard to widdle the hell out of an impressive succession of guitars, while a roadie none-too-discreetly supplies large laminated lyric cheat sheets. Crowd favourites like Suicide Messiah rub shoulders with new songs from Catacombs of the Black Vatican such as My Dying Time, which incorporates three-part harmony vocals without losing an ounce of heaviness. Undemonstrative rhythm guitarist Dario Lornia switches to piano for the world-weary Angel of Mercy, which sees Zakk doing his best Gregg Allman on vocals, though it is perhaps a mistake to play this back-to-back with maudlin ballad In This River – dedicated, as usual, to Zakk’s chum and former Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell, who was shot dead on stage by a deranged ‘fan’. No matter: out come two – count ’em! – double-necked guitars for The Blessed Hellride, which picks up the pace for the closing double-whammy of Concrete Jungle and Stillborn before we file out, suitably deafened and sated, to work on our various atonements.