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Review: Obituary/Overpower, SWX
It’s all change tonight. Californian thrashers Sadus have been thrown off the tour, and dumped by record label Nuclear Blast, after grotesque video footage emerged of their drummer physically abusing his partner while she was undergoing dialysis. Stepping into the breach at just 24 hours notice are Bristol’s very own Overpower, who seem unable to believe their good fortune and take to the stage like the proverbial dog with two dicks.
Before they’ve even played a note, these guys deserve an award for bringing back the chainmail to metal. Pleasingly, they’re here to thrash like it’s 1983, with a repertoire of songs about space aliens, zombies and the like. The vocals are a bit one-dimensional, but all the key elements are here – from the furious drumming to the squealy guitar.
is needed now More than ever
If they’re under-rehearsed, there’s not much sign of it, apart from fucking up the ending of one song – which they turn into a joke. Municipal Waste can probably rest easy in their beds as the current genre leaders, but Overpower give an excellent account of themselves, inspiring a vast circle pit, and will no doubt have gained plenty of new fans tonight.
This has been dubbed the ‘One for the Old School’ tour. And as if to emphasise that the founders of death metal pioneers Obituary are as old as some of us, they blast a selection of great ’70s and ’80s metal (Accept, Motorhead, Judas Priest, etc) through the PA during the half-hour changeover. It’s like a Friday night at the Granary Club back in the day. The theme continues with their intro music: Pat Travers’ 1980 classic Snortin’ Whiskey.
In keeping with the theme of the tour, the hairy quintet play only a handful of tracks from current album Dying of Everything on this properly dark and stormy night, opting instead for a fan-pleasing, career-spanning set ranging from a raging Redneck Stomp to an, er, equally raging Chopped in Half/Turned Inside Out, plus their magnificent cover of Celtic Frost’s Circle of the Tyrants. And these fans are certainly pleased. A monster mosh pit swiftly erupts and carries on for the entire set.
Obituary seem to have pulled off the trick of hitting a level of excellence and then successfully maintaining it. John Tardy’s roar is undiminished by the passage of time and he continues to swing his curtain of waist-length hair like a twentysomething, while his younger brother Donald remains an extraordinary powerhouse of a drummer, driving their old-school death metal relentlessly onwards in lockstep with bassist Terry Butler.
Lead guitarist Kenny Andrews cranks out the solos while rhythm guitarist Trevor Peres draws on a seemingly inexhaustible supply of riffs.
But as Tardy announces the end of the show after a two song encore, there’s something missing. Yup, they haven’t played the title track from their 1989 debut album Slowly We Rot. Surely we’re not going to be denied it? No, that was just a tease and a full rotting ensues, followed by the promise that they’ll be back soon. That’ll be nice, given that Obituary ignored Bristol until 2015.
All pix by Mike Evans
Read more: Metal & Prog Picks: December 2024
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