Did M. Night Shyamalan put together this tour package? Because all three of the bands who’ll siege London’s Islington Assembly Hall tonight play black metal with a twist! From Enslaved’s prog/black explorations down to the Wild West detours of Wayfarer, genre constraints are not on the guestlist, and this 900-capacity club is filled early by crowds hungry for sonic deviations.
In that vein, Wayfarer are the perfect first course. The four-piece caught a plane from Colorado to open this tour, but they’re more infatuated by steam trains and other images from turn-of-the-20th-century USA. It’s a fascination that infests their music as well: this evening’s songs, most taken from last year’s American Gothic, flaunt a twanging guitar style usually reserved for westerns and Ennio Morricone scores. Factor in the grooving drums and throaty death metal vocals and some may challenge if this lot are black metal at all. The correct response, of course, is who cares? They’re still heavy and innovative as fuck.
