Live Review : Amorphis + Eluveitie + Dark Tranquility + Nailed To Obscurity @ O2 Ritz, Manchester on November 24th 2022

Fittingly for these austere times, this is a distinctly wallet-friendly four-band bonanza of a package tour. There are no fillers or loose ends here. Each artist is already an established force of nature with their own well-cultivated fan base. Whilst the Ritz is never heaving, there is a highly respectable amount of people packed into the place from the get-go. Nailed to Obscurity may have drawn the short straw in terms of start times (6 PM is rather early in most people's books) but they are rewarded with a highly enthusiastic reception and turnout.

My viewing position this evening is, to be brutally honest, rather bizarre. I am not yet at the point where I can stand for the duration of a headline set (let alone a four-band undertaking), therefore I find myself seated in the accessibility section. At the Ritz, this just happens to be situated within the loading/unloading area right by the side of the stage. This means my view is straight up the artist’s entry point to the performance area. On the negative side, it does lend itself to a rather tunnel vision view of all the action (and means, as I'm behind the monitors, that I don't get any of the guitars for any of the acts). The positive aspect though is that I am right in the thick of the action and it is edifying to be able to watch Nailed to Obscurity go about their business at such close quarters. 

They specialize in a rather atmospheric form of progressive doom. It's heavy and pounding, but also thick with melody and rhythm. It's like they've taken the Paradise Lost songbook and spliced it with some prime-time Maiden. As I have said there is no such thing as making up numbers here tonight, and they have a small but ultra-dedicated group of fans up front who hang on every note and word. They do what they do exceptionally well, and they provide a suitably epic start to the evening. 

There is part of me that feels distinctly heartbroken that a band of the calibre, pedigree, and importance of Dark Tranquillity, are tucked away halfway down the undercard. For peats sake, They are part of the Gothenburg three. If it wasn't for them and their fellow countrymen In Flames and At the Gates, metal simply wouldn't be where it is today. They are innovators and they have been risk-takers all the way through their careers and it's simply criminal that they've never reached the echelons that they deserve. But, putting my soapbox away, nobody seems to have told Mikael Stanne and co that they are effectively a support act, as they hit the stage as if this was a triple-headliner affair. I am biased in my adoration of this band and to be honest, they could have all come on stage and farted the Swedish national anthem and I still would have found myself sitting at the side oozing with praise. Thankfully, they decided to not go down the flatulence route and instead we get a perfectly honed set that showcases their development as a band. 

It's not quite a greatest hits set (we don't get anything from before 2002 is “Damage Done”) but is beautifully orchestrated in the way that it illustrates how Dark Tranquillity have successfully added different soundscapes to their Melo-death template. One of the many reasons why I love them so much, is the fact that they never stopped innovating. Aside from the rather wonderful and sadly often overlooked, "We are Void” we get at least one morsel from every album since the aforementioned “Damage Done”. You are therefore able to effectively trace their modern evolution, hearing for instance the almost industrial twinges that are laced into ‘What Only You Know’ from “Construct “or the dark Gothic tendencies in “Atoma’s” strident title track. Whilst they may well have got the reaction that begets a headline set, they sadly don't get the time and a crushing ‘Misery's Crown’ brings it all to a rather fantastic conclusion. Dark Tranquillity can do no wrong in my book, but tonight they get extra marks because they took what could have been quite a demoralizing position, put on the big boy pants, and absolutely slayed the place.

Eluveitie are unlike anything else in our world. That statement has properly been made a hundred times about a hundred different bands but at this juncture, it is absolutely true. Nine musicians and at least thirteen different instruments blend together to create a sound that is metal but is also very distinctly not metal. A lot of metal actively plays with the notion of folk, adding in a splash of the hey-noony-knooes to give their, ultimately traditional, stance a bit of texture. Some even may invite a stray fiddle player up on stage to muck around for a couple of tracks, before then kicking them off again to get on with the proper stuff.

Eluveitie are different, as the folk element is an essential component of what they are. I would go as far as to say that it actually is the driving element of their music and the metal is the auxiliary portion. They are also a breathtaking and sumptuous live affair. Whilst Chrigel Glanzmann is very much the talisman and bandleader, they operate in a live setting as a continually interchanging collective. They swap in and out from each other at numerous points during the show and my side of stage position becomes a bit like Piccadilly Circus as numerous band members bustle up and down from the performance area.

Even from my vantage point, they are an astonishing melting pot of styles and textures. Audibly it feels distinctly like coming in and out of water, as we move at a frantic pace from gruff vocals to sumptuous instrumental interludes. There is an astounding amount of depth to their stuff, as the numerous instruments on show construct layer upon layer of complex but interlinking sound. They also know perfectly how to pace a tight taut 70-minute set. It just seems to build and build in both tempo and euphoric atmosphere. By the time we reach ‘The Call of the Mountains’, the Ritz’s iconic sprung dancefloor has become a sweltering cauldron of oscillating bodies, and clean vocalist and sometime harpist Fabienne Erni has slipped into something more comfortable that seems to be more hole than outfit. 

The whole thing comes to a pulsating crescendo with ‘Inis Mona’. Anni Riediger and Matteo Sisti take point on the far left and right lip of the stage, wielding their respective Hurdy Gurdy and Northumberland Pipes like weapons of mass destruction. All nine members are now on stage and the sound is a dense tsunami of diverse textures. The atmosphere is one of exhilarated rapture as everything is ratcheted up a final few notches.  It is a quite stunning finale and everyone in the room is swept up in blissful ecstasy. Essentially this is two fingers up at anyone that dares utter that Metal is close-minded and insular. Eluveitie are metal at its most diverse and expansive and its utterly glorious.

One of the most edifying outcomes of a package tour like this, is the fact that it evocatively illustrates the diversity in our world. Whilst there are some areas of cross-over, Amorphis exist in a distinctly different musical universe to Eluveitie. They specialize in a luscious form of progressive death metal, full of soaring clean vocals and lashings of sumptuous keyboards. It’s both epic and emotive and it drips with pathos and passion. They also take a very different approach performance-wise. Eluveitie are expansive in their approach with their nine members spread across the length and breadth of the stage, Amorphis are distinctly insular with the six of them regularly gathered in the centre of the stage, weaving together their individual components into a dense tapestry of sound.

‘Wrong Direction’ is particularly poignant with Tomis J stood side on to the crowd (and therefore directly facing my vantage point) ardently wringing out every drop of sentiment from his soul. The subject matter comes across as deeply personal and foisters an atmosphere of fragility and vulnerability, a complete juxtaposition to metal’s usual masculine bullshit. For a band that has been at this for thirty years, there is no sense of lethargy or world-weariness. They haven’t slipped into autopilot, content to churn identikit performances without breaking a sweat. Instead, the distinct impression is a band that cares, about its output, about its aesthetics and about its audience.

The setlist is beautifully constructed. They are essentially on tour to promote their new album “Halo” and they air four tracks in two distinct sections, one at the start of the show and one midway. The rest of the set is a scattergun journey through their transition from traditional Death Metal act to progressive behemoths. We get modern classics such as ‘Death of a King’ and ‘The Bee’, but the most ecstatic reaction is saved for vintage tracks such as ‘My Kantele’ and the utterly wonderful ‘Black Winter Day’. The latter is given an exquisite false ending that sees Tomi K and Esa Holopainen’s guitar work interlace to create an expansive wall of sonic wonder. 

There is no encore, instead, we get thanks and goodbyes, and they dive headfirst into ‘House of Sleep’. The Ritz becomes a communal whole as a thousand voices in unison sing back the refrain of “You don't know, You don't know nothing yet, About the dreams I have”. Tomi J has probably witnessed this a million times before but the look of pride on his face is priceless. Thirty years one and they are still not taking any of this for granted. That is what makes it all so wonderful. This is a band that still feels that they must earn adulation and by doing so they make the experience so much sweeter.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos! Amorphis, Eluveitie, Dark Tranquility, Nailed To Obscurity