Live Review : Dark Tranquility + Ensiferum + Nailed To Obscurity + Brunhilde @ Academy Club, Manchester on April 7th 2022

Another day, another quite astounding metal package tour. Anyone would think that live music got canned for two whole years and that bands are busy trying to make up for lost time? A stacked bill means an early start time and those early doors means that we supposedly miss Brunhilde, then we later learn so did everybody as they don’t show.

Nailed to Obscurity are one of the most exciting bands currently playing in the melodeath sand box. 2019’s “Black Frost” was an excellent collusion of doom and death metals with a streak of pure melodic goodness running between the two and new song ‘Liquid Mourning’, which dropped earlier this year, is a swirling atmospheric beast of a track that makes the hairs at the back of your neck stand on end. The word has obviously got out about them as the place is packed for their short but beautifully formed set. This is melodic death metal, but is slowed down and given an additional ethereal nature. It feels haunting and creeping as opposed to direct and precising. It is also utterly bewitching. A new album is beckoning, and I hope to god that they come back around these parts to prompt it.

Let’s put all that talk of power and folk metals aside, Ensiferum for all intent and purpose a dance band. They make you fling your body around and do things that really should not be seen in public. The audience as one abandon their positions around the venue and head for the front. Even those that had valiantly fought to get the few available seats at the back, give those up in the name of upbeat Celtic metal. It is like the band have cast a spell on the crowd, as they all suddenly dancing to their vibrant jig. This is mass participation taken to its natural conclusion. Everyone sings, everyone dances, and everyone sports a massive grin on their faces. There are those who cast aspersions on this type of warrior obsessed fur wearing folk metal, as being rather synthetic and silly. The answer is that nobody cares what those type of fuddy duddies think as everyone in the Club Academy are having the time of their lives. Ensiferum seem to have newfound spring in their step, whilst the hordes in the pit, well the hordes in the pit are dancing like Putin is about to press the button. A frantic, life affirming set that screamed fuck authenticity, let’s dance.

In Flames may get the crowds and At the Gates may get the plaudits but let’s face it, of the Gothenburg three Dark Tranquillity’s career trajectory has been the most interesting. They have quietly beavered away in the background pleasing no one else but themselves and by doing so have produced some of the most wonderful examples of dark gothic metal. The audience reaction to them is much less fevered than Ensiferum, but much more reverential. It is like we realise that we are now in the presence of auteurs that have silently and without fanfare shaped the modern metal landscape. Rather than pound into each other in a mele of sweat and flaying limbs, we stop and respectfully listen. Like Ensiferum, Dark Tranquillity have the audience in a trance but this is a much more subdued and disciplined one. This is a dark, hypnotic rapture, gluing us to the floor and leaving us open mouthed.

The set mostly concentrates on the modern iteration of the band with 'Therein’ from 1999’s “Projector” being the furthest we go back into the midst of time. We get seven tracks in all from the last two records (“Atoma” and “Moment”) making up almost half of the set and they show a band comfortable with themselves and their sound. Mikael Stanne wanders to the lip of the stage after ‘Transient ‘ and comments that it is nice to be out of the house and listening to some heavy metal. But the honest truth is that Dark Tranquillity stopped making heavy metal per say about five or six albums back and are all the better for it. Their unique sound is now a dark engorging cauldron of goth, electro and haunting melodies. It sweeps you up in an emotive twirl of atmospherics and slow lingering riffs and dumps you somewhere else altogether. Tonight, is a story of metal’s two distinct sides. The exuberant extroverted unapologetic campness of Ensiferum and the refined, malingering darkness of Dark Tranquillity. Polar opposites but together combine to make a night worth remembering. And gold my calves hurt…