I have a feeling in the back of my mind that I've seen Control The Storm before, I remember a female singer but I can't remember when or where it was so I can’t remember being particularly impressed by them. However I may have done them a disservice with this memory because when they come on they are very good. They play melodic power metal and they do it really well. There are screaming guitars, swirling keyboards, a pounding beat and some nicely crafted songs with decent vocals and some cracking backing vocals too. It’s a genre that it’s quite hard to be original with, but they kept my attention for the whole set even though I wasn’t familiar with any of their work. In places it was maybe just a little generic euro metal but not so much that it spoiled the show. The singer’s voice doesn't have huge power but she has a good range and the band work well as a band – although she is a focal point on stage the sound melds together and it certainly isn’t a one-woman show. Just as I start to write that they’re not really a crowd participation band we are suddenly clapping and I’m proved wrong again. In the meantime due to the fog and dim lights I'm trying to work out how many strings there are on the guitar, I have a sneaking feeling it may be seven which obviously makes the sound Seriously Metal in places. Towards the end of the set we get a cover of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Hero’ and they make it into an absolute romp. The final song seems to be some sort of a battle hymn and I join everyone else for a bit of air-punching. Overall they were a great way to get the crowd warmed up and I even picked up a CD from the merch so they obviously did something right.

Control The Storm at Rebellion in Manchester on January 26th 202

As the stage changeover is happening I can’t help wondering if Imperial Age may be one of the unluckiest bands ever. We've been waiting for this gig for nearly 4 years because every time they’ve tried to come over and play something has happened to prevent it. First of all there was covid, and once that was all over their home country Russia decided to go to war with Ukraine. This resulted in the band leaving their homeland and de-camping to Turkey, from where every attempt to finally get the gig done was beset by visa problems. Even tonight their actual bass player is still in mainland Europe and a very pleasant and talented Dutch stand-in is playing for us. Later on in the set we learn that not only do they have the visas for the tour (finally!) but they have also been granted leave to remain in the UK and they may soon be able to call themselves a British band. Happy days for them! Back to the show then, and just who are Imperial Age? They are a triple vocalist power metal band originating in Russia but now able to call themselves multi-national, and they describe their music as “Atlantean”. I’m not 100% sure what this means, but I have made good use of the word ”Epic” in my notes from tonight. The vocals are two female and one male, and they work in some superb chorals throughout the set. My only niggle is that like so many contemporary operatic metal bands these days they rely very heavily on backing tracks throughout the whole evening. I can kind of see where a band might need a bit of extra oomph here and there in a set, but where do you draw the line because it’s more like karaoke than live music? That doesn’t mean that the band on stage are without talent, in fact they are all really good, but for me it feels like cheating, it just lacks something. It may just be me though, as the crowd tonight are certainly enthusiastic. There’s plenty of bombastic soul-stirring tuneage going on, the power chords abound and the whole thing is both fun and serious at the same time. There’s some slow yet scorching ballads, and some proper hair swishing metal too. The song subject matter is a little hard to decipher, but seems to involve a lot of rallying choruses for us to sing along to so I can’t complain about that. It's all very derring-do, it's all very inspiring and empowering and I enjoy it a lot. There's an arm waving ballad which I think is called ‘Distant Shores’ that I really like and in places it goes a bit cossacky but I suppose that's allowed because they're Russians after all! I'm not familiar with the songs but I'm getting carried along with them. It's all a bit over the top but in a good way, it gets you by the feels. They go slow, they go fast, and they feed off the crowd reaction. The vocals are incredible, there seems to have been an awful lot of kick-drum in Atlantis and after this performance I am very much looking forward to seeing where Imperial Age go once they become a British band in the near future. Just as an aside to one of our regular readers (who disapproves of this sort of thing) I note that the male singer has excellent eyebrows! Tonight’s show gets a solid nine out of ten from me I think, loved the pomp and the theatre but sorry guys I just had to deduct a point for the backing tracks!