With even the greatest bands in the World, it is quite easy to forget just how good they are. It has been six years since Kvelertak last visited this country (Download 2019), eight years since they last played this city (supporting Metallica at the arena) and nine years since we got anything resembling a headline tour. Tonight is very much a case of "Hello! Remember us?" as they grab us by the lapels and forcefully remind us why they were the band on everybody's lips last decade. This evening also, inexplicably, gives us our first opportunity to witness “new” vocalist Ivor Nikolaisen up front and personal. We say “new” but he has actually been in the band since 2018, but as the stats above illustrate these are his first UK headline shows with the band. Replacing a “name” vocalist is always a Herculean task, but when it is in the colossally charismatic shape of Erlend Hjelvik, you would suspect it would be rather a hiding to nothing. However Ivar Nikolaisen sidesteps the need for comparisons by being a completely different school of frontman with his own energy, charisma and style.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves as we have the small matter of an opening set provided by a band that we, here at ROCKFLESH towers have taken a particular shine to over the last few years. Urne are extraordinary, a London-based power trio recalibrating the definition of what we mean as heavy. A combination of the size of the stage and the proliferation of Kvelertak’s equipment means that they end up playing in a line, with Angus Neyra and Joe Nally hemmed in either side of James Cook’s sprawling drum kit. This would be an impairment to most other bands but they use this configuration to funnel and concentrate the kinetic energy that they conjure up.  

What is so astonishing about Urne is how they splice together harsh corrosion with intricate intellectualism. This is pounding, noisy heavy metal, there is no denying that, but is it shot through with the most thought-provoking complicated textures. They avoid the usual monotone sensibilities of our music and instead craft an elaborate and wonderfully sophisticated labyrinth of contrasting passages and sounds. There is also plenty of raw emotion at play. As ever bassist, vocalist and general good guy Joe Nally is brutally honest about the emotional magnitude of their material. When introducing the Burden, he deadpans that it is a sad song from a sad album. Wearing his heart on his sleeves he seems to relive his personal traumas as he screams out the lyrics. Part testimonial and part therapeutic outlet he shares the torrid recesses of his soul with the audience in a way that is genuinely moving. But there is also a ying to his vulnerable yang. In between songs he is charismatically affable, bantering with the Scottish contingent in the crowd, decrying the scene of their previous Mancunian show (Satan’s Hollow)  and even dedicating ‘Desolate Heart’ to us at Rockflesh (we have spent the last five years telling anybody who will listen how brilliant they are).

In many ways you don't need any other bands when you have got Urne. The six tracked aired (an equal brace from each of their two albums) consist of twisty turny journeys through the different connotations and musical dexterity of that we call metal. Angus Neyra guitar work is outstanding, he may be small of stature, but he manages to ring an astonishing array of various and diverse notes out of his instrument. The music constantly builds and shifts, continually contorting in shape and style. They already possess an incredible and outstanding body of music but the scope of their creativity means the best is probably still to come. 

Urne and Kvelertak made a rather interesting bedfellows. The former lounge in their cerebral nature, whilst the latter are anarchistic bedlam from the off. As said above, their six-year exile from this country (yes, we know there was a pandemic in the middle) has meant that we have all probably forgotten just how riotously wonderful they are. This is Black n ’Roll, a bastardised concoction that on paper looks like a really bad idea but on the stage is a cacophony of goodtime vibes. Every minute of their hour-plus set length happens at a hundred miles an hour. It is a ludicrously unkept maelstrom of wild energy.

The room itself becomes a boiling pot of gesticulating bodies and wild abandonment. There is something raw and organic about their sound. It bypasses all the sensory zones and goes straight to your feet. It is a rebel-rousing call to arms to fuck politics, art, mundane day jobs and all other distractions and dance like nobody's watching or at least nobody cares. The atmosphere is utterly electric from start to finish and sweeps up all in attendance in its sweaty embrace. It is now Ivar’s band and Ivar’s house and he rules the roost with utter conviction. By second track ‘Blodtørst’ he has already left the stage and is cavorting with the front rows, being lifted aloft and carried around the pit. He repeats this party trick again and again as the set rambles on, gleefully breaking the fourth wall between the band and audience.

Kvelertak’s collective superpower is to craft great rock songs. The loss of Erlend does not seem to have curbed that ability as the material from the two post-Hjelvik albums (“Splid” and “Endling”) are as potent as the earlier songs. In fact it is impossible to gage from the audience reaction where the dividing line between “new stuff” and more established material is. Every track is greeted like it is the greatest of greatest hits and the pit swirls around in appreciation no matter where the song comes from. They are great rock songs because they lean on the simplistic minimalism of three chords played in a repetitive loop. In many ways Kvelertak are an aggressive AC/DC, good-time boogie but with extra bite. 

As a set it starts in fifth gear and just accelerates. By the time we reach the final salvo of tracks, nobody cares what tomorrow brings or the state of the world we are currently collectively ignoring. We are all caught up in the utter escapism of the whole endeavour. Ivar commands that we should know ‘Bruane Brenn’ from the second album before once more launching himself headfirst into the front rows. The ludicrously catchy tones of ‘Mjød’ follow and even the staff from downstairs sneak in to witness the wanton mayhem. There is no encore, there rarely is. Instead ‘Bråtebrann’ sees a final bout of lunacy from Ivar as he chucks the contents of the remaining water bottle all over the crowd then proceeds to ring out his soaking T-shirt and drink the dregs dripping from it. Utterly bonkers but absolutely brilliant.

Kvelertak might have missed that moment in time when they seemed poised to be the biggest band on earth, but that doesn't matter. They are an astonishing and absolutely life-affirming live proposition. Tonight they prove nothing has changed, in fact the passage of time means they are an even more frenetic and an unpredictable proposition. They take the music we love and just inject it with nitro-glycerine. A bombastic marvel of a performance that will live on in the memory, just don’t please leave it so long next time. Please!

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Kvelertak + Urne