Live Review : The Halo Effect + Pain + Bloodred Hourglass @ Club Academy, Manchester on January 24th 2025

You can tell the quality of something by how it ends. Usually shows grind to a halt in the same anodyne fashion. There are the habitual thank you’s, the obligatory picture for Facebook and then the un-ceremonial shuffle off stage to finish off the rider. Not tonight. Tonight is both extraordinary and quintessentially spontaneous. The Halo Effect’s final track of the evening, ‘Shadowmind’, shudders to a halt and something really quite special unfurls. For a good five minutes the band stay on the stage, faces plastered with gleeful emotion venerating the audience as much as the audience is venerating them. 

In a world of synthetic facsimiles, it feels beautifully genuine and improvised. The man-mountains of Peter Iwers and Patrick Jensen seem particularly moved by the sheer emotion of the adulation. They throw themselves off the stage to interact with the heaving masses upfront who show no inclination of moving towards the exit. All the while instrumental track, ‘Coda’, plays in the background, instigating impulsive choral renditions of “whoa-hoa-hoa”. It is a special moment topping off a special evening.

The fact the whole event has an overarching air of joviality. Opener Bloodred Hourglass are spared the folded arms and universal indifference usually afforded to opening acts. Instead, the reaction they receive is open and embracing. Jaredi Koukonen is obviously taken aback by the warmth extruding from the heaving masses. Avoiding the usual platitudes, with great honesty he states that this is the best reaction they have had so far this tour and he is overjoyed to get their first circle pit on British soil. The reason that those here for the 7pm start are enjoying the band so much is because they are eminently enjoyable, it is as simple as that. They have taken the archetypal twin guitar sound and souped it up by giving it a third wheel.

The guitar work of Lauri Silvonen, Joni Lahdenkauppi and Eero Silvonen is frankly astonishing.  They spar between themselves creating a maelstrom of interlocking riffs and pulsating and punctuating solos. They find that sweet spot between commerciality and extremity. Jaredi Koukonen vocals are harsh and barked, but they lay upon the most beautifully constructed and melodic metal. The audience's interest in the band just builds and builds. By the time they reach the final track ‘Where the Sinners Crawl’, Jaredi is in a position where he can ask them to jump and is rewarded with a whole room full of bouncing individuals. It may well be their first ever UK tour, but they have indeed made some firm forever friends out there in the pit.

When we speak to the legend that is Peter Tägtgren (Interview here), he gives the impression that the size of the stage will lead to Pain having to scale back and even rethink their staging, if that is indeed the case then there is no outward impression that it has affected the quality of the show. Pain long ago stopped being a side project or temporary amusement. It is now as much Peter Tägtgren’s main band as is Hypocrisy. Tonight’s show is basically a truncated version of the one we were treated to at Rebellion back at the tail end of 2023, but if we are honest it is such a glorious head-first rush through eight albums of electro-metal goodness that it is easy to forgive a level of repetition. 

Peter is a sumptuous entertainer. His fingerprints are over the whole history of modern metal, and he knows how to work a crowd. He is effacing, bombastic and wonderfully self-derogatory. What seems to be a technical mishap at the end of ‘Call Me’, turns out to be a wonderfully choreographed piece of theatre to allow Sebastian Svalland to scream out the lyrics.  Aside from Peter’s infectious and alluringly caustic persona, what makes Pain so entertaining is the fact they traverse so many of metal’s byways and highways. Electro-metal is a massive canvas on which to play upon and this evening set showcases the vast diversity of the back catalogue.

For those seeking simili, there are tracks that sound like Rammstein, tracks that sound like a Latvian Eurovision entry and tracks that sound like the Prodigy on speed. But the unifying factor is that they sound like Pain, a playful and euphoric electro-romp. That irreverent playfulness is brought to the fore with ‘Party in Your Head’ and solidified with the blissfully tongue-in-cheek ‘Have a Drink on Me’, juxtaposing sides of Pain’s cheeky and flippant coin. Peter has been a rock star for so many years now that now that it just comes naturally. A beautifully boisterous set that once again proves that nobody's musical brain works quite like Peter Tägtgren’s.

To fully understand the genesis and the ethos behind the Halo Effect you need to listen to our Interview with Mikael Stanne (and that's not a sales pitch we promise). The Halo Effect is the band that should and could have been. Five mates who grew up in the same suburb of Gothenburg and hung out as teens in the same dingy nightclubs, finally 30 odd years later getting to make music together. There is a joyful abandonment about watching the Halo Effect and just seeing the utter euphoric enjoyment on their five faces. This is the juxtaposition to going through the motions; Mikael, Patrick, Peter, Niclas and Daniel are savouring every moment. They have been handed a once in a lifetime opportunity to relive their ill-gotten youths and be the band that got away.

That sense of jubilant gratification is infectious and instantaneously spills over into the heaving Club Academy. The reaction to the band is just astonishing. Every word is sung back, every refrain is reacted to and every note is drunk in. Pits can usually become a violent and belligerent place reserved only for those who take delight in kicking the merry shit out of another human being. Tonight is very different. Tonight the pit is actually an enraptured and blissful reaction to the music. It is populated by a diverse grouping, bewitched by the music and enslaved to elatedly move to its peak and troughs.

What is really interesting, and to a degree rather surprising, is that tonight’s attendee aren't actually a bunch of Dark Tranquillity and In Flames fan boys and girls tempted down out of curiosity. It is populated by The Halo Effect fans, here because they like The Halo Effect. They have fallen in love with the band because of what they are doing now, rather than what their respective members have done in the past. The response to every track is extraordinarily jubilant. With ‘The Needless End’, the hordes continue singing back the concluding refrain long after the song comes to an end. Mikael stands there in befuddled joy, not quite sure what to himself but utterly overcome with the exaltation they are receiving. After a few seconds, he manages to compose himself and state with obvious pride that we have managed to turn a rock gig into a football match.

It is not the only time that the audience tackles the track from the band and just runs with it in sheer reverence. ‘A Truth Worth Lying For’, is also exonerated to a higher plane. The way the crowd latches onto the songs illustrates the simplicity but simultaneous brilliance at the heart of the Halo Effect’s writing. They have used the fundamentals of melodic death to create a set of tracks that are majestic but also accessible. Melo-death was always about marrying the jaunty commerciality of 80’s maiden and priest with the heft and anguish of death metal. Mikael’s growled refrain eloquently interlinks with Patrick and Mikael’s astonishing guitar work.

With just two albums to their name, neither of which clock in at more than 45 minutes, this was always going to be a short set. Counterintuitively for a tour purportedly promoting their second album they choose to major on their first release, with every but one of its 11 tracks aired. The decision makes more sense when you realise that this is their first proper opportunity in a headline context to give it its deserved dues. The bottom line is both albums are brilliant and without wishing to be cruel on the current incarnation of In Flames, illustrate where the songwriting prowess really lay.

Everything is over far too soon. There are no band introductions, but to be honest if you do need to be reminded who's up on stage then you probably wouldn't be here in the first place. We do get two encores. A stunning trilogy of ‘Gateways’, ‘Last of Our kind’ and the debut’s title track and then the aforementioned final hurrah of ‘Shadowmind’. Then the moment we started this review with happens. It provides a fitting epilogue for the proceedings and proves that lives can very well have a second act.

The Halo Effect are not a supergroup as we understand it. This is not a nostalgic retread of past glories. This is five seasoned musicians providing an alternative history of what could have been. This is a brilliant reminder of their collective brilliance. Most importantly this is a reminder of how amazing melodic death can sound and the genius of those who created it. But as Mikael teases as he finally leaves the stage, the story is not over and we wait with baited breath for what comes next.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
The Halo Effect + Pain + Bloodred Hourglass