When I revealed to my kids that the band I was reviewing this evening was less than a handful of years older than they are, there were much cries of derision and solemn predictions that I would be the oldest person in the room by a good few decades.  The actual truth is Metal's evolution is a funny old beast and alongside teens worshipping at the altar of artists old enough to be the Grandparents, it is also as usual to find a room full of seasoned metallers getting rather overexcited about a bunch of younglings chronologically able to be their grandchildren. Tortured Demon have both outgrown and discarded the novelty tag. The crowd this evening are not here to voyeuristically gaup at the unfeasibly young metal band, they are here simply because Tortured Demon are the most exciting bands to arise in this country in years.

Unburier hail from Yeovil in Somerset and drip with malignant heaviness. They combine the tumultuous speed of thrash with the corrosive carnal power of Death Metal. It’s crass and corrosive but there is also a heightened level of technicality that shines through. Blake Hibberd’s soloing is astonishing. He shreds like a man possessed, full of proficiency and pedigree.

Sprawling epic ‘618’ gets curtailed midway through by pesky technical gremlins but the band handle the divergence well. Ben and Uther treat the clearly enrapt audience to a Metallica-tinged Jam whilst their bandmate twiddles with wires. Normal service is resumed and they hurtle along with a short but highly effective set.

As with many bands of their age, what is so exciting is their potential. If truth be told they are yet to write a truly memorable track capable of lifting them out of the toilet circuit, but you can tell all the right pieces are there. They urge us to buy merch so they can fund their next EP and I for one cannot wait to hear where they go next.

In my day job (the charity healthcare world) we would describe an overly ambitious person as “wearing the clothes of the job that they want as opposed to the job that they are currently doing”. This is eminently true of Red Method. Their combined look is astounding and far overreaches their current status of half way up the bill in a 300-capacity venue, They have clearly decided that style is a crucial element of their DNA and plumped for a “if we look like we should be headlining Wembley Arena then we will surely end up headlining Wembley Arena” mentality.

Sandwiched between a trio and foursome they are keeping up the cumulative total of band members for the evening by being a sextet. Academy 3 is not blessed with the biggest of stages, which means that there is quite a lot of circumventing and choreographed shuffling as they try to maintain a frontline of five gesticulating members. Their dual vocalists solve the spatial dilemma by spending as much time off the stage as they do on it. They are undoubtedly powerful live proposition and all six members delight in pontificating and hyping up the crowd with delirious enthusiasm.

The Slipknot influences are not just obvious but worn with pride on their designer paint-splattered sleeves. There is enough pride in and self-awareness of the similarities for them to take the sit down and jump of malarkey and make it very much their own. Musically there are numerous points where it feels like we are watching a Slipknot tribute act play material from a mythical never-released album that would have existed between “Iowa” and “Subliminal Verses”.

There is a real familiarity to Red Method that makes them such an enticing and at times intoxicating live phenomenon. They have no interest in pushing any envelopes or stretching the boundaries and instead provide 45 minutes of pure entertainment. They might be as original as a Gucci bag bought at a flea market, but when you are having this much fun, who cares?

If Red Method are about the show then their co-headliner Tortured Demon are very much about the music. The beauty of regularly seeing a band at this stage in their fledgling evolution is that you can clearly see their development before your eyes. Every Tortured Demon show I witness is better than the previous one and that is because they are becoming better musicians on a day-by-day basis. They are yet to flatline into a plateau of self-satisfied mediocrity and we get to witness in the flesh a band honing their stagecraft.

Tonight, they are utterly magnificent. Having bossed the place at Bloodstock (you can watch our interview here) they exude a level of newfound confidence. The rabbit in headlights jitters have now gone and have been replaced by a well-oiled slick riff machine built for stages much bigger than this one. Their expansions to a four-piece means that there is so much depth to their sound. “In Desperation's Grip” brimmed with potent potential but, if I'm honest, felt thin in places. However, two years down the track ‘The Invasion’, ‘A Knee to the Face of Corruption’ and the title track all feel like they have been reborn. As I said the band are simply far far better musicians now than they were when they recorded their debut and tonight all three of the visits to it are quite simply revelation. 

And we haven't even got to the stuff from “Rise of the Lifeless”. At their second go of putting a bunch of songs together, they have managed to achieve something that other acts spend a whole career trying to achieve, and that's to write bonafide bangers. ‘Disfavour’ is an absolute anthem. It's a track designed to be screamed along to with absolute gusto. The fact that it's been concocted by a bunch of lads who were less than a decade ago wandering around the house in Mr Tumble pyjamas is frankly astonishing and incredibly scary.

The crowd response is utterly remarkable. Their peers sprint around in circles fuelled by youthful excess and the subsidised bar downstairs. The older contingent of the crowd stand on the outskirts of the undulating pit, nodding their heads wisely in affirmation and support. One of the most ingratiating things about Tortured Demon is that there is still a huge amount of humility at play. Jacob regularly looks gobsmacked by the reaction that he and his band members are being afforded. He composes himself immaculately, but it is blindingly obvious that he is massively moved by the outpouring of adulation. There are no false pretences here and there is something wonderful about seeing them at this stage where they are yet to take anything for granted.

The aforementioned ‘A Knee to the Face of Corruption’ closes the show and as they enter its final slow-paced segment, Jacob casually enquires whether anybody smokes anymore? The answer is a flurry of lighters held aloft and you can tell that their collective hearts are about to burst. This is how you do a hometown show. They manage to wrench out the emotion without once tipping over into mawkish. Most importantly they demonstrate that the hype is real and prove all of us who have been picking them up for the last couple of years right. As I keep saying you think they good now, you wait until they get to album cycle number three…..

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Tortured Demon, Red Method, Unburier