Live Review : Xentrix + Damnation’s Hammer + Tortured Demon @ Academy 3, Manchester on April 30th 2022

Due to guest list shenanigans, we only get down to the Club Academy (or cellar as it was known in my day) for the second half of Tortured Demon’s set. Annoying, but on the bright side we still get to see three tracks. Putting aside their youth, the most captivating thing about Tortured Demon is that they perfectly capture the raw turbulent energy that thrash was initially all about. They may be rough around the edges, and they may in places feel unrefined, but none of that matters because what they have at their heart is a chaotic connectivity that makes them a delicious live proposition. 

Their pit is a wonderful collusion of generations. There are their peers (and probably classmates), resplendent in Tortured Demon t-shirts and stoked to see their mates up on a big stage. Then there are those my age who remember the frenzied, anarchistic power of British thrash when it broken in the mid to last eighties and see Tortured Demon as a means to recapture that dynamism. The pit swirls and is a flurry of limbs and collective voice.

Tortured Demon depict what was so edifying and enlightening about thrash metal in the first place, but they manage to do so in a way that is not backward looking. They are not perfect yet, but you get the distinct feeling that they have the potential to be. They have drive, they have vitality, but most of all they have a stage presence that contradicts their young age. For the fifteen minutes that I witness, they own the place, beautifully mixing humility with terrifying confidence. There is something brewing here, and the most exciting thought is that they have the time to grow into it. They are fantastic now, lord what they will they be like in their early twenties…. 

It I am going to honest; Damnation’s Hammer feel a bit out of place. Their dark doom-laden metal is beautifully rendered, but it lacks the frantic momentum of the bands that they are sandwiched between. Therefore, no matter how faithful they are to the blueprint set out by Trouble and Candlemass, you can see the collective attention span of the audience slip away. The guitar work is pristine and deliciously bluesy with a dark unsettling core. But this is music to stand and be engulfed by. Sadly, this is Saturday night in Manchester and the audience doesn’t want Celtic Frost type avant-gardness, they want music to create circle pits to. They don’t get a negative reaction and, as I keep saying, what they do isn’t bad at all, it is just that you get the distinct feeling that they don’t quite fit on this bill.

Thrash is highly undervalued for how it rejuvenated metal in the mid-eighties. In many ways it was our punk, as it inspired hordes of spotty snotty youths to go forth and form bands. There was a bit of an arms race here in the UK to build a homegrown scene. Enthused by what was happening in the states, British acts started popping up all over the shop. Allegiances started to be built as each raced to amass their fanbases. For me Onslaught felt too old school, Sabbat took it all a bit too seriously and Acid Reign didn’t take seriously enough. But Xentrix! I adored Xentrix and made a beeline to see them whenever the meagre earnings from my Saturday job allowed it. There was a youthful exuberance to what they were doing, but also a distinct uniqueness. They weren’t trying to be Anthrax or Slayer and I loved them for that.  

Having been in an 80’s band with a modicum of a following may well be the ultimate pension plan, as here they are nearly thirty-five later. The hair is greyer, and the builds are larger, but Jesus have they still got that liveliness that I found so infectious all those many moons ago. Those that had wandered off during Damnation’s Hammer to do some knitting or read some Tolstoy are back and the front is a tight, taut cauldron of colliding bodies. Xentrix choose to wisely ignore their questionable third and fourth albums and instead we get a set made up exclusively from their ground-breaking debut and sophomore releases and a couple of droplets from 2019’s remarkably agile comeback record.

From start to finish Xentrix are utterly resplendent. Songs that I adored as a teen (‘Kept in the Dark’, ‘Crimes’, ‘Black Embrace’) are given additional frisson, as in the intervening years they have frankly become better musicians. Kristian Havard’s fret work now sounds solid and assured. The riffs burn out of his guitar, undeniably thrash but also unmistakably Xentrix. They may well be playing songs written decades ago, but this is no nostalgia act. The number of younglings that are participating in the fury of the pit or flinging themselves over the barrier prove that Xentrix do indeed have relevance in today’s world.

Jacob of Tortured Demon is welcomed back on stage to take lead vocals on a cover of ‘Damage Inc’ and there is something immensely enchanting to see that shared adoration. They maybe generations apart, but every single musician on that stage belting out the Metallica classic were motivated to pick up their instrument by the bay area titans. The special guest theme continues as Kristian reels off a roll call of bands they played with back in the day. Some, he states, are still with us but others have bitten the dust. One of those late lamented outfits he cites as being Bradford’s Slammer and with that a remarkably well-preserved Paul Tunnicliffee takes the stage. With a poignant “This is for Milo” (in reference to the group’s original guitarist Milo Zivanovic who passed away in 2020) they dive straight into a stomping version of ‘Tenement Zone’. Slammer were always unashamedly political, and that righteous anger still seems to burn strong. A wonderful emotional wrought moment that certainly brought a tear to the eye of those of certain age.

They close with the frenetic and feverish brilliance that is ‘No Comprise’. Hasty and built for speed, in three hectic minutes it encompasses all that was and still is wonderful about Xentrix. From its opening notes it hurtles headlong towards its conclusion, but it does so with such wonderful musical capability. Xentrix embraced thrash’s breakneck speed, but they also knew it was important to have the song structures right. Therefore, it is embellished with a chorus you can scream along with, and we all do. There is no encore, just lots of jovial thank you’s and handing out of plectrums. Far from being a paragraph in a where are they now file, Xentrix tonight proved that in their dotage they are still as magnificent as they ever were.