Live Review : Enslaved + High On Fire @ Academy 2, Manchester on October 8th 2018

Enslaved and High on Fire make for interesting tour bedfellows. The former are the thinking person’s Black Metal band. Pedalling an intricate, complex and subtle take on a musical genre that can be rather harsh and one dimensional. On the other hand High on Fire are the drinking persons Doom band, offering up a guttural, primitive and brutally direct take on what can often be an introspective genre.

In this double bill of the extremities of extreme music, High on Fire are first on and from the word go they take complete control of the evening. Over the duration of their ten song set there is very little deviation from their tried and tested formula of furious riffing and in that sense High on Fire are very much a one trick pony, but when that one trick is colossal bone-shattering monolithic riffs then this level of repetition is forgivable. Tonight they are (pardon the pun) on fire, this may be slow downed Status Quo or sped up Black Sabbath (depending on which way you look at it) but there is no doubt that tonight they totally own the room. As I keep saying it is all about those riffs, but believe me they are good. With each track the energy and momentum builds and by the time we reach the final salvo of Fury Whip, Snakes Divine and Electric Messiah you can literally see the electricity fizzle from Matt Pikes’ fingertips as they dance up and down the fretboard. There is an intensity, confidence and self-assurance about High on the Fire live that is infectious, what they do may not be particularly groundbreaking but God do they do it well and God don't they know it. 

To say that Enslaved struggle to follow High on Fire would be an understatement. Firstly, half the crowd disappears as the entirety of High on Fire’s highly charged mosh pit decide they have better things to do on a Monday night, those who remain show mild interest as opposed to any sense of adoration. Secondly Enslaved are cursed with a horrendous sound for the first half an hour. Intricate and subtlety beautiful tracks like ‘Roots of the Mountain’ and the usually stunning ‘Ruun’ are reduced to an unlistenable mess with all the nuanced time-changes beaten into submission by a hideous mix. It is only half way through ‘Storm Son’ from new album ‘E’ that the sound system finally starts to do any sort of justice to Enslaved’s highly complex sound.

Thirdly all attempts by usually charismatic frontman Grutle Kjellson to engage with the rapidly thinning crowd fail miserably. Monty Python references sail over heads and heckles are met with embarrassing timid responses as opposed to razorwire wit. Enslaved can be engaging and infectious, tonight they seem on the back foot from their first note. Fourthly the set is a bizarre mix of lengthy prog tinged tracks from the last brace of albums and seldom aired tracks from their first album and EP, back when they were a proper Christian baiting Black Metal band. Whilst I greet the reappearance of ‘Jutonblod’ and ‘Allfadar Odinn’ with the reverence that they deserve, their primal roar jars against the depth and the sophistication of the songs from E, ‘Rittir’ and ‘Ruun’.

I love Enslaved and have seen them be nothing short of majestic, but tonight the sheer brilliance of High on Fire takes the wind out their sails and they never recover. Coupled with shoddy sound and a painfully thin crowd it means that this is very much not their evening.