THE DEVIL'S CHURCH

The Devil's Church All-dayer.
Venue: Rio's Bradford
Line up: Druganaut/The Dead Ressurected/Domes of Silence/Severed Heaven/Arkham Witch/The Aftermath/Sigiriya/Ravens Creed

Last weekend we made the short trip over to Bradford to see a hellish lineup of bands at Rio's.
I was personally very excited because three of my favourite, and I feel most exciting, bands in the UK were going to be playing, and so it was that we arrived in West Yorkshire to a sountrack of Deep purple, Celtic Frost and a display of glorious sunshine, full of Theakston's Old Peculier.  Well, I was at least.

We arrived in time to go for a little stroll around, have a drink in The Empress and then a few more (ahem...can you see where this is going?) in Rios before the first band come on, Druganaut.
Filthy, downtuned, Northeast sludge that makes me feel even hotter and more uncomfortable than I am in the upstairs tin box of Rio's. Most enjoyable, although I don't seem to have any photos? Anyway, check out their page on Soundcloud for their EP Shake Your Bones.

Next up, The Dead Resurrected.

This was the first time I'd seen or heard them, playing some awesome, downtuned sludge and roll, The DEAD Ressurected feature an almost who's-who of metal, and make a damn good noise doing it. Really enjoyed the swampy grooves on offer here, well worth checking out!  Total filthdoom!


I now have a confession to make, after this set finished we went off in search of food and what have you, after all we had been on the road since early in the morning and needed real ale and felafel.
To this end, I missed Domes of Silence completely, and only got back around thirty seconds away from the end of Severed Heaven's set, sorry about that, we owe both of you a proper review.
But! We did venture over to the 1 in 12 in search of food and managed to get a guerrilla photo shoot of Yorkshire Anarcho punks Trauma Unit rehearsing....

Go and check them out if, like me, you like your punk a bit crusty!!!

Anyway, we had three of our favourite bands in the UK coming up after this, starting with the true metal stylings of Arkham Witch.  They play a brand of metal that is rooted firmly in the underground, but with enough of that unique quality that means they can literally appeal across genres.  From the punky NWOBHM singalong Let England Prevail through some more melancholy and dark tracks like Suicide 75, I enjoyed their set greatly.

Whenever I shake my head at another glossy metal mag with bands like the Black Veiled Brides on the cover, I console myself with the fact that my heavy metal is safe in the hands of people like Arkham Witch.

The Aftermath - Again, we completely missed these!! Apologies guys!! I can't even find a link to them anywhere online, any help would be appreciated!

Sigiriya were the next band I got to see, I'd been looking forward to seeing them for ages, and they were kind enough to let us hear their album Return to Earth before almost anybody else.

They sound so tight on the CD, and they ain't no slouches live either.  Sometimes bands have a problem transferring that to the stage but these guys are seamless together, my head was bobbing, my feet were tapping, my fists kept going up in the air involuntarily, I must have looked like I was having some kind of seizure to the untrained eye. awesome, you should all check them out if you haven't already.

One of the best bands in the UK right now, jamming your life to fuck.

Next up were Ravens Creed, who are, quite literally, my favourite band in the UK right now, and one of Thee Claw's definite favourites.  They come on stage and just literally tear through all their stuff; it's a good few songs in before newest member Al talks to the crowd.  Ravens Creed are an absolute fucking powerhouse onstage.

It's like I've jumped in a tardis and gone back in time to watch Venom play in a Geordie boozer.

Al patrols the stage like an angry doberman spitting out lyrics and rattling your fillings with roars, and its an absolute crying shame that there were so few people here to see this.

Panzer Maniac is the standout track of the set for me, and I can tell you this much, after they have played at the Live Evil festival, they will be talked about in hushed tones like Aura Noir et al, in short they will be everyone's favourite "true" band, and quite rightly so. Fraser and Jay fit together seamlessly, Jay's skills are as ever, ridiculous behind the kit, and Steve shreds right over them and together, they sound so unmistakenly British.

I heard that Kam Lee heard Nestless and Wild and it's what prompted him to try to get Massacre back together recently.

Ravens Creed are going to be everywhere soon, and you probably heard it here first.

Good on you lads, hurry up and come back!