Pagan Altar, The Lamp of Thoth

Fri 5 October 2007 – Pagan Altar, The Lamp Of Thoth

On Friday night, Ste, Liam and I travelled off across to Yorkshire to see Doom Metal legends of yore, Pagan Altar play one of their two shows this year (The other being down in London).

Arriving at the Fenton quite early, we sunk a few pints of their (rather excellent) Guinness in the beer garden listening to Pagan Altar's soundcheck, before making our way back upstairs to watch the support band, The Lamp of Thoth.

This was the first time I'd heard Lamp of Thoth, although I'd been hearing good things about them for a while, especially from Liam in the car on the way down; he was telling me the whole story about where the name "The Lamp of Thoth" comes from, and I was more than impressed.

Proper old style, rocky doom, with eccentric evil vocals from vocalist The Overtly Melancholic Lord Strange and awesome leads from guitarist Randy Reaper.

NWOBHM-styled stuff, with an overall doomy feel. An awesome cover of Cirith Ungol's Frost and Fire to close the set as well; I picked up a copy of their Cauldron of Withcery 10 inch EP as well.
This is a band who I'm going to keep an eye out to go and see them again, they were fucking awesome.

If what I had been told, this was Pagan Altar's first gig for twenty five years or something, and we were lucky enough to be amongst the 25 people who paid to see it (like I say, I only counted 18. Trve Kvlt).
I can honestly say I wasn't too sure what to expect of the most cultishly followed of all doom bands after such a lengthy lay off; but any fears were alleviated when we were sat in the beer garden listening to them soundcheck The Wake of Amadeus.

The lineup includes original members Terry and Alan Jones on vocals and guitars respectively and have been helped out on this tour by Rich "Militia" Walker on guitars.
Terry's nasal vocals were on top form (even if he did miss his cue to come in on one track, but for god's sake it's been 25 years) and it was amazing.

A big, shit-eating grin isn't something that's often associated with Doom Metal, but I had one on my face for the entire set. "Black Mass", "Sentinels of Hate", "Black Mass", "Pagan Altar" no "Time Lord" but they did play for over 100 minutes.

A Mythical and Magical night indeed, true thanks go to the Miskatonic Foundation.

Ravens Creed, Leeds Fenton, May 26th 2008

We knew it was going to be a good one.
It was a bank holiday and we were all off, we'd been invited to a barbecue at our friend Diz's (who has moved from Liverpool to Leeds).
We travelled down in the afternoon, stopping off on Saddleworth Moor but not finding any bodies.


We were a bit too early for Dizzy's party, so we popped along to see Dawn and Mark and Ben and Amy on the way, finally rolling up to Diz's just in time to be spoiled rotten with the spread of vegan and vegetarian (with meat for Skum and SJW) food they had prepared. Nice one Diz, it was great to see you again and meet your better half at last too!
So from here we popped up to the Fenton to meet up with Dean and get into some beer.
"Irish" John even popped in, fresh from the Planet X 25th Anniversary celebrations in Liverpool the day before, looking all windswept and dramatic.

I missed the first band, and I wasn't into the second one, sorry. Another band had to pull out for some reason or another, so after a few pints it was time for Ravens Creed.

Ravens Creed feature members of Orange Goblin, Iron Monkey, Cerebral Fix, Sabbat (UK), Skyclad.... a total who's who of the true! But put aside any idea you may have of what they sound like, it's pure early thrash worship here, total Venom/old Slayer style stuff with an unmistakably British swagger.

The crowd was a bit sparse (it was Bank Holiday Monday like I say) but those of us that had bothered to turn up were treated to war-obsessed, serial killer thrash metal, all held together with some fucking amazing drumming from Jay Graham.
Every time I turned to look at Dean he was just like "...drums..." haha.

Ravens Creed should really be massive, with all this fake nu-thrash that's currently doing the trendy magazine rounds, they could blow them all away with a true love for the music and a proper thrash metal pedigree, but they'll probably stay ultra underground in England, because this country wouldn't know a good thing if it drank all their beer, kicked it out of it's own house, then pissed in the fireplace.

Watch them, they're top notch, squire.
(extra claw points to SJW for pulling the car over on the hard shoulder of the M62 Motorway in the dead of night and making the Thee Claw strut up and down to AC/DC's "It's a Long Way To The Top" whilst trucks and cars hurtled past at 90-odd miles an hour)
Link:Ravens Creed