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Concert Review – Volbeat (RBC Echo Beach, Toronto, ON, 07/12/2023)

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A perfect summer night in Toronto always demands a good dosage of first-class Rock N’ Roll, and Volbeat provided their fans in the city with exactly what they needed to enjoy it to the fullest.

OPENING ACT: Halestorm

I’ll start this review by saying that the city of Toronto definitely needs more open air concerts and festivals during the summer. It’s such a great vibe and feeling, and everyone always has an amazing time. It’s hard to understand why there are very few rock and metal concerts like that in the city. Well, last night at the RBC Echo Beach that great atmosphere happened once again when HALESTORM and VOLBEAT kicked some serious ass with the first concert of their brand new Servant of the Road World Tour 2023, and all the action going on and off stage turned it into a memorable night for everyone who were desperate for some good old Rock N’ Roll and Heavy Metal (as most bands seem to be playing at the famous European festivals at the moment, completely ignoring Toronto and the rest of Canada right now).

The weather was beyond perfect, we all had a nice view of the CN Tower in the background, and shortly after 7pm Lzzy Hale and her henchmen, collectively known as Red Lion, Pennsylvania, United States-based Hard Rock/Rock N’ Roll outfit HALESTORM, hit the stage for a very energetic and fun performance, beautifully warming up the crowd for the main attraction of the night, Volbeat. Currently promoting their 2022 album Back from the Dead, the quartet put on a flawless show playing songs from their entire career, with songs like I Miss the Misery and the closing one The Steeple inspiring everyone at the RBC Echo Beach to raise their horns together with the band. Lzzy has some respectful pipes, we all must admit that, as the girl can powerfully sing and scream without any effort, but let’s say it was her brother Arejay who stole the show with a spot-on drum solo, even using some giant drumsticks that looked like baseball bats. In other words, when Halestorm take your city by storm, you better be there to witness one of the best bands of the current Rock N’ Roll scene.

Setlist
I Miss the Misery
Love Bites (So Do I)
I Get Off
Wicked Ways
Freak Like Me
Familiar Taste of Poison
Takes My Life
Drum Solo
Back From the Dead
Mayhem
The Steeple

Band members
Lzzy Hale – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, piano
Joe Hottinger – lead guitar, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Josh Smith – bass, keyboards, piano, backing vocals
Arejay Hale – drums, backing vocals

VOLBEAT

It was around 9pm when Copenhagen, Denmark’s own Heavy Metal/Rock N’ Roll institution VOLBEAT kicked off their Servant of the Road World Tour 2023 in North America with a beyond fun and thrilling performance. By the way, it was their first performance in the city since 2019 when they played alongside Behemoth, Gojira and Slipknot, and it was more than clear how eagerly all fans had been waiting to see Volbeat live again. In addition, if you follow the band you probably know that with the departure of longtime guitarist Rob Caggiano in the beginning of June the whole tour almost had to be cancelled, but thanks to the talented Danish guitarist Flemming C. Lund (of bands like Temple of Scorn and The Arcane Order), who stepped in and learned all songs in just a few weeks, the band will be able to follow their schedule without any issues. Kudos to Flemming for being so professional, skillful, charismatic, and also for sporting a nice The Number of the Beast shirt on his first-ever concert with Volbeat! UP THE IRONS, FLEMMING!

Back to the concert itself, Volbeat ignited their breathtaking performance with the classic The Devil’s Bleeding Crown, winning the hearts of the fans right away and making it extremely easy for them to keep the energy level truly high until the very end, blending classics the likes of Seal the Deal and Lola Montez with the new songs from their 2021 album Servant of the Mind, those being Temple of Ekur, Shotgun Blues, The Devil Rages On, Becoming and Wait a Minute My Girl, and by the way all sounded amazing live and inspired the crowd to start some sick and frantic circle pits. As I always say, all metalheads in Toronto love circle pits, period. The song Black Rose, featuring the one and only Danko Jones as a guest vocalist, and Hallelujah Goat, one of my favorite Volbeat songs of all time, also helped to elevate the level of adrenaline on and off stage, proving Volbeat are a band who was born to play live.

I must admit the circle pit action was a little scary due to the type of floor at the RBC Echo Beach, which is not sand in case you’re curious to know, but pure, hard and rough cement, and every single time someone fell to the floor the word “merthiolate” would come to my mind. Fortunately, nothing truly serious happened, and all the kids and veterans who bravely entered the pit had some memorable moments inside of it. Well, not everyone, as Kevin, brother of my buddy Keith Ibbitson of Lower Eastside Photography, was hit by surprise and had his nose broken and swollen, requiring first-aid attention from the Live Nation medical staff. We can’t say it wasn’t a memorable moment for him, right? Jokes aside, I’m sure he’ll recover quickly and get back in action inside the pit at any future concert in the city.

The encore by Michael Poulsen and his henchmen was awesome as expected, starting with the classic Fallen, which he always dedicates to his deceased father Jørn Poulsen, followed by the aforementioned Wait a Minute My Girl, For Evigt (which Michael mentioned is about enjoying our lives), and of course ending with Still Counting, where Michael asked everyone at the RBC Echo Beach to sing its lyrics along with him. After all was said and done, everyone had a big smile on their faces due to the stunning performance by Volbeat, but due to the preparations for the Honda Indy in Toronto this weekend most fans had to find some extra inner fuel for a very long walk to the parking lots as we couldn’t simply cross through the BMO Field like countless times before. That wasn’t entirely bad or boring because the view of the city and the lake were fantastic, and of course I guess everyone was still singing one of the songs from Volbeat inside their heads to conclude another excellent Wednesday of summer in Toronto.

Setlist
The Devil’s Bleeding Crown
Temple of Ekur
Seal the Deal
Lola Montez
Die to Live
Ring of Fire
Sad Man’s Tongue
Shotgun Blues
Mary Ann’s Place
Black Rose
Hallelujah Goat
The Devil Rages On
Becoming

Encore:
Fallen
Wait a Minute My Girl
For Evigt
Still Counting

Band members
Michael Poulsen – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
Flemming C. Lund – lead guitar, backing vocals
Kaspar Boye Larsen – bass, backing vocals
Jon Larsen – drums

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Album Review – Swine Overlord / Parables of Umbral Transcendence (2014)

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Get ready for 40 minutes of sheer savagery with this Guttural Brutal Slamming Death Metal band from the United States.

Rating5

SwineOverlordcdcover000If you’re one of those people who feel something is not right if you suddenly start yawning while listening to a heavy music album, no matter which song is playing, consequently changing the music to something more berserk, then Parables of Umbral Transcendence, the debut album by American Guttural Brutal Slamming Death Metal band Swine Overlord might be exactly what you need to feed your inner beast, always eager for the meanest type of metal you can think of.

Formed in December 2011 under the name Malignant Abomination, what once started as a project quickly evolved to a more serious and professional band, changing the name to Hypoxic and then one last time to Swine Overlord. On Halloween of 2012, the band released their first EP entitled Anthologies of Abomination (re-released in 2013 by Gore House Productions), and now in 2014 they’re finally releasing a full-length album which overflows furious riffs, blasting beats and blood-curdling vocals, including special appearances by guitarist/vocalist Mike O’Hara (Splattered Entrails), vocalist Josh Smith (Gutfucked), Hunter Pate, and vocalist Richard “Yeti” Kirk (Abdicate).

Swine Overlord’s  bestial sonic assault starts with Celestial Purge, with its Cannibal Corpse-ish riffs and drums as fast as a machine gun, followed by the even more insane Transformation and Rebirth, where the guttural vocals reach some really deep notes. This song is pure slamming and as brutal as one can imagine, which makes me wonder how just three musicians can generate so much violence in such a short period of time. Although the instrumental track Convergence slows things down a bit, even with its strong bass lines, it ends up working more like an intro to the next song, Post-Burial Defloration, which “desperate” sonority will be too disturbing for people not used to this type of music. Moreover, pay attention to the excellent double bass by drummer Devin Alford and to the last part of the song, these details are both very important to its overall quality.

Falsum Messias keeps up with the sheer brutality by Swine Overlord with its more melodic guitar lines, becoming some pure headbanging after two minutes, while Bleeding the Sinful is indeed a great song for fans of brutal music, with its vocals sounding so vile and devilish sometimes it can be really disturbing for the faint of heart. That can also be said about Chunks, where the whole band keeps the energy bar high with another technical and brutal performance. How amazingly violent would this song sound during a live concert?

Swine O PicThe next part of the album is composed by the excellent Cadaveric Pantomime, a song full of fuckin’ awesome riffs by guitarist Will Peplinski, in which Swine Overlord managed to sound even heavier than all previous tracks; Umbral Transcendence, with its heavy bass intro and more of the band’s characteristic brutal drumming and vocals; and the nice rhythmic breaks in Dissiliency, with highlights to the awesome job done by drummer Devin Alford, giving the song a lot more intensity.

Lastly, those North American metallers still have fuel left for more insanity with the violent Porkchop, The Man-Butcher (an interesting name for a song, by the way), where riffs and vocals go along flawlessly, followed by the headbanging track Dismantling the Flesh Construct, and finally what can be considered the darkest song of the entire album, Seeds of a Treacherous Creation, where it’s very interesting to follow the fast drumming blended with more obscure passages, and once again terrific guttural vocals that sound like if singer Anthony Davis was possessed by a demon.

In summary, with Parables of Umbral Transcendence, which is available for purchase at the official Gore House Productions webshop and as a digital album at the Gore House Productions BandCamp page, Swine Overlord summarize everything one needs to know about cruelty and brutality in 40 minutes of very raw and technical Death Metal. Furthermore, if they keep loyal to their principles and maintain that level of quality in their ruthless musicality, we will surely start seeing those guys kicking ass in different cities, venues and festivals pretty soon, injecting some much needed violence to the music industry, especially to the boring and stale U.S. market.

Best moments of the album: Celestial Purge, Falsum Messias and Cadaveric Pantomime.

Worst moments of the album: Convergence and Umbral Transcendence.

Released in 2014 Gore House Productions

Track listing
1. Celestial Purge 3:22
2. Transformation and Rebirth 1:49
3. Convergence 1:41
4. Post-Burial Defloration 5:14
5. Falsum Messias 4:00
6. Bleeding the Sinful 4:11
7. Chunks 3:11
8. Cadaveric Pantomime 3:09
9. Umbral Transcendence 2:51
10. Dissiliency 3:34
11. Porkchop, The Man-Butcher 3:31
12. Dismantling the Flesh Construct 3:03
13. Seeds of a Treacherous Creation 2:42

Band members
Anthony Davis – vocals
Will Peplinski – guitars, bass
Devin Alford – vocals, drums