Live Review: Frozen Soul & Supports, Rebellion, Manchester

It’s Valentine’s Day and Rebellion in Manchester is for lovers…

Lovers of gnarly, Texan old school death metal that is…

Up first Disengagement serves up spirited proper old school death metal with traditional meatiness. To give these local lads their dues they deliver the feral goods early on and get those heads banging! Really getting into their stride on their mid paced grooves, it’s a heartening display of youthful brutality. Their frontman definitely deserves maximum respect for “giving it beans” as some of my Scottish slam friends would say with his impassioned performance driving the band forward as one to watch in the future certainly.

Finland’s, Foreseen are a hardcore influenced thrashing force with a healthy dose of Oi! hardcore punk and dual guitar solo madness. With all the subtlety of a breeze block their chaotic charge is as striking as their militant look. The pit takes its cues from the chaotic adrenaline-charged performance and the first stage divers of the night duly oblige! When they get into their Agnostic Front-esque thrashy stomp it’s a very gratifying set that makes a few converts out of the Mancunian pit fiends. Recent album title track ‘Untamed Force’ shows great development with Slayer lead riffing matching the gang vocals and raw punk delivery.

Texans Creeping Death are definitely old school death metal through and through, grimy, gnarly and every box ticked as they burst onstage with tracks like ‘Boundless Domain’ and the wonderfully titled ‘Intestinal Wrap’, heavy, fuzzing doomy riffing intersects the furious breakneck speed blasting. In frontman Reese they have a great classic death metal vocalist, and it never hurts to have a guitarist in your ranks, throwing their mighty dreadlocks about that also can nail roundhouse kicks and not knock anyone out! Mostly concentrating on their ‘Boundless Domain’ opus both new and old tracks are embraced equally and their buzzsaw riffs literally cut through the mix sounding serrated and genuinely dangerous. Creeping Death have definitely got the death metal hardcore on their side and rightly so! We can’t fault their total commitment to authentic old school vibes and it at times really does feel like you’ve been transported back to the golden era of the young death metal scene. Critically when it comes to this old school style catchiness is a quality often overlooked, but not by Creeping Death they have rafts of hummable memorable riffs, it sounds like an odd thing to say but it’s definitely an important staple ingredient that lifts the great from the good and tonight Creeping Death are great!

Frozen Soul, appear out of the darkness of Rebellion’s underbelly and dominate from the off with a heavy as hell, ‘Invisible Tormentor’. Boasting crystal clear sound and a clarity that sets their sound apart. Most heartening though is the fact that for a band called Frozen Soul there’s an undeniable warm Texan hospitality to the band, frontman Chad Green is very community focused and at the same time as inciting feral moshing, urges the crowd to look out for each other and exudes family values and a generous welcoming demeanor for someone so scary sounding, Huge grooves and razor sharp frosty riffing from last year’s incredible ‘Glacial Domination’, wholly enrapture the chaotic ram packed crowd, and Creeping Death’s Reese joins the onstage carnage, the drum sound is totally solid with precision kicks bludgeoning the whirling crowd. In a moment of levity, it seems Frozen Soul have brought a mini snow machine with them which puts huge grins on the faces of the singer and front row as it all happened so fast, we thought there had been a mishap with the plumbing! The band tonight have all the force of a death metal Woolly Mammoth with a big heart and much bigger riffs! The Manchester crowd are definitely a crazy bunch and with Frozen Soul demanding stage diving (because that’s what this music is for) we held on for dear life at the front but with death metal this surgically intense it was definitely a shot in the arm for the massive showing who attended on a midweek Valentine’s Day evening in Manchester!