Youthful exuberance is a thing we remember like a distant fog. No such problem for the bands tonight, though Tortured Demon are in their late teens/early twenties, and Inheritor have an average age of twenty-five. Both bands also display a musical maturity that is both startling and impressive. So we venture into the hallowed walls of this legendary venue with an excited but bittersweet feeling. Boom just announced its upcoming closure in March, but that’s months away. Let’s mosh, shall we?
Inheritor
Tye and the crew are in great form tonight, paying tribute to Boom early on in the set, which is fitting because this is where we first met these rascals. Tonight, Inheritor played a very slick set with their drummer, benefitting greatly from an excellent drum sound thanks to the gracious headliners who let the boys use their impressive kit. On stand-out tracks’ Death Spiral’, ‘This Bleak Bliss’ and a scorching cover of Sepultura’s ‘Slave New World’, you can genuinely tell Inheritor have been playing live a lot recently; their confidence and chops have increased exponentially. They feel like a fully cohesive unit, and indeed, it will soon be when they join Veiled and InRetrospect, flying the flag for this fair city on bigger stages.
Tortured Demon
Tortured Demon are a band who’ve been on my radar for a while since they caught our eye reviewing games in Metal Hammer, frontman Jacob Collins looks every bit the early proto thrash god in waiting as he takes the stage at Boom tonight with an augmented line up featuring Foetal Juice bass player Lewis Bridges. The first thing you notice about this band, besides their incredible thrash chops and blistering leads, is their humility; these down-to-earth Manchester boys are full of excitement and genuinely live for the moment. They rip into ‘Rise Of the Lifeless’ with the power of a thousand feral cats, and the audience responds by moshing their heads off.
The Collins brothers follow in the grand tradition of sibling drummer and guitarist partnerships as the Cavaleras and Abbotts, Jacob told me earlier of the childhood agreement over who would play what and how hours of practice turned them into the well-oiled riff machine we witness tonight. Tortured Demon have a keen sense of melody without resorting to obvious clean choruses, preferring to let expansive chords and soaring leads guide them into melodic territory. This approach means the band never let their set take its foot off the accelerator.
Early highlights ‘Disfavour’ and ‘The Invasion’ set the air ablaze inside these hallowed walls, and their recent single, ‘Nothing Left to Say’, points to an incredible new album that should cement them as more than child prodigies and world contenders, much in the same way Trivium did.
The neck-snapping stop, start dynamics of ‘Damage is Done’ ensure that the damage done here is squarely on your neck. The brutal ‘Erase Your Life’ slips into grindcore/hardcore territory and is dedicated to Boom as the home of Leeds hardcore as, like many bands passing through, Tortured Demon pay their respects to this closing institution.
Tonight, this assault squad leaves this venue blown to pieces with the blisteringly fast pace ‘A Knee To The Face Of Corruption’, and we’re left feeling like we’ve just witnessed what it must have been like in Brazil watching a young Sepultura. It really is that good! Check out this band for an adrenaline shot in the chest to get you through this crazy life.
Review & Photography By George Miller – https://www.facebook.com/oneflamemedia
Subscribe to DeVlog – The Video Home Of Devolution Magazine –https://www.youtube.com/@devolutionmagazine
Inheritor
Tortured Demon
