[dropcap style=”font-size:100px; color:#992211;”]M[/dropcap]etal is very much alive (even, ironically, Death Metal) in all its diverse sub-genres.
To the uninitiated it appears to be primarily guttural vocal shouts, headbanging power chords, shredding guitar solos and double pedal drum gymnastics, and opening act Monuments seemed to fully live up to that stereotype, but with an occasional gentler saxophone interlude.
Headlining Oz rockers Karnivool offered a more melodic variation on the metal theme, and were joined on stage by Monuments’ frontman with further displays of his prowess on the sax.
Metal is mostly preaching to the converted, but the congregation at London’s Roundhouse was definitely devout and ecstatic.
Photos and words by Chris Patmore
Chris Patmore is a photographer-designer-writer in order of creative satisfaction, or a designer-writer-photographer in order of current earnings. After becoming totally disillusioned with the world of film journalism he has returned to his first loves: music and photography. Sirius Flatz, manager of Molotov Jukebox, says, “Chris has what one could call a musical eye, capturing bands in their perfect moments.”
