Soilwork / Hatesphere
19 October 2005
The Scala, London
Hatesphere`s support slot reminded me very much of Dew Scented supporting Nevermore at this same venue a month earlier. There`s no denying that the band are both tight and brutal, yet as the songs blur past nothing really grabbed my attention. Many seemed to love the bands amalgam of thrash and death and I left those to their enjoyment.
Hatesphere set list included:
Death Trip / Reaper Of Life / Sickness Within
Soilwork have come a long way since their early death metal roots. When they do revisit those days with the likes of Chainheart Machine and Sadistic Lullabye, aside from a few diehards, it`s a reserved response that meets those songs.
Not so however when anything from the band`s three most recent albums rears its head. Within the first four songs, the front of the very respectably full venue is reduced to a mass of flailing limbs. Divers pour over the front of the crowd into photopit, many of whom are not caught by the security and land with a wince inducing thump.
On stage, Bjorn Strid is the ringmaster of this chaos. Whilst he and bassist Ola Flink, who is looking more and more like a member of Mastodon, have always been the ones to whip up the crowd, guitarists Peter Wichers and Ola Frenning same much happier with being in the limelight than encounters I have had with the band in the past.
Stand in drummer Dirk Verbeuren of Scarve, does a great job of holding down the frantic beats, particularly given less than a week earlier the band had been forced to cancel and appearance in Hamburg as the skin on Dirk`s hands had literally fallen off from their abuse.
A recent stint at Ozzfest has obviously sharpened the bands chops, but where they had been restricted to short sets, on this tour as headliners, Soilwork grasp the opportunity to stretch out and really demonstrate what a good catalogue of songs they now possess. The peak is kept for the encore however which is bookended by crowd pleasing anthems As We Speak and Follow The Hollow.
Soilwork set list:
Stabbing The Drama / Figure Number Five / The Flameout / Needlefeast / One With The Flies / Chainheart Machine / The Bringer / Overload / Nerve / Bastard Chain / Rejection Role / Room No. 99 / Blind Eye Halo / As We Speak / Sadistic Lullaby / Follow The Hollow
LINKS:
Soilwork
Hatesphere
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