Live Review : Machine Head + Amon Amarth + The Halo Effect @ AO Arena, Manchester on September 12th 2022

If you want proof that the cost-of-living crisis is beginning to bite, then you need not look further than the woeful attendance for tonight's show. Both Machine Head and Amon Amarth are titans in our world, yet once-in-a-lifetime pair up has sold less than 5000 tickets for a twenty-two thousand-capacity arena. The underpopulation and unadvertised early start mean that the Halo Effect are shoved out in front of a bare handful of people. This is a crying shame as they are absolutely astonishing this evening.

They answer the perennial question of when is a new band not a new band. They may be touting their rather spiffing debut album, but this is certainly none of their members’ first rodeo. They are made up exclusively of In Flames alumni, with current Dark Tranquillity main man Mikael Stanne as a Brucie bonus on vocals. They provide a tantalising glimpse into an alternative universe where In Fames didn't wander off into a quagmire of alt-metal and instead stayed true to their melo-death roots. However, this is not nostalgia city and the Halo Effect manage to put an impressive modern sheen on melodic death metal's decades-old template. They are not put off by the vast empty spaces stretching out in front of them and instead, they hanker down and produce an astoundingly accomplished set. Its rousing choruses and soaring solos are go-go. They've got the songs and they've got the stage presence and with a good headwind behind them, there is a strong possibility that they will throw off the shackles of the association with their collective past paymaster and make a name for themselves as The Halo Effect.

Amon Amarth have brought one mother, father and all their little Vikings of a stage show. More inflatables than Total Wipeout, more theatrics than the West End and more fire than Rammstein. It's certainly incredibly impressive and those who have made it out of the pub and into the front rows sing along with glee (whilst simultaneously fearing for the safety of their eyebrows). It may be the most majestic of setups but there is something about this new Iron Maiden-ish incarnation of Amon Amarth that just doesn't quite sit right with me. It is so elaborately stage-managed that it struggles to engage fully emotionally. The production has become incredibly slick and well-rehearsed and in doing so it has inadvertently misplaced its soul. The jagged edges and feeling of anarchistic chaos that make metal such a potent force seem to have been polished down into nonexistence. It’s all highly enjoyable but it just feels too safe and neutered.

The other issue is that a lack of substantial crowd mutes what should be ramble-rousing numbers. The assembled hordes enthusiastically participate (including a spot of Nordic rowing) but this is very evidently Machine Head's crowd, and the level of fevered abandonment never makes it out of second gear. As I keep saying it was a highly entertaining and well-received show, but I have seen Amon Amarth a hundred times more ferocious, vicious, and quite simply bloodcurdling. This was the PG sanitised version of something I know can rip the heads of his enemies and use them as ornamental vases. Maybe it was the occasion and maybe it was the cavernous emptiness of the surroundings, but they never tipped over into the all-consuming juggernaut that I know that they can be.

Machine Head eat adversity for breakfast. Robb Flynn is now a black belt in looking misfortune in the eye and promptly kneeing it in the bollocks. Quite simply a band this far into their career shouldn't be this hungry and incendiary. They inconceivably seem to have avoided the middle-age spread years and have retained that same level of venomous audacity that they displayed nearly 30 years ago. From first to last note they quite simply burn off the stage in a tumultuous fireball of kinetic energy. Over the years they have perfected the fine art of balancing improvisation with intricate perfection. They come across as dangerous and unpredictable, but they still manage to pull off ten nuggets of studio-quality precision.

The fundamental difference to Amon Amarth is the fact that we are not watching a show here, we are the show. We are all part of Machine Head’s circus of freaks and Robb Flynn is our demented ringmaster. The gigantic circle pits that he orders and the beers he hurls into the crowd are just as much an essential part of the production as the Pyro and the lighting rig. There is also a massive dollop of humanity and humility at play here. Robb is not some detached rockstar on a nihilistic ego trip. He is one of us and talks with passion and truth about his pride at having KK Downing here tonight and also, more controversially, the personal darkness that he believes we as metalheads all share. He playfully banters with the crowd as an equal as opposed to being some sort of messianic figure. His joy at spotting pit troll is genuine, as is his playful encouragement of committed headcase Barbecue to drink beer out of his own shoe. There are points it stops feeling like a gig and instead it feels like five thousand mates mucking around together.

Machine Head also know what we want and what we need. They may be on the road theoretically to promote their new record (a massive return to form on their part) but they make the wise decision to avoid acres of new material and instead play for all intents and purposes a greatest hits set. Once purely viewed through the lens of not as good as the “Blackening”, the passage of time has rehabilitated “Unto the Locust” to the point that ‘Darkness Within’ and ‘I am Hell’ are greeted as essential parts of Machine Head’s musical munitions. However, a Machine Head gig isn't a Machine Head gig without the apocalyptic one-two of ‘Davidian’ and ‘Halo’. They are both delivered with rampant furiosity. Machine Head have played those songs live a thousand times before, but this evening they are still unleashed with utter power and passion. This is a band that cares implicitly about their songs and about the people that they play them to. It is this frank honesty that makes Machine Head such an almighty proposition as a live act. You know they enjoyed the evening as much as we did and that feeling of communal edification is quite simply intoxicating.