Live Review : Nekrogoblikon + Allegaeon + Party Cannon + Grief Ritual @ Club Academy, Manchester on September 25th 2025

A euphoric crowd can make a show. The audience becomes the twelfth man, enhancing the performance and turbocharging the atmosphere. Tonight is one of those instances. It might be a Thursday night in that very Mancunian of seasons, second summer, but those in attendance are ready to party like it's 1999. It is a smorgasbord of goblin masks, pointed ears and party hats. Rather than become a cauldron of repulsive toxic masculinity, the pit this evening is a fabulous, inclusive maelstrom of energetic fun. There are Push-ups, rowing, and whale rides in this wild communal orgy of ridiculousness. The geniality and good-natured preposterousness is intoxicating and resonates far out across the venue, attaching everyone and every act to its gravitational pull.

Live Review : Rivers of Nihil + Fallujah + Allegaeon + Inferi + Harbinger @ Rebellion, Manchester on November 29th 2022

When I was young the package tour was the preserve of the golden oldies’ sixties brigade, hoisting Marti Webb and the Tremolos from provincial town to provincial town. It’s certainly had a facelift as a concept as Rising Merch’s Faces of Death tour is a multi-coloured promenade through Death Metal’s more elegant avenues. Originally scheduled for last November, there is a culpable sense of relief from all involved that a) it’s happening at all and b) that so many people had remembered that they had booked the darn thing in the first place. Not even a World Cup home nation derby is enough to put people off, as the place is stuffed to the rafters from the off.

Live Review : Obscura + Fallujah + Allegaeon + First Fragment @ Rebellion, Manchester on February 7th 2019

Demands for a second Mister Men book before I depart means that I arrive at Rebellion (still looks splendid after its facelift) just in time for opening act First Fragment final number. As fits the rest of tonight’s bill this is very technical death metal with notes flying all over the places. I may only have one track in which to form a highly biased opinion, but they come across as a highly competent act that sound not dissimilar to Dream Theatre played at double the speed.