For Bleed From Within, It was the homecoming that has been hyped for nearly a year now since they toured with Slipknot That trip that exposed them to a larger audience than usual and they have used this as a catalyst to promote and celebrate their latest (and one of their best) albums ‘Zenith’
Two sold out nights at the Barrowlands is certainly an achievement for the Glasgow (or Hamilton if you’re being pedantic) boys who, have taken their game to the next level over the last year
There is a lot of excitement in the queue to get into the venue on the first of these 2 two nights of metalcore mayhem, with everyone well aware that the band were wanting to break the venue record for crowd surfers, held at that point by Lorna Shore
To assist in this feat, they brought along American duo Great American Ghost from New Hampshire, and from Minneapolis, After the Burial, and it was Great American Ghost who opened proceedings
The crowd were bursting with anticipation for the trilogy and things burst open as they ripped into their opener ‘Hymn of Decay’. You wouldn’t have thought that they were the openers as they powered through their set that also included vocalist Ethan Harrison initiating a wall of death in the near full ballroom, as well as getting the crowd on side by engaging in some classic Glasgow banter. The only real disappointment was that they were only given 30 mins to showcase their music as they were genuinely impressive and I will be looking to catch them again live as quickly as possible on that basis.
Next up were After the Burial who continued the mayhem by taking us on a winding and reckless trip through their 20 year discography. The band were incredibly tight and certainly had the crowd on side from note one of their opener ‘
There’s nothing better than a sold out Barras crowd, and even better than that is a sold out Barras metal crowd, but throw in the return of a band who have reached the top of their game and are effectively taking one massive bow in front of the home team crowd, and you have the perfect storm for something exceptional
The band are effectively showboating through the entire show with vocalist Scott Kennedy the conductor supreme, his vocals cutting through the noise like a knife. Constantly thanking the fans for showing up and putting the band where they are today.
The set relies heavily on their latest album, Zenith, with over half the tracks in the fifteen song set from it, but there’s something this evening for everyone, from the die-hard fan, to the casual listener who has just discovered the outfit and were having their ear drums kicked to pieces
Circle pits are the order of the day, and throw in the record number of crowd surfers (a figure that was broken the following day) you get the venue turning into something that resembles a battle scene from Game of Thrones.
The highlights for me were ‘Zenith’, ‘Edge of Infinity’ and the show closer ‘In Place of Your Halo’ but to be fair, you could have picked any of the songs and you wouldn’t have had a complaint from anyone
As the show ended, there was a definite ‘What the Hell Was That?!?’ feeling from the crowd, what it was, was a masterclass in metal, that bands try to achieve, but rarely get anywhere close to what was witnessed this evening
This is the sort of act that the festival bookers of the likes of Download need to look at for headliners of their festivals, not the washed out has beens that have been delivered in the last few years
The futures bright, the future’s Scottish……….
Review and Photographs by Gavin Lowrey
