St Patrick’s Day is normally a day for Guinness, silly hats and leprechauns, buy this particular St Patrick’s Day gave Glasgow something very different in the form of avante-garde metal king pins Zeal & Ardor and Polish black metallers Dom Zły
Venue for this soiree is the Garage, and it’s the best venue of its size in the city, acoustics are good and more importantly for the punters, the bar prices are (relatively) reasonable
The venue is three quarters full for the arrival of Dom Zły to the stage, and they’re straight into it in the form of their intro track ‘Anafora’ then ‘Rzeka’ from their ‘Śnisz Bory Tak Gęłte’ EP from a few years ago. The lighting is minimal, something akin to what you’d imagine a gothic torture chamber but this doesn’t dampen the enjoyment of the crowd who are onboard 100%
The growling vocals of Ania Truszkowska are strong and powerful and they cut through the sound that is very bottom end heavy and is sometimes muffled, although that doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the crowd who lap it all up. Delivered in Polish, it’s nice to see a band perform in their mother tongue rather than default to English.
It’s a short seven song set that finishes 5 minutes sort of their allocated time, but there’s enough in there to spike everyone’s interest on the band and warm everyone up nicely for the main event.
Zeal & Ardor are bang on time as they start the main event at 9pm with the haunting intro track from their latest album ‘Grief’ in the form of ‘The Bird, The Lion and the Wild’ before plunging into the rhythmic “Wake of a Nation’ to really get the crowd going before ‘Götterdämmerung’, with the kind of choppy riff that would make Metallica proud taking the crowd to boiling point pretty easily.
We’re for songs in before lead vocalist Manuel Gagneux addresses the crowd and through the usual Glasgow cries of “Here we fucking go” he tells everyone that he thought that it would be better if they just played more songs than listen to him talk, which, to be fair was a great plan. He did however find time to have a swig on Glasgow’s finest in the form of some Buckfast, however he did resist the temptation to “chug” the bottle, despite just about everyone in the venue shouting for him to do so
The sound engineer was definitely earning his pay for the headliners as the sound quality had been amped up several levels, especially in the top end, where it was crystal clear, even when drummer Marco Van Allmen kicks in with the double bass.
Lighting is still on the dark side but it’s all part of the set as there are strobes & spots throughout the show. This makes my job as the photographer very difficult but makes for something that’s tremendous on the eye.
The show is set into for segments with a break in between that still gives the crowd interaction but at the same time, maximizes the eighty minute set to its full capacity.
The band rely heavily on their 2022 self-titled album and also 2018’s ‘Stranger Fruit’ with half the set coming from these two albums, but there’s enough in there from their new album ‘Grief’, especially the exceptional ‘Fend You Off’ and ‘Kilnova’ to tickle the taste buds of those who favour the latest opus.
‘Gravediggers Chant’ & ‘Devil is Fine’ are other highlights of the set with Gagneux’s raspy yet soulful vocals really coming to the fore and being a real shining light, ably assisted by backing vocalists Denis Wagner & Marc Obrist.
As with most good things, they have to come to an end and after an encore, the band come back to give us the final segment of the show, fitting in with the theme of the evening of splitting the quarters and finishing off with the thumping ‘Claw It Out’
This was the first time that I had seen Zeal & Ardor in a smaller venue, having only seen them at festivals abroad, and it was well worth the effort. They’re a band that are going places so watch this space
Review & Photographs by Gavin Lowrey
