Obituary

EXMORTUS / WOLVENCROWN

RESCUE ROOMS, NOTTINGHAM Nottingham’s WOLVENCROWN [8] make the transition to Rescue Rooms’ larger stage gracefully, albeit in stripped-down form having recently fired a frontman. They sound better for it, with the guitarists trading fiery rasps and piercing wails over atmospheric BM epics. Some of the intricacies of EXMORTUS’S [7] neoclassical thrash get lost in the mix, but they play with so much gusto it hardly matters, and their new material complements their technicality with the odd no-nonsense Venomstyle chorus. But the crowd are hungry for old-school death metal, and OBITUARY [9] tear into their set with visceral force and swagger. New songs like Sentence Day and Brave are greeted with the same rabid response as classics Chopped In Half and Dying, played slower to emphasise their suffocating heaviness. Perennial tantrum Don’t Care closes the set, before an encore of fresh cuts Turned To Stone and Straight To

Hell and a pulverising Slowly We Rot wraps up the night amidst a blur of headbanging ecstasy.

KEZ WHELAN