VON HERTZEN BROTHERS
VENUE THEKLA, BRISTOL DATE 04/12/2018
It is a riddle on a par with the Sphinx that the Von Hertzen Brothers remain relatively unsung heroes in the UK. The fraternal trio’s accessible blend of prog, melodic metal and muscular pop with Nordic good looks and multi-guitar virtuosity should be filling arenas around the globe by now, especially given the broad public thirst for Scandi cultural exports. So it is somewhat dispiriting to find these high-energy Finns playing to a thin crowd on a rainy December night in Bristol, even if they do their damnedest to make it feel like they are headlining Wembley.
The band have had a bumpy ride recently. The tepid performance of their polished 2015 album New Day Rising plunged them into a brief hiatus, leading to a change of label and management. That album downplayed the band’s knotty prog side, but they regained their baroque’n’roll mojo last year on War Is Over. Indeed, they begin tonight with its uncompromising title track, a symphony of vaulting, churning, horizon-expanding melodrama which feels like the last three Muse albums crammed into 12 minutes. “I hope you’re not in a hurry,” grins lead singer Mikko von Hertzen, “because we are going to stretch this place to the limits...”
Backed by drummer Sami Kuoppamäki and Swedish keyboard player Robert Engstrand, the brothers play almost two hours of tightly drilled and stylistically versatile material. With their stacked vocal harmonies and singalong chants, galloping pop rock anthems like Long Lost Sailor and Sunday Child have the streamlined populist thrust of vintage Foo Fighters or U2. Freedom Fighter starts a little spindly and underpowered, but then builds to a punchy punk pop stampede, while Miracle is an exhilarating Zepp-oid blues-riffing stomper. “I guess we are also a little bit known for proggier stuff right?” grins Mikko. “Even though we hate prog…” He’s joking, of course. This is the cue for Kiss A Wish, one of the trio’s earliest and most unashamedly cosmic confections, a nine-minute jazz odyssey of kaleidoscopic, tempo-twisting, deep-space rumination. It is ripe, bombastic, ungainly and mostly fantastic, even if the cramped venue slightly dampens its grandiose effect.
Between the wholesome Scandi rock peaks are eyebrow-scorching blasts of sharp-angled prog punk in Cardiacs vein, ritualistic incantations with a sinewy jazzfusion texture, and deceptively conventional power ballads that erupt with wiggly arpeggio maximalism. A few more of these more sonically extreme digressions would have been welcome. Still, this is an impressively energised performance overall, an arena-sized show in a pocket-sized venue. If the Von Hertzens ever find the big crowds they deserve, these monster tracks should blow the roof to Valhalla and beyond.
“THE TRIO’S ACCESSIBLE BLEND OF PROG
ELEMENTS, MELODIC METAL AND MUSCULAR POP SHOULD BE FILLING ARENAS
AROUND THE GLOBE BY NOW.”