BLOOD CEREMONY
VENUE ELECTRIC BRIXTON, LONDON
DATE 26/01/2019
To pass through the doors of this south London venue tonight is to leave the 21st century behind, and enter a world where the clock is permanently set to 1972.
Thankfully, though, this isn’t a place of spiralling inflation, wildcat strikes and no hair conditioner. No, what we’re looking at is a variant of the 70s with a fascination for pagan Britain, witchcraft movies and the odd toke.
All of which makes it hard to believe that Blood Ceremony don’t actually hail from this side of the Atlantic, but Canada. It’s the obvious conclusion to draw given the band’s nods to the tar-thick riffing of Black Sabbath’s heavy eye-lidded bong-era, Ian Anderson-influenced flute solos and a love of the Hammond organ sound that was so central to the occult styling of Black Widow.
At first glimpse, this may lead to the not unreasonable conclusion that Blood Ceremony wear their influences a little too proudly on their billowing shirt sleeves, but look again and there’s plenty to enjoy on the band’s own merits. Chief among them is singer-flautistkeyboard player Alia O’Brien, a woman one suspects is no stranger to tapping the table at the very least. Sultry of voice and with a commanding presence, she is the centre of Blood Ceremony that her bandmates circle around like planets aligning mid-orbit.
Blood Ceremony set their stall early with Old Fires. Here, Sean Kennedy’s skittering yet crunchy guitar riff ushers in the bolstering sounds of O’Brien’s keyboards and the meaty rhythm section of bassist Lucas Gadke and Michael Carrillo’s frills-free yet impactful drums. And should the casual observers find themselves working out just where it is that Blood Ceremony’s philosophical and theosophical sympathies lie, O’Brien confirms them when she sings, ‘In the darkness we retire/ Let us light an endless fire!’
Indeed, Blood Ceremony aren’t backwards about coming forwards with their occult interests. Witness Half Moon Street wherein O’Brien states, ‘There’s a horror in my soul/That I want so very much to know…’ Yes, it’s campy and schlocky, but like throwing off your robes at midnight to ravish each other passionately until dawn in an orgy of bacchanalian excess, it’s also a good deal of fun. This is the point where Blood Ceremony’s entire aesthetic coalesces – folk-inspired riffing, flute and organ blasts, hard rock and the occult all come together in a patchouli-scented whole.
The band’s efforts are met with the approval of the crowd gathered before them, who frequently flash up the sign of the horns more with sincerity than irony. They’re rewarded with a glimpse of the future with a preview of new single, Lolly Windows, that ramps up their melodic sensibilities to take Blood Ceremony into 1972.
“IT’S CAMPY AND SCHLOCKY, BUT, LIKE AN ORGY OF BACCHANALIAN EXCESS, IT’S ALSO A GOOD DEAL OF FUN.”