Valkyrian Music

Bands: New Deity, Gods of War, Savage Outlaw, Revival, Yakavetta, Bisonhammer, Candid Iniquity, Morgue Orgy
Location: The Guzzlin’ Goose pub, Ashton Under Lyne
Date: 19th November 2011

“Because it is a charity event, everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong!” Despite several hitches, venue issues, last minute line-up changes and advert infused Spotify radio DJ sets between the bands, the first ever S.O.P.H.I.E. festival took place yesterday. The festival was created to raise to money for the anti hate-crime charity The Sophie Lancaster Foundation. As with the Foundation, the festival takes its name from Sophie Lancaster, a young Goth girl who was beaten to death by a group of thugs just because she looked different.

And so it was that on a sunny Saturday afternoon The Guzzlin’ Goose was packed with metal-heads, Goths and other alternative people who all came to see the local underground bands. First up was New Deity who delivered an entertaining set with melodic tunes that helped to get the night in motion.

Liverpool thrashers Gods of War’s energetic performance captured the attention of the crowds with catchy guitar solos and the memorable tracks such as ‘Pillage and Plunder’ which proved to be one of the highlights of the night.

Savage Outlaw’s take on old school thrash/heavy metal got my attention due to the vocalist’s unmistakable similarity to mid-career Metallica and the catchy guitar solos. I even took one of their demos home!

Revival was a late addition to the line-up and struggled to capture attention of the audience. Luckily their efforts paid off in the end with thanks to a very good cover of Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’.
Yakavetta proved to be skilful players and produced some catchy tunes which were sadly let down by the vocal style which did not seem to fit the music. Bisonhammer’s performance was energetic and at times the guitar riffs worked well but the metalcore vocals wrecked it for me.

Candid Iniquity was a bit too metalcore for my liking but their stage performance proved a big hit with the crowds thanks to their charismatic frontman Paul Harrop. They also produced an excellent cover of Reel 2 Real’s ‘I Like To Move It’!

Despite the late start the headliners Morgue Orgy were worth the wait. It’s difficult to describe their unique sound which incorporates a mixture of At The Gates -style vocals with symphonic black metal keyboards and melodic death metal guitars. Highlight for me was a melodic track called ‘The Modern Prometheus’.

If you want to know more about Morgue Orgy check out my interview with them also available on this site.

Iza Raittila

Related articles

• Interview: Jenny Green [2011] (valkyrianmusic.com)

This entry was posted on 20th November 2011 at 6:14 pm and is filed under Festival, Live with tags Ashton Under Lyne, Melodic death metal, Murder of Sophie Lancaster. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.