Igniter, Lost Society
Olympia, Tampere, Finland
28th December 2018
Last gig of 2018! The Christmas holidays are over and the New Year’s Eve is just around the corner. The days in between these two holidays tend to be rather dull and there is not a hell of a lot do. So I had a look to see what metal shows were on. Mortiis was in town but since this was part of their Era 1 tour (the dark ambient albums) I decided to give it a miss. I am not that much into dark ambient and it is not something that I would like to hear live. Then I spotted an advert for a thrash metal night at Olympia. I’ve seen Lost Society live at South Park Festival back in the summer but I did not know anything about the other band Igniter other than that they also play thrash metal.
After some research I discovered that Igniter are a local band with only one self-released EP. Luckily that did not stop them from putting on one hell of a show. They played some solid, old-school thrash metal, fast and full of energy just like it should be. I was really impressed with their performance and I hope to hear more from them soon. 4.5/5
Lost Society is one of those bands who command a sizable fan-base though I honestly cannot comprehend why. It is not so much that their music is bad. It is fairly decent-sounding thrash metal but I simply could not get into it. All the songs sounded similar and it felt as though the band were trying too hard to act like some major rock stars on stage. For example the singer was often switching from Finnish (his native tongue) to Americanized English while addressing the crowd. There were only a handful of memorable moments during the show: the part when they got a running mosh-pit going and a guitar solo towards the end of their set. 2.5/5
Overall it was a fun night out. Igniter far exceeded my expectations and their show was the better one of the night. Lost Society have their fans but after watching another mediocre performance by them I do not count myself among them.
Iza Raittila
Valkyrian Music 