Song of the Week #56

So to venture away from the small discontentment at the tail end of last weeks SOTW with Kings of Leon, I make the swift transition over to the Brudenell Social Club a mere week later, where I was dragged by a dear friend to see High on Fire and a support band called DVNE, who apparently sing songs and write music about the books of the same name? Having not read the books or seen the film, there’s presumably plenty of material to go at, but if you want to actually sing about something other than fictional characters and their already-defined exploits, you’ve shot yourself in the foot pretty definitively. Maybe its the future of music, who knows…

That being said the performance was decent enough for half an hour, rocking out some math metal, using instruments of various pitches and endless octaves. Then on came High on Fire. I have to say I knew very little about these guys before the gig, let alone how long they’d been going. Truthfully I hadn’t even heard of Sleep, which of course was the pre-cursor band to HoF. I was pleasantly surprised however, as I stood there with my black eyes, a broken nose, and a pint of beer in hand, and the wall of sound emanated from the amplifiers as the set began.

Out came a bare-chested Matt Pike to a rapture of applause from the audience. Again, having not heard of them before that point, I was thinking that this lad in his 30s was in pretty bad shape, but somehow after finding him to be in his 50s somehow softened the blow? I don’t know either.

The set was good, and the amps were loud. For a cheeky mid-week exploit, I was very glad I’d gone to see them (Brudenell, you’ve done it again), and the highlight was of course the most famous song from their back catalogue. I had it blasting in and out of the car for a week after at maximum volume, which is always a tremendous sign of a good gig!

High on Fire - Snakes for the Divine. Enjoy!