THE BLACK HEART, LONDON If you’re disappointed that a support band billed as Gormless Chunder aren’t actually playing tonight, vigilant metalheads will have already worked out that it’s a pseudonym for CELESTIAL SANCTUARY. Playing both Rid The Gormless and Glutted With Chunder, their death metal diatribes are rooted in old-school murk, but they’re diced up with a precise modern sheen, and an affable presence that makes even the deepest dives into the abyss feel like a playground where everyone’s invited. As Midnight proved last summer, there’s a still a voracious hunger for merciless, goat-bothering filth, and the baby-faced James McBain, aka HELLRIPPER, has become a figurehead, able to make Venom-injected, speed metal mayhem relatable for anew generation. Tonight’s gig sold out quicker than you can type ‘Nunfucking Armageddon 666’, and from the moment he and his band launch into the scabrous, steroid-overdosed Spectres Of The Blood Moon Sabbath the entire room kicks off. James is held aloft over a sea of riff-worshippers as metal’s most atavistic, comic-book tropes are unleashed in all their rampaging, in-the-moment potency. All hail!
JONATHAN SELZER