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It’s been eight years since Battle Beast released their debut album “Steel”. Eight years that I’ve been listening to these Finnish metallers go from strength to strength. Unfortunately it’s also been eight years that I’ve been waiting to catch these guys live. Finally the wait is over and they are now bringing their infectiously catchy brand of power metal to Scotland for the first time. They have quite an extensive touring schedule in place to support their new critically acclaimed album “No More Hollywood Endings” and it’s great to see that Glasgow is a part of that.
The dictionary definition of the word “supergroup” is: “a rock group made up of prominent former members of other rock groups”. While I’m loath to use the term this is exactly what Swedish support band Cyhra are. Made up of vocalist Jake E (ex-Amaranthe), guitarist Jesper Strömblad (ex-In Flames), guitarist Euge Valovirta (ex-Shining), and drummer Alex Landenburg (Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody) they have an impressive musical pedigree. When the band hit the stage I was surprised by a couple of things. One was that instead of Jesper Strömblad on guitar there was a younger dark haired guitarist by the name of Marcus Sunesson taking up the 6-string duties. According to the bands website Jesper is taking some time away from touring but it still a member of the band. The other surprise was the lack of a bass player. I thought they might have had a touring bass player to replace Peter Iwers, who left back in May of last year, but instead they perform as a 4-piece and the bass parts are reproduced by a computer called “Mr. ASUS”. Even with these issues the band put on a great show. I was impressed by guitarist Euge’s playing especially during solo’s where he could be seen playing legato sections with his left hand while using his right hand to mute the strings in much the same way Vivian Campbell used to do when he was playing in Dio. He even managed to play with his teeth at one point. Marcus does a great job of filling Jesper’s shoes and Jake E’s vocal delivery was spot on.
The guys joke around with each other during songs with guitarists pretending to press each other’s effects pedals, and the singer unscrewing the drummers cymbals. They look like they’re having a good time which must be contagious as the crowd here tonight are too. Jake does a good job of chatting with the crowd and even managed to pick out a girlfriend for drummer Alex. I’m sure it’ll be the start of something beautiful. The band run through an hour long set of melodic metal taken from their two studio albums. The highlight for me was probably the song “Battle from Within”. Jake is very candid and open about the meaning behind the song. He tells us that this is a song for those going through a hard time and feeling down and how he tragically lost his brother who felt like that but unfortunately took it one step further. There’s a nice lyric video for this one on Youtube (here) if you haven’t already checked it out. Most of the set however is very upbeat and they finish off with “Out of my Life” which includes a crowd sing-along. I have to say that I enjoyed these guys much more than I thought I was going to. A very entertaining performance.
The intro tape starts and Battle Beast drummer Pyry Vikki is first on the stage to cheers from an expectant crowd. He plays his cymbals along with the tape until finally the rest of the band launch into “Unbroken” the first song from the new album. It’s a good high energy song to kick the gig off with and the crowd punch the air along with singer Noora Louhimo. While the rest of the band do a great job of moving around the stage and moshing along to the songs it’s really Noora that is the focal point of the show. Looking like a cross between a Viking warrior and an extra from the Xena TV series she bounces around the stage like she’s starring in her own metal styled exercise video. I get exhausted just watching her boundless energy which she keeps up throughout the gig. Her vocal prowess is stunning. They have an incredibly busy touring schedule and you’d think belting out these songs would take a toll on her voice but she still sounds great. To add to the up-beat party like atmosphere vertical smoke machines and pyro accent the music.
“What is it? White Samurai? Purple kickboxer? You got it….Black Ninja!!!”. They’re a band that don’t take themselves overly seriously and put on a performance guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Every song tonight is killer. “Familiar Hell”, “Bastard Son of Odin”, “King for a Day” and “Straight to the Heart” are some of my favourites but the slightly controversial “Endless Summer” comes across very well live too. If you ever look under the comments section on YouTube for this one you can see it has split fans opinions a bit. It’s a light feel good 80’s rock type song but it doesn’t sound out of place in the set and gets a great reaction from the Glasgow fans.
It’s bass player Eero Sipilä’s birthday tonight and he gets a suitably loud version of “Happy Birthday to you” from the crowd. He delights in his new birthday mask and a gin and tonic and Noora dedicates the song “Hero” to him. During the song guitarist Joona Björkroth decided to do some push-ups while the keyboard player spanked him with some drumsticks. I’m not sure what that was about but it was all getting a bit mad at the point. As the band finish the night with “Beyond the Burning Sky” Noora runs along the photo pit high fiving the fans. It’s all great fun and an awesome gig. Really a phenomenal show and well worth the eight year wait.
Review – Martin Patterson
Images – Lara Vischi
