Symphony X – Savage Messiah: Live at Coventry Empire 4th June


Hot on the heels of the release of their latest album, Demons (Century Media), London based Savage Messiah are wasting no time in getting out on the road and promoting the hell out of it. Of the nine songs the band tears through in front of an excitable Coventry crowd, ‘The Fateful Dark’ is the sole representative of any of their previous releases, the others culled exclusively from the new record.

Bristling with energy and enthusiasm, it comes as quite a surprise to hear that just a couple of days ago, singer Dave Silver (originally from just down the road in Birmingham) had completely lost his voice. However, judging by tonight’s performance, there’s certainly no outward sign of any immediate damage.

Opening with ‘Virtue Signal’ the band blast through the likes of ‘Heretic in the Modern World’, ‘The Bitter Truth’, ‘Under no Illusions’, and ‘Down and Out’, the slower moments coming in the shape of the politically charged ‘The Lights Are Going Out’, the balladic ‘What Dreams May Come’ (dedicated to all the parents in the crowd), and their cover of Chris Stapleton‘s ‘Parachute’. A great way to start the evening.

Having already visited these shores a couple of times during this latest touring cycle, expectations were high that New Jersey’s Symphony X would throw in a surprise or two this time around. With the venue at close to full capacity, the band hit the stage to ‘Iconoclast’, following it up with ‘Evolution (The Grand Design)’, and a quite superb ‘Serpent’s Kiss’. With everything pretty much going as expected, ‘Nevermore’, ‘Without You’, ‘Domination’, and ‘Run With the Devil’ all make appearances before the show closes with ‘Sea of Lies’ and ‘Set the World on Fire (The Lie of Lies)’.

While the band disappears for a quick breather before the encore, it doesn’t take long for a lone cry of “Odyssey!” to develop into a full-blown chant, echoing raucously around the room. Anticipation reaches fever pitch as the band reappears, singer Russell Allen teasing the audience for a minute or two before finally giving them what they want.

‘The Odyssey’. All twenty-four glorious minutes of it. Allen disappears from the stage at regular intervals to let his bandmates enjoy the limelight, most notably chubby guitarist Michael Romeo, whose fingers move at lightning speed across the fretboard while somehow making it all look ridiculously easy.

Symphony X is a finely tuned machine and not a single note is dropped or wasted. However, instead of merely reproducing their studio material mechanically on stage, the five members are all clearly having fun up there, even when the mix occasionally favours Jason Rullo‘s drums over Romeo’s guitar. Obviously, as the band’s frontman, Allen commands most of the attention as he dances around the stage, shadow boxing and playing air baseball, but everyone gets their turn, and the crowd all get to leave with big cheesy grins and even an occasional, if rather optimistic, cry of “play it again!”

GARY ALCOCK