Spread across the three adjoining Academy venues in deepest, darkest Birmingham, the third annual HRH Metal indoor fest is well into its second day when I finally arrive (a long story involving illness and unforeseen hospitals), and gathering pace on the main stage with Nottingham stoner trio Witch Tripper. The band’s beer-fuelled, Black Sabbath inspired riffery capturing the attention of a respectably sized early evening audience.
Losing a guitarist due to illness doesn’t stop UK thrashers Acid Reign from getting some serious moshpit action going, the band’s hugely entertaining frontman Howard “H” Smith even telephoning their fallen member so the audience can say hello. Leaving his companions in his wake, H is a blur of perpetual motion. Whether it’s constantly running across (or jumping off) the stage, singing while wearing a deer mask thrown from the crowd, trying (unsuccessfully) to persuade the bemused security staff to hand over their bright yellow uniform jackets, singing from the balcony, or trying to mount the wobbly looking speaker stack before being told Health & Safety won’t tolerate such foolishness, the silly northern sausage doesn’t stop for a single moment.
Handed the unenviable task of following such unfettered chaos, Devilment have a markedly different approach to Acid Reign but one which pays dividends nonetheless. A side project of Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Davey, the band’s serious, straight-faced delivery keeps the momentum going and serves as a perfect warm-up to the fest’s closing act.
The main stage fills to its largest capacity of the day as fans eagerly await Polish Technical Death Metal act, Decapitated. There’s scant mention of that court case among the crowd beforehand as the vast majority of fans are here clearly for just two related purposes – banging their heads until they fall off, and making life difficult for the security staff in front of the barrier. Whereas the previous bands had only mustered a handful of dedicated crowd surfers, Decapitated ring the fucking dinner bell as a sea of legs, elbows and army boots come crashing down on practically everyone at the front.
Vocalist Rafał “Rasta” Piotrowski dominates proceedings effortlessly, roaring and snarling from the stage while viciously whipping and windmilling his head, somehow managing to avoid injuring guitarist Wacław “Vogg” Kiełtyka and bass player Hubert Więcek with his impressively long – and potentially dangerous – dreadlocks. Wasting little time in between songs, the quartet shred their way through fifteen blistering tracks including the likes of ‘One-Eyed Nation’, ‘Kill the Cult’, ‘Amen’, ‘Blood Mantra’ and a crushing encore of ‘Spheres of Madness’ and ‘Winds of Creation’ as the crowd never let up for a moment, building to a crescendo of even more flying body parts. There’s no mid-set lull, there aren’t any rumblings of “Oh, not this one” or “They should have played that one”, and there are definitely no pints left unspilt as the band leave a room full of exhausted, sweaty and probably partially deaf, metalheads in their wake.
GARY ALCOCK