Cover shot EVERYDAY METAL

Melbourne is a city that prides itself on live music, this weekend was absolutely jammed packed with live music and we had the pleasure of covering one of the biggest old school metal line ups of the year.

The evening was kicked off by Melbourne’s very own In Malices Wake, who have been destroying stages since 2002. It’s not always easy being the opening act, but they were not lacking enthusiasm. The doors of Max Watts opened and as the crowd flooded in they were welcomed with a shirtless frontman and some classic heavy metal sounds.

The venue filled up quickly in anticipation for the second band, Swedish extreme metal act Witchery. This was the first time that we had seen them perform and they were powerful and theatrical. The lead singer Angus Norder stormed the stage sporting a full face of corpse paint and continued to ramp up the crowd with gestures urging them to storm the pit. It was impressive to see just how dedicated the Witchery fans were, singing along to every song and descending into a circle pit for the crowd favorite track “Nosferatu”.

As long times fans we were excited to see the next band play, fellow Swedish Metal act The Haunted. The Haunted have been around in different forms since 1996 with the current line up being one of the strongest. It’s no secret that we are huge fans of guitarist Ola Englund and it was awesome to see him effortlessly shred his way through every track. Lead singer Marco Aro has such a strong presence that completely envelopes the audience.  Even though the bands bassist was not with them, they kept the vibe going, smashing out track after track.

Headlning this evening of Swedish death metal was At The Gates, who opened their set with the title track from their newest album “To Drink From The Night Itself“. This band is seriously tight, blasting out their infectiously groovy death metal. Lead vocalist Tomas Lindberg who has been with the band since day one still has an impressively powerful voice. The crowd was delighted by Ola of The Haunted guest spotting on bass for a few tracks, but not as delighted as Ola was to perform side by side with At The Gates. It was great to see all the bands pitching in and supporting each other on this tour and they all were having a hell of a lot of fun in the process.

You can follow the bands on social media:

At The Gates

The Haunted

Witchery 

And definately check out Ola Englund on Youtube!