The Metalist attends the first major metal show of the year, and it is a heavy metal war spectacular featuring the titans of Battle Beast, Delain and Swedish machine known as Sabaton. No better way to kick off the New Year with a bang at London’s Forum!

BATTLE BEAST

Given the name of this group, it is almost hard to take them seriously as musicians. Most heavy metal bands with names like these just turn out to be gimmicks (looking at you White Wizzard), but one who has actually heard Battle Beast will understand that the Finnish sextet are in it to win it, with something to prove tonight in London – the toughest of the metal markets. Battle Beast have been on the rise in Europe since the addition of vocalist Noora Louhimo, but their last show in London was supporting Powerwolf in front of 150 people at the Underworld. There is a much bigger stage tonight and a much bigger sold out crowd of 2’300.

There was no joking around here, the band started pumping their new wave of Finnish heavy metal with unnerved balls of titanium. The members were moving around stage, fist pumping and bringing something special back to the pure heavy metal live show we don’t see so much these days. There were no backing tracks, special props or stage steroids whatsoever – just balls. Whilst enjoyable, with legendary London time constraints to thank sadly the band had to play quite a short set, but did include Battle Beast’s acclaimed hits such as ‘Black Ninja’ and of course rounding off their evening with ‘Out of Control’.

It would be very nice to see Battle Beast return to the UK in a stronger capacity, as bands like these are really holding the flag for heavy metal these days.

DELAIN

First thing is first, we here at The Metalist are glad to see Delain bassist Otto has recovered from a nasty stage injury that occurred on their most recent tour in November! It was an unusual one – but we won’t fixate on that – Delain are here to rock London!

With bands like Delain it is all too easy to slap a tag on them being yet another female-fronted pop-metal band that has become so prominent in groups from the Netherlands these days (Within Tempation, Nemesea). Pop-metal has now gotten a bit of an undeserved notorious tag, but one could see why…most live performances of bands with this tag have their live performances so heavily sedated with backing orchestral tracks that it really takes the oomph out of the show. The mix is always in favour of the pre-recorded tracks and the light show is synced too perfectly with the aforementioned tracks.

Admittedly this is what we were expecting with Delain…but this is not what it was! Delain had the most natural sounding pop-metal performance that we have seen in a while. A good long while for that matter. Every instrument, most notably the keyboards was working towards creating an actual live atmosphere for the band’s music, and hit every note that they actually could with clinical perfection. Be it a solo, a interlude-key part or huge bassline on the chorus the sound was excellent. Delain have a following now, but that has not stopped them from sticking to roots on their live performance given that they are a pop-metal band.

Frontwoman Charlotte Wessels was captivating in her vocal work and getting the crowd involved in each of the songs. The band kicked off with ‘Mother Machine‘ getting an eager Sabaton crowd moving, and proceed to getting the 1,500 strong floor jumping for ‘Get The Devil Out of Me‘. While we would have liked to see a couple more songs such as ‘The Gathering‘, it is likely that the band had to make set cuts again due to curfew requirements, but the band did manage to squeeze in their international hit ‘We Are The Others‘.

There was nothing wrong with their performance at all, and did what bands of this calibre should do, play their instruments, get the crowd involved and keep those backing tracks as subtle as possible.

SABATON

The war metal titans have returned to the UK again. This time in a much bigger capacity then from when we saw them support Dragonforce in 2006 playing a dinky 15-minute set. I remember saying that Sabaton were too cheesy and would not be able to strike up a larger role in the metal scene. Oh how I was wrong…so very wrong. The band have come a long way in the UK, from playing tiny headline shows at Camden’s Purple Turtle, to now selling out London’s Forum. That is a big feat for a foreign metal band, and tonight Sabaton will celebrate with their performance of a career – donning the largest stage show that we have seen yet!

The entire audience tonight was incredibly excited to see Sabaton, with chants of ‘Swedish Pagans‘ and it’s hook being sung by the audience during the set up of the stage for the show. Metal bands in the UK seem to rarely get this kind of reception these days, especially in London, and it is extremely heartwarming to see such passionate fans, and that the metal flame is still well and alive in southern England. The crowd got even more excited when the stage crew unveiled a tank as a stage prop for the drummer to sit in…a backdrop of things to come…and it was the farthest thing from disappointing!

Kicking off with Sabaton’s standard intro of ‘The Final Countdown‘, a 2’300 strong chorus chimed in on the hook of the Europe classic – and like every show – Sabaton roars in after their intro with ‘We are Sabaton – and this is Ghost Division’. Why fix what’s not broken right? That is a perfect song to start a show with. The band members run around the stage donned in their Sabaton camogear, and of course frontman Joakim Broden is wearing his iconic battlevest and sunglasses. He is beating his fist and air kicking the stage, you could not ask for more from a heavy metal frontman.

The band wasted in time in getting the party started moving directly into their latest hit ‘To Hell and Back‘, getting every single member of the crowd jumping, whether seated or standing, it was quite a sight to be seen. The sound of the band represented the pinnacle of clean Swedish engineering with the mix being as perfect as it could be, but in this case is only an addition to the fantastic showmanship that Sabaton are now able to emulate night after night. This showmanship is why the band are getting huge, and deservedly so. They want to be here to perform for an audience, and if you don’t like them they will make you like them.

They got the audience involved in the anthemic choruses such as ‘Carolus Rex‘, they got the audience to choose what language they wanted ‘Gott Mit Uns‘ to be sung in (ironically Swedish was chosen), and they seriously got some movement with powerhouse tracks such as ‘40:1‘. It was a setlist rife with classics, half of which were chosen by the audience. The band were clearly ready to pay homage to the UK which one could argue kickstarted their European success back in their early days. This was underlined by the fact that ‘Swedish Pagans‘ wasn’t even on their setlist, but audience chanting forced the band into playing it anyway. This is an instance of the relationship between bands and fans that rarely exist in today’s day and age.

As the band capped off their main setlist with a fan chosen ‘Uprising‘, the call back they got for an encore was rocking the very foundations of The Forum. The band wasted no time in returning after the mechanical eagles were raised above the drum set, and burst into another new album track ‘Night Witches‘. By this time sadly the night was to be through – but not after the last hurrah of ‘Primo Victoria‘, their all-time classic again managing to get 2’300 concert-goers off their feet into a frenzy, and wrapping up with ‘Metal Crue‘, a general tribute to metal. It took the band a while to leave the stage after the final song to give their thanks and bows, just to show how truly appreciative they are that we all came out to see them tonight.

Many bands come and do their job, while Sabaton, under their namesake and musical philosophy simply come and conquer. They add humourous interludes between songs chatting with the audience, they fill their setlist with super tracks, and they emit the energy of an ubersoldat. It is great fun for all, and an absolutely incredible performance.

A generally incredible evening. Metal in 2015 is looking pretty good!