Live review: Gloryhammer plus support at KK Steel Mill, 10 September 2022

 Vikings! Goblins! Hooters!

Live Review

Gloryhammer with support from Brothers of Metal & Arion

KK Steel Mill, Wolverhampton, 10 September 2022

With three top metal bands on offer tonight, there were gonna be some sore heads and smiling faces abound!

Arion kicked off precendings with a professional, well timed and great sounding set consists of songs from their three albums to date (the most recent being "Vultures Die Alone from 2021" excellent album -ed.)

The five piece metal band from Finland blasted through the songs with prowess and the audience sang along enjoying every minute of their set. With great songs like "In The Name of Love" the boys kicked ass and got the crowd warmed up nicely. The guitar work of Iivo Kaipainen  was a great mix of power and emotion which really helped back up the powerful yet soulful vocals of Lassi Vääränen. An exciting group of musicians who we're sure have a long, great, career ahead of them! 8/10

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialArion/

When Brothers (and one sister -ed! of Metal took to the stage at KK's it was then obvious why tonight called for the longer version of the stage. These load of Vikings were larger than life and used EVERY inch of that stage space. Dancing, headbanging, drinking, singing and playing like this was the last Viking party on Earth! They gave their all tonight for a very appreciated (and innebriated) audience. With such an array of talented, charismatic, musicians as BOM you really can't go wrong. Power, grace, raw energy, chanting, riffs - you got em!

The Viking warriors of the microphone Joakim Lindbäck Eriksson and Mats Nilsson are perfectly balanced by the beautiful and yet powerful voice of Ylva Eriksson and they all work together and work the crowd brilliantly. Talking of talent - let's talk about the THREE guitarists belting out the riffs and solos here, namely, Dawid Grahn, Pähr Nilsson and Mikael Fehrm, were top notch with great sense of both power and space for each other tonally. The pounding viking party beat was kept at all times well too by drummer Johan Johansson and bassist (replied with animal skin loin cloth girls!) Emil Wärmedal . Each song as a sing-a-long epic quality that works so well live. This is Viking party music right here with drink a-flowin' and songs-a-singin' Wolverhampton style. Tonight the Vikings did take Wolverhampton and I'm sure made new fans. 10/10 https://www.facebook.com/brothersofmetalofficial/

And then it was time of some fantasy of the goblin and hammer variety...

Gloryhammer never take themselves too seriously which is good given some of the songs they do!

Another band of highly talented musicians who know all about space, time and power. Each song is crafted to be catchy and anthemic as well as emotive and epic, This kind of power metal is what stages like KKs is built for. The audience lapped up the polished metal songs tonight as well as the obligatory Thor's Hammer and Goblin. It wouldn't be a Gloryhammer gig with that those. Remember though guys, it's not the size of the hammer..

.There's only so far you can with the dungoens and dragons thing so over the years Gloryhammer have added more Sci-Fi elements on their album "Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex" from which several of tonight's songs were lifted. Their was of course also hooting. LOTS of hooting. Boy do Gloryhammer fans love a good hoot! This does, however, get a little tiring for the less obsessed metal fan. Their's no doubting that the band are great at what they do and vocalist Sozos Michael has a powerful on-stage presence that works well. The band chemistry is great and fun-loving which is great to see but sometimes they should consider how they all work in the live mix. Sometimes, the guitar sound of Paul Templing was drowned out or sounded really thin. The keyboards of Christopher Bowes were a little too powerful and fighting the guitar for frequences.  

I'm certainly not saying anyone played anything but great. Just needed a little space in their "space" if ya'll know what I mean. A fine gig by Gloryhammer who do what they do so very well.  8/10

https://www.gloryhammer.com/