NEPENTHE

I remember I was at work when the announcement was made that the local band Nepenthe, from Guelph, was selected as the opener for this show, and it brought me such happiness that they were chosen. The four-piece came onto the stage, and dominance through sheer force was established almost immediately, which is very rare in my concert-going experience. It needs to be pointed out that the main vocals were handled by the drummer with absolute ease. Having been active since 2018 and having had a stable lineup for a few years now, the band doesn’t perform that much, and having released only two EPs to date, it will be very interesting to see a full-length album from the band. The short but intense twenty-five-plus-minute set took the venue and its incoming crowd on a doom metal journey that warmed the garrison completely up.

MALPAHAS

The only band I’ve not seen out of this three-band billing is Malphas from Philadelphia, or the real Malphas, as they have plastered online to separate themselves from more than a handful of other bands with the same name. There is a certain level of anticipation when you see certain gear on stage, and with one of the guitarists sporting a Strandberg guitar, keen eyes would know this band means business. Focusing on melodic death metal as the band’s base, I found my favourite rhythms and timing in the music almost immediately. The four-piece was so very technically proficient at highlighting all the notes from my favourite genre of all time, bringing a new depth to it with pre-programmed keyboards that paid homage, but often leaned heavily on symphonic notes. The blistering trade-offs in guitar work added layers that made the sound feel larger than typical for four members on a stage. It wasn’t the first time the real Malphas was in Toronto. I can’t wait for them to come back. As good as they were as a touring support band, I would love to see them with a keyboardist as a fifth member. It might open new doors for this band, especially with new music in the pipeline, as the most recent album was released almost two years ago.

ARKONA

In a world that is constantly changing, literally, there has been a recent rise in the popularity of the subgenre folk metal, and it is almost at the point of breakthrough or cult status. To have ridden this wave for over twenty years, still active, singing completely in a foreign language. For those who stuck around for Arkona’s set, who were not diehard fans to begin with, were certainly fans by the end. Not much was known regarding the absence of two of the five members, but as a three-piece, they dominated the night. After a lengthy intro, it almost felt like the venue was transformed into a dark house of communion. The intro began with an ominous voice that warned of what was to come. The three band members came out one by one, with the crowd growing more and more excited, until the vocalist, arriving last, whipped the crowd into a frenzy of cheers, horns, and movement. Being in the middle of the action on the floor, the constant cadence drew the crowd into a steady swaying in time with the music. If you had your eyes closed, you wouldn’t have even missed the bassist or the wind instrumentalist; thanks to technology, they were piped in through the speakers. The range of the vocalist was very infectious, as there were no slow songs or moments, but the changes from harsh vocals to clean singing were very commendable and oftentimes something not handled by just one person, and they were by and large the most active person, using every square foot of space on the stage, complete with microphone stand antics, lots of three-finger salutes, and headbanging. For over seventy minutes, the performance was a relentless barrage of one of the best examples of folk metal. This is perhaps one of the last tour legs for the most recent album, Kob, from 2023, but on this night, even down a couple of members, the band put on an empathetically passionate performance and, in doing so, garnered some new fans.

SETLIST
‘Intro (Izrechenie: Nachalo)’, ‘Kob”, ‘Ydi’, ‘Na Strazhe Novyh Let’, ‘Yav”, ‘Khram’, ‘Goi, Rode, Goi!’, ‘Zakliatie’, ‘Zimushka’