High On Fire

Really, you’d have thought that evolution, albeit a sole generation’s worth, would have enforced the necessary changes by now. Rock and roll - and for that read every little sub-genre that’s sprung forth from the topsoil laid when Dylan first clued up to the possibilities of electricity - is over 50 years old, yet still the human ear struggles to handle its perfectly controlled fury. Still heavy metal remains heavy, and subsequently one’s head feels as if it’s been up close and personal with an industrial tumble dryer after all of five minutes in the company of High On Fire.

There are but three men on stage - I know, evolution has progressed far enough for humans to grasp the concept of numeracy - but the noise contained within these four appropriately blackened walls is comparable to that made by a thousand gunmen, each trading their Winchesters up for shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. Really, this volume is terrifying - ‘Devilution’ on record is one thing, what with its ever-growing drums, but here, up there, right now, it could just herald the arrival of the apocalypse. And if these men could, they really fucking would.

‘Brother Of The Wind’, whilst slower in delivery, offers no respite from the onslaught - even at this stage it’s clear that all but the hardiest of hearing (or those that sensibly brought earplugs) will be leaving blessed with four senses. A single criticism can be levelled at the trio - that they have three basic song structures, truth be told, and simply play them at slightly different paces to form a set - but when it’s Matt fucking Pike up there, he of Sleep, guitar wielded like the biggest phallus these eyes have seen since they accidentally chanced upon some dodgy (and I mean dodgy) pornography during their final year at university, who really gives a fuck? Metal isn’t meant to challenge; it exists to have people like these - people like me_ - throwing their should-have-been-cut-three-months-ago hair to and fro with the reckless abandonment of a five-year-old future metalhead hearing _‘Paradise City’ for the first time. This is fun, and however evolved _we_ become this will forever remain just that. At this music’s core beats an archaic heart, but in the flesh these men are lords of this land. The stage is but a platform for preaching; the pit, simply a giant pew for the faithful.

In short, evolution can suck a 12” prosthetic, be it from that film - horrifying images from which are burned into my brain for an eternity - or otherwise. Darwin's Ghost, have an early night; tonight, devilution reigns in blessed black blood.