by Arta Gailuma
— Photojournalist —
April 2, 2018 at The Asylum, Birmingham, U.K. —
The month of April started with Andorran Progressive Death metallers Persefone hitting the town as part of European tour celebrating their fifth album Aathma with supports Defecto and Oddland. With only three U.K. dates in Persefone’s tour calendar, I did not want to miss the opportunity to see this band live.
Even though I did not expect a big crowd on an Easter Bank Holiday, the room was embarrassingly empty. Well, seems like, Brumies were more interested to spend their evening consuming the leftovers of their Easter egg chocolate than headbang to some good progressive. Their loss, shame for the bands playing though.
On the arrival, I was informed that unfortunately Danish Progressive Metal band Defecto would not take the stage leaving the evening cut short with only one support, Oddland. These Finnish Progressive metallers who describe themselves as “The collision of four twisted minds entwined” are slightly “odd” in a good way. Lots of heavy grooves in its sound as well as softer, melodic parts with influences of all sorts.
I have never seen Persefone live, and I had no idea what to expect from their stage show. And I do have to say, this band which has put the small country Andorra on the map of the metal scene is totally worth seeing live.
The frontman growler Marc is a definite eyecatcher spreading his energy over the whole band. With the small stage not offering enough space to move around he was all over the place whether it’s leaning over the pit barrier screaming in fans faces and in my lens or running around in the room stirring up a moshpit. And the set itself was a beautiful journey, a mix of superfast, heavy riffs and atmospheric parts, melodic keyboards and clean vocals by Miguel Espinosa.
After the show band headed over to the merch desk and took their time chatting with the little audience, they had that night. Persefone totally blew the place away with their performance leaving everyone mesmerized.
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Band:
Marc Martins: growls
Carlos Lozano: guitars
Miguel Espinosa: keyboard, clean vocals
Tony Mestre: bass
Filipe Baldaia: guitars
Sergi Verdeguer: drums
Persefone’s new single ‘In Lak’Ech’ can be heard here:
www.persefone.com
www.facebook.com/persefoneband/
www.oddlandband.com
www.facebook.com/oddland/
