Back at my home from home tonight for what should be an amazing night of metal with The Three Tremors consisting of Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens, Sean Peck and Harry Conklin on vocals complete with Sean’s Cage band backing them up, so a full stage tonight. We have a band to listen to first and it’s a band I know well, the fabulous Vice from Manchester who I have seen a few times now.
The slow guitar intro starts as we feel the “Wrath” from the boys’ fantastic 2017 debut album The First Chapter before it kicks in full tilt with Tom’s stunning guitar work along with one of the best rhythm sections out there with Aiden on bass and Connor on drums. The band has a true classic metal sound sounding like early and current Metallica combined, we get three more from the same album tonight with the rocking headbanger “Pride” one of my favourites of the album, the heavy guitar-laden “Greed” and not forgetting “Envy” with its tremendous guitar intro. The band are just a joy to watch and listen to, true metal is not dead with young bands of this calibre around.
The boys also showcase three new tracks tonight “Vultures”, “Exist and Remain” which was tremendous and “Left Behind” which keep the sound of the band going forward for the new album. I truly believe their debut album will end up being a classic such is the quality of the songs and the strong production on it. If you like your Metallica and Megadeth but with a more melodic guitar sound and fabulous vocals then this is the band for you, possibly the best I have seen the boys and they truly deserve to be on the HRH bill.
We get the main even now The Three Tremors with some true metal gods in the form of Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens (Judas Priest/Iced Earth), Sean Peck (Cage/Denner-Sherman) & Harry Conklin (Jag Panzer), the band tonight are also Sean’s Cage band so you know it’s going to be good. It’s taken a while to get this together given everyone’s schedules and as you would guess the bulk of tonight’s set is from the tremendous Three Tremors album out last year.
The crunching guitars and drums of the fantastic “Wrath of Asgard” herald the first of a quadruple heavy salvo from last year’s album, quickly followed by “Bullets of the Damned”, “Invaders from the Sky” and the great “When the Last Scream Fades”, it’s like getting hit in the face by Iron Maiden and Judas Priest combined into one truly incredible metal sound. The boys are having a blast, all swapping vocals, smiling and generally having a great time as are the audience. The guitar work is stunning from David and the metal Casey caged into the corner of a cramped stage with seven of them up there, Sean Elg on drums is just a mental powerhouse in the back. The slow guitar intro heralds Tim’s first Priest days with the 1997 single “Burn in Hell” from the heavily underrated Jugulator album and it was fabulous; you could see he really enjoyed singing it and the crowd lapped it up and rightly so.
The guitars and thunderous drums kick in as we are told “The Pit Shows No Mercy” a riotous crushing song that deserves a full on mosh pit and catch sight of the “King of the Monsters” which was introduced by Tim who mentioned how Sean wrote it as a tribute to both Lemmy and “the best vocalist ever” Ronnie James Dio. With the aforementioned tribute still fresh, we hear a familiar guitar strain and “Heaven and Hell” from Black Sabbath opens up and a fantastic heartfelt tribute ensues; tremendous. The crunching guitars lead us into a “Sonic Suicide” before Sean takes over and leads us into a scream-tastic version of “Hell Destroyer” from the 2007 album of the same name from Cage.
The guitar kicks in as we head back to the Three Tremors and the glorious headbanging full on “Lust of the Blade” definitely one of my favourites tonight, it’s Harry’s turn now with a killer version of “Black Sunday” from the 1997 Jag Panzer album The Fourth Judgement a real highlight tonight. We “Fly or Die” now before Tim lets loose with a great version of “Painkiller” before the band end a truly stunning night of metal with the rocking title track “The Three Tremors” from last year’s album of the same name. This was without a doubt a real highlight gig tonight and will take some beating.
If you never came out to any of these shows then shame on you as these kind of tours are not often repeated. I would urge you to give the album a listen and if you can catch the band live as it is a full on sonic metal attack by three of the best vocalists out there today with a killer band behind them, what a night.
Photos by Coops Gig Photography
