Live Review: Trivium w/Code Orange, Power Trip & Venom Prison @ London’s Brixton Academy 21/04/2018!

It’s a blisteringly hot Saturday in April that sees the Metal Hammer Sponsored “The Sin And The Sentence” tour arrive for it’s final show in London. The venue? A sold out Brixton Academy that has 4,921 Metal heads descending on the capital. The closing night of a nearly 7 week European run has concluded with a quintet of UK dates and the expectation is that the tour will end on a high. The line-up was picked by Trivium and Metal Hammer nearly 4 months ago over a bowl of Ramen Noodles – Code Orange, Power Trip & Venom Prison being the first names to be chosen. They made it happen.

Metal Hammer’s “New Faces of Death Metal” Venom Prison have come a long way very quickly. It was a year ago that we saw them supporting Suicide Silence at Southampton Engine Rooms and they have grown in that time to release a deluxe version of their critically acclaimed 2016 album “Animus” via Prosthetic Records and win the Metal Hammer “Best Newcomer” award at June’s Golden Gods Awards. In the live arena, the band are tight, efficient and face meltingly effective. If you didn’t know front woman Larissa Stupar was a woman, her guttural vocals wouldn’t tell you. They smash through a set including “Corrode The Black Sun” and leave many wondering what they have just witnessed. Venom Prison will take a month off before heading out to the US to continue their whirlwind year and join the Devastation On The Nation Tour 2018 with Aborted, Psycroptic, INGESTED & DISENTOMB. [7/10]

Dallas Texas Thrashers Power Trip have to contend with a pair of mid-song stoppages for audience members to get medical attention but still manage to impress with a number of cuts from February’s “Nightmare Logic”, released via Southern Lord. Frontman Riley Gale leaps around the stage like a Hardcore kid at a punk show, jumping off the drum platform, kicking and punching the air during lengthy sections of Thrash riffs overlayed with whammy bar action a-plenty from from Blake “Rossover” Ibanez. Despite the stoppages, they put on a decent set and “Firing Squad” is a big highlight [7/10]

Critically claimed “Saviours of Hardcore” Code Orange (formerly known as Code Orange Kids) have not only played the 34 dates of this tour, but have also played the off dates with Venom Prison in tow. Their recent release “Forever” via Roadrunner Records has lifted the band to heady new heights with singles like “Bleeding In The Blur” adding an almost Nirvana-esq quality to their battering ram of jarring riffage and white noise. As their trio of guitarists and bass player stalk the stage throwing air punches and fist pumps, their drummer Jami Morgan demonstrates his vocal prowess and the audience lap it up [7/10]

Trivium have regularly been a touring presence upon our shores and have built themselves up with a classic Metal album in “The Sin And The Sentence” to move from last years London show at the 1,700 capacity Roundhouse to this one at Brixton Academy. That’s nearly 3 times as many Metal heads in a single room, headbanging, moshing and screaming along to the every word from every song the band play tonight. Guitar duels between Corey Beaulieu and Matt Heafy are epic, as is the way that the pair trade off vocals in the live arena – with Beaulieu handling a fair portion of the uncleans to give Heafy’s voice a rest. The powerhouse rhythm section of ex-Battlecross drummer Alex Bent and bassist Paolo Gregoletto add much needed balance as the band deliver that extra je ne sais quoi over their recorded material. From the opening of “The Sin And The Sentence” it’s faster, heavier and with more passion and power as the band tear through a set sprinkled with class cuts from their back catalogue as well as a wealth of newer material. Highlights? So many. “Dying In Your Arms”, “Like Light To Flies”, “Until The World Goes Cold”, “Betrayer” and “In Waves” to name but a few. Until next time. [10/10]