Nottingham’s heavy metal scene is a renowned one: any bands with hefty riffs, goofy antics and a dazzling stage show in tow will find themselves right at home in the city, and those descriptors fit the amphibian worship of Froglord and the hot pink jumpsuits of Space Pistol to a tee. Thursday night saw the two bands (together with local act Satangelist) playing at Liquid Light Brewery— as you might imagine, the alcohol and the good times were not in short supply.

Satangelist

No small-scale show like this would be complete without some local representation, and this time around, it was Nottingham’s Satangelist stepping up to the plate before Milton Keynes’ Space Pistol and Bristol’s Froglord. Right from the get-go, you could tell this wasn’t going to be your typical heavy metal show— where the headlining acts of the night would open their sets with bombastic drum fills and roaring blasts of guitar, the Satangelist had his eye on a more theatrical and psychedelic experience. All throughout the opening track, the man simply skulked across the stage, burning incense and drawing bloody crosses on the foreheads of audience members. As we plunged deeper into this bizarre experience, it became quite clear that this was no preamble: the show’s music was made up almost entirely of backing tracks, leaving the sole performer to gesture wildly at his theremin.

The Satangelist did go on to provide vocals and accompanying guitar parts throughout the latter half of the set, but even then, both elements were clearly playing second fiddle to the ‘mystery’ of the whole thing— in a venue as brightly lit as Liquid Light Brewery, the effect was entirely lost on us. Metal communities have often responded well to atypical, ritual-like shows (just see the abundant success of  a group like Heilung for proof of that) but to be frank, they’re a stark contrast to the excitement and the energy of a more traditional live show: in this case, the washed-out post-rock tracks and stripped-back visuals that Satangelist brought to the table hardly had the audience rocking out like they did for Space Pistol or Froglord, and you could definitely feel the unease and the confusion in the room on Thursday night. If you’re looking to check out this unusual act, his Spotify page is readily available— the songs weren’t really elevated on stage.

Space Pistol

Even before they started to play, you could’ve guessed that Space Pistol were going to take the energy at Liquid Light Brewery up to eleven. The trio just oozed charisma and charm in every moment, earning the fluorescent pink of their jumpsuits with their boundless excitement: Ashley Sainsbury, in particular, was clearly having the time of his life racing around the stage, but you really couldn’t fault the crowd interactions or the inescapable passion of any member of the group. Space Pistol make loud, bold rock music, and that has never been more apparent than at their live show— if you think an album like ‘Leave With Everything’ sounds rabid in the studio, the band’s expansive pedalboards and monstrous guitar tones will leave you speechless when they’re in front of you. Every second felt like it was dripping with confidence and swagger, right down to the satisfying crunch of Tom Darby’s drum fills: you could feel every song in your chest, and it was no surprise to see mosh pits breaking out by the show’s end.

The three-piece are building up to the release of a new record (which you can get the inside scoop on in our interview with them), and it was unreleased material that made up the majority of the band’s setlist this time around. Space Pistol only had a forty-minute set, a time they insisted on cramming a massive number of new tracks into— when all was said and done, fan-favourites like ‘Death Collector,’ ‘W.A.I.L?’ and ‘JAWS’ were left on the cutting room floor, and you can understand why some attendees might’ve been disappointed in that respect. Still, it’s hard to complain when the show the band did deliver was so consistently thrilling: even when they’re playing songs you haven’t heard before and cannot currently listen to on your own time, Space Pistol can still get you singing along. New single ‘Space Pirate’ is even more monstrous live, no doubt aided by Sainsbury’s diabolical harsh vocals, and you could say much the same for the psychedelic playing of ‘Cryptd’ and the catchy hooks of ‘Ambulance.’ Even without the hits, you could confidently declare this to be a spot-on show from Space Pistol— if you have the opportunity to catch them live, take it.

Froglord

Liquid Light Brewery is a delightful venue, with its massive tankards and pipes making up the backdrop for the night’s entertainment: still, it was impressive just how efficiently Froglord could transform the place, with a handful of carefully placed signs and amphibian-themed memorabilia transporting the audience to the mystical swamp. This was a show defined by its theatrics, from the ominous masks each performer donned to the wild gesticulating and frog-worshipping of the band’s frontman— if Space Pistol’s appeal was in the intimacy and the earnestness of their personas, Froglord were instead focused on a more cinematic, scripted style of performance. The trade-off could be harsh at times, especially when the aforementioned masks limited the group’s ability to really express themselves on stage. For an act as inherently goofy as this, you might’ve expected more gags and antics throughout the set: instead, the four-piece committed to their ritualistic style completely, placing the emphasis solely on the power and might of their doom metal riffs.

Befitting of their signature aesthetic, Froglord’s show was dominated by dirty guitar tones, swampy bass lines and croaking drum parts— this is a band that just named their latest record ‘Lower & Slower,’ for goodness sake! The group didn’t have pedalboards quite as elaborate as Space Pistol’s in tow, and their instruments didn’t smack you in the face in quite the same way because of it, but that wouldn’t stop each groaning riff from deafening you (that is, when one of the principal speakers wasn’t giving out, as it unfortunately did somewhat frequently throughout the set). The mid-set cover of Black Sabbath’s legendary ‘Iron Man’ marked a real turning point for Froglord, taking this iconic number and spinning it into something much darker and more reptilian: the audience was locked in from then on as we were treated to the psychedelic wanderings of ‘The Mystic Toad’ and anthemic closers ‘The Bog’ and ‘They Came From Saturn.’ Froglord take themselves surprisingly seriously on stage, and maybe you could critique them for that, but their commitment to immersive swamp rituals is nonetheless commendable.