Pirage Forsi's Metalopolis: Eclipse and H.E.A.T Live this week.

My poor ears have taken a right royal pounding this week!

On Wednesday I saw Eclipse for the first time at the Underworld. There were 3 support bands which was a bit much to be honest. The best of the three was Envy Assured who play modern melodic metal with choppy melodic riffs with both clean and screamed vocal parts. The other two were a bit amateurish to my ears. They were Kinkade and Parkway in case you're interested. Parkway had two young ladies in the band. The young lass on bass was gorgeous if you ask me. Kinkade sounded like an average pub rock band pretty much.

It all meant a slightly shorter time on stage for the Swedes but anyway they really tore it up in their allotted 60 minutes though it should have been a bit longer as they did take to the stage about 15 minutes late. Anyway they soon unleashed a massive wall of crunchy melodic rock for the fans to enjoy and bang their fists too. Erik is a ball of fire and tears around the stage like a lunatic and Magnus rips out riffs and solos like there's no tomorrow. The sound was huge and the turnout was decent for a midweek slot. Probably around 250-300.

The boys played all their best songs from the two brilliant recent albums. Bitter Taste stuck out most with it's slow burning anthemic feel with a great vocal from Erik. Erik actually didn't play guitar so he was free to cut loose on his vocals which he did do in his best fashion. He got the crowd pumped up big time as well with his energetic stage antics. The star of the show however was the guitarist Magnus. The guy rips killer chops from his axe make no mistake. The volume was a bit too loud and rendered a couple of songs almost unrecognisable at first which was a shame but gigs at the Underworld normally have excellent sound and this was no exception really.

Every song was well received and sung along to by the front rows and more. Great gig, with lots of energy and good to finally see them live.

Last night was the turn of fellow Swedes HEAT and they near enough tore the roof off of the Garage. The crowd was near enough packed out. Probably close to 600 or more I would guess. HEAT is getting proper big these days and I think it's all down to Erik Gronwall. If Kenny was still in the band they'd still be a small AOR band playing to a 100 people or so I reckon. I have been very strong in my criticism of the new album in amongst almost everyone else gushing and blowing their loads over it but even I have to admit that these guys are a real live tornado on stage.

They bring it live and then some and it's all down to Erik if I'm honest. They guy's enthusiasm is just something else and his sweat blood for the cause attitude really paid off for the boys. Musically they've long left AOR behind and moved to a hard hitting type of modern melodic rock that reminds me of Hardcore Superstar somewhat. Erik has a tendency to scream a lot of the lines which takes away some of the finesse of the songs but the volume was so ball bustingly loud last night that you have to scream to be heard that's for sure!

The two support bands for HEAT were both pretty good by the way. UK's New Device I have known for some time and they rock and have a very cool singer with very cool melodic songs. Unfortunately I missed about half their set due to miscalculating the stage times. I thought they would start at 7pm but it was actually 6.45. Supercharger from Denmark I didn't know but they were quite fun indeed. Their set started a little late which in turn cut in HEAT's set by about 15 minutes. Anyway Supercharger were rock n roll metal basically and a little bit like Status Quo mixed with Volbeat. Good warm up act and they got a decent response from a crowd who by and large had never heard a note from the band.

Soon enough the huge crowd was at fever pitch and getting very pumped as the intro song The Heat Is On played over the PA before the band took their positions and tore straight into Point of No Return. The HEAT boys played for about 75 minutes with no encore as there were a few technical gremlins but it flew past very quickly indeed although I must admit I was lagging by the end of the set! I'm an old man you know! They concentrated on their latest two albums with only a couple of forays into earlier material. Keep on Dreaming from the first album would have been nice guys. But the new songs were super powerful and hard hitting in the live setting which took the band towards metal territory rather than hard rock. Special mention of the song In and Out of Trouble which saw Herman Li take to the severyone's surprise. I think Herman likes the band and they toured together before If I'm not wrong. Very cool version of a great song it must be said.

Basically I recommend going to see HEAT just to see Erik tear the place up with his one man screaming wrecking machine act. That young man is like an Inferno all in himself to use a title of a HEAT song.In fact this week both Erik's tore the place up! Swedes rule hard when it comes to rocking hard and partying like there's no tomorrow!

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