A night of disquiet at the Archway Tavern
Fans of heavy music, horror movies and experimentation witnessed a unique five and a half hour symphony of sonic doom from bands that held nothing back and gave the word ‘scary’ a new sound. That was a carefully curated night draped in sacrificial red light, with all bands leaving their own mark and sharing the love for hardcore music and storytelling that can scare everyone else but the crows. From the very beginning, the feeling that we were in a gathering of friends was very strong, a rare quality to be witnessed even in intimate gigs.
Zero Sun: Kurataka the duo of Takatsuna Mukai and Ays Kura, is describing itself as a band using machine infused theremin and electric violin but it’s much more than this description. They opened the night offering us a unique live score of F.W Murnau’s ‘Nosferatu’ which we watched at its entirety. Following the release of their latest album ‘In Limbo-Journey Through First Circle of
Hell‘ earlier this year, they performed for ninety minutes off stage amongst us but also quite detached from us. With an improvisational set that had similar characteristics with the unique sound the duo has crafted in their album, they started and ended in drone/dark ambient mode —this sound was then enriched with eastern 
music references, short bursts of melodic idm with added heavier/noisier guitar riffs, haunting synth notes and the occasional gong sound. Ricardo Gates, Die Kur’s second vocalist, joined the duo after drums were added to the mix, to offer heavy and loud disquieting vocals. They were these vocals that opened up those pathways of horror in our souls, that were resisting up to that moment.
I can only compare the sound that was created as the visual equivalent of a volcano’s spewing lava slowly building up its power before retracting again into the crate.
“Turned to ashes Flamed in solitude” (lyrics: ‘Flamed In Solitude’)
Following a short break it was Amnesiak’s turn to mesmerise us in a similar way that Chelsea Wolfe managed to do so with her debut album. Armed with abundant theatricality and gothic metal lyricism, Francesco Fonte (8Snake) and Grace Wilson’s band of four appeared
wearing masks that could be equally referencing Commedia del’Arte or the rituals in the Eyes Wide Shut. Following the release of their impressive debut album ‘Arkfiend‘ in August, this was the band’s first gig. After introducing themselves, they offered us a short and sweet set which started with ‘Flamed In Solitude’ – my favourite song from their debut album, included ‘Bootlicker’ as well as their beautiful cover version of Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’. 
Their whole stage presence was in keeping with the themes used in their beautiful videos, and guided by Grace’s beautiful ethereal voice that cut through the heavy sounds as if they were just a thin veil of lace. With great communication between them and a strong stage presence, Amnesiak completely changed the energy field in the venue and left us wishing for more. 
It was a shame we didn’t get to enjoy their amazing videos on the screen but it’s been a while since we have enjoyed a good gothic metal band on stage (it’s great that the genre is still supported), and their setlist provided a very good teaser of their debut album and the path the band will follow.
Opensight were next on stage, wearing black suits and red shirts and looking like characters from Reservoir Dogs. 
Despite the strange entrance they made with a military march, they filled the stage with surf rock, jazz, sounds that reminded us of 60s and 70s movies and tv series and vocals that brought to mind 90s metal bands. 
The sound of Opensight has many elements as within the same song (usually at the beginning and in some instrumental parts of the songs) one can trace influences from the music of Morricone and 007 movies as well as from punk rock bands like Dead Kennedys. The band had a larger-than-this stage appearance and offered us some of their cinematic 
videos from their album ‘MONDO FICTION‘, which provided great context to their songs and overall appearance. Using heavy guitar riffs and sudden rhythmic changes to make transitions into metal rock this is the only band we know that starts 
with the mission to write music for the cinema. We urge you to explore the band’s videos and see that they not only write the music but create mini films for their videos as well – inspired by the same horror/detective/crime films and series that have inspired their music. Sadly the sound levels were very high so we could not hear the bass at all. With one album ‘MONDO FICTION’ in their discography so far, Opensight is definitely a band to follow.
The time had come, but nothing had prepared us better for the sound of Die Kur than those loud and disquieting moments that had activated the sound of Zero Sun: Kurataka at the beginning of the gig. Suddenly the stage filled with people as Die Kur prepared the setting. With eight musicians on stage and vocals offered by Ays and Ricardo, this is one of those bands that are fascinated by extreme metal rhythms and vocal distortion,
but have recently added more elements to their sound. The 18 songs in their setlist focused more on their releases before 2021, which had heavy, noisy, and more evidently thrash metal elements compared to their latest album. There were no melodies in the earlier releases, as opposed to the 2021 album ‘Regime: The Unsettling March To the World Domination‘. 
Trying to distinguish any words from the lyrics was an impossible task during the gig, and if those frantic rhythms didn’t create a sense of impending chaos within you, then please tell us how you did this! And this brings me to the sore subject of the sound in the venue. If you listen to the band’s albums with good headphones and a good sound system, then the rich sound Die Kur have created is evident and individual words in the lyrics are identifiable even in those earlier, very noisy songs. 
The sound in the venue ensured that what arrived in our ears was muddy and very loud. Any melody that was in the songs originally disappeared entirely. The violin, which was added in the latest album of the band, could not be heard at all; the vocals were just a series of distorted screams. The sound that was produced was not representative of the sound we are used to from the band’s albums and created a uniform wall of noise, which would be great if the band had nothing else to offer…but they do. 
However, no sooner than one song was performed than a mosh pit formed at the front of the stage and overall, there was such good energy between the musicians on stage, and such an honest connection with all of us, that it made the effect of the bad sound more manageable.
There are gigs that create the impression of a cult gathering and others with ‘invisible’ walls in the audience. This gig felt like a gathering of friends, and it was all down to the organisers’ warm welcome to honest communication with every single one of us.