Live Review: Cultura Tres - Star & Garter, Manchester
21st February 2024
Support: BruteAlles
Words: Matthew Williams
As I headed into the venue, I walked behind a grey haired chap, hair tied up, who looked a bit bemused when he entered the door, observing the splendour of one of Manchester's finest venues, then I realised it was Paulo Xisto Jr, of famed thrash titans Sepultura, who was in a rather smaller venue tonight to play with Cultura Tres.
The action began upstairs though with Manchester’s own BruteAllies. The 5 piece thrash/death metallers were back from an enforced hiatus, and with a new drummer in tow, singer James Bridges began the night with a bowel clenching growl that would have woken up many people, as they started off with the fast and furious “Invasion”.
With bass player Hassan taking centre stage with the Akercocke hooded lead singer, they keep the tempo high with “Battlefield”. The songs are full of great drum rolls, and excellent riffs from the twin guitarists, with a couple of hard core drops in there for good measure. “It’s getting warm in here” bellows Bridges, whilst ironically still wearing his hoodie, as they career headfirst into the epic “Lost Souls” before finishing with “Dark Army” another excellent thrash song full of killer solos, fast vocals and a great way to end their set.
As the crowd start to pour back upstairs, the spooky intro music begins, and taking centre stage, singer/guitarist Alejandro Londono Montoya, stands there, eyes closed, before Cultura Tres rip into opening track, “The World and Its Lies”. Its quite a brutal song, with heavy riffs, excellent bass lines, bone shattering drumming, all and all, a great thrash song. With a hint of feedback, and more excellent drumming from Jerry Vergara Cevallos, “Time is Up” with its heavy sludge riffs is belted out, much to the appreciation of the crowd.
After a few silent moments, with a few technical guitar issues, the softer gentle intro of “The Land” begins, and after a change of guitars, Montoya addresses the crowd, with a “nice to see you guys, we appreciate you coming out tonight to watch us” which is met with loud applause from the meagre crowd assembled in the Star & Garter. They then launch into the blistering “Proxy War” which demonstrates the superb guitar skills of Juan De Ferrari Montoya, and proves just how good the band are.
With the setlist being dominated by songs from their latest album, “Camino de Brujos”, they delve into their back catalogue and play “Day One”, which is a brilliantly heavy, sludgy piece of music, with great drumming once again. Alejandro then gave quite an emotional speech, explaining that the brothers lost their energy a while ago and through the friendship of Paulo Jr, they have been reignited, but have taken a while to get back out on the road due to Xisto’s busy schedule with Sepultura. They are a true South American band, with members from Brazil, Columbia and Venezuela.
With divisions all over the world, this leads nicely into “Zombies” which is the fastest song of the night, but with an intense slower mid-section displaying that sludge sound that the crowd enjoys. They then pay tribute to the country which birthed the metal scene and play a brilliant version of “Black Sabbath” which is really intense, and follow this with “The Smell of Death”
“Whose coming to Bloodstock?” asks Montoya, which only gets a muted reply, “We want to see as many friendly faces as possible there, so please come along and support us” as they begin their final song, the epic “Signs”, which has a great intro, great riffs and is a bloody great song.
I suspect that most people have come tonight to see Paolo Jr play a small venue, but he’s very humble and plays his bass superbly well and, like in Sepultura, he stays in his corner of the small stage and just gets on with doing what he does best, and plays his heart out. But overall, people will have left tonight knowing that they’ve witnessed one hell of a band, and Cultura Tres are definitely a band worth seeing.
