Live Review: Xentrix - Club Academy, Manchester
Support: Damnation's Hammer
15th November 2024
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: David Schutz
It seems to be Eighties Thrash Legends Friday in Manchester these days, with Sepultura closing their account in the town through a final performance at the main Academy last week and Preston stalwarts, Xentrix, rounding off their 2024 touring to mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of their debut tonight.
Damnation’s Hammer haven’t had too far to come to play tonight and are always a band that you can be confident will deliver everything you need them to do as the support. Last seen by me opening for Voivod about eighteen months ago, the four-piece elude the spirit of Thrashing Heavy Metal through dark and abrasive riffs, with more than a smattering of atmospherics adding for good measure.
Temple of the Descending Gods is as grandiose as its title suggests, allowing the weight of the song rather than speed to speak; Hammers of War and Entrance to the Final Chamber are lifted from the band’s 2019 record, Unseen Planets, Deadly Spheres, while Sutter Cane and Outpost 31 come from last year’s Into the Silent Nebula album. Arpeggio introductions rub shoulders with fat, chugging riffs, making Damnation’s Hammer a treat of a trip down Memory Lane for all of us of a certain age.
In the interests of full disclosure, I have to ‘fess up to being from Xentrix’s home-town. We used to see them drinking in the same pubs, back when they were still Sweet Vengeance, they were our band; we’d pop along to their low-key shows in the months leading up to the release of Shattered Existence, and I’d sometimes see most of the members of the band on the terraces of Central Park in the early Nineties. I’ll try to remain as objective as possible here, but please bear with…
This show is the last of Xentrix’s 2024 trek in support of Shattered Existence’s thirty-fifth anniversary, which started back at the beginning of February in Birmingham and has visited all five nations of these British Isles, including a set at Bloodstock Open Air, headlining London’s Coalition Festival, and a jaunt over to Milan for MetalItalia with Overkill and Destruction.
The Xentrix-ship has been stabilised after many years of uncertainly and turbulence with the recruitment of former FourWayKill and Anger Management guitarist, Jay Walsh, taking the rhythm and vocal duties.
There’s a line in the opening No Compromise, about not caring what your parents might say which feels a tad dated as the band – and a large chunk of their audience - are probably grandparents by this stage and, although that might have aged like milk, the desire for the exuberance of youthful rebellion still flickers somewhere in all of us. However you think of it, it’s still a cracking tune to kick off the album, and the evening.
Balance of Power and Crimes have been fixtures in the Xentrix set from the outset and there’s no reason for that to change, being as relevant now as the day they were written. But it’s when you get deeper into the record that the real nostalgia trip begins.
Back in the Real World and Dark Enemy finds Jay and Stan exchanging guitar licks; Bad Blood is all about that cavemen riff and fuck you attitude; Reasons for Destruction comes with its groovy bounce, and I still feel Position of Security is one of the band’s hidden gems.
Following the closing Heaven Cent Xentrix are free to head off in whichever direction they please and take the opportunity to remind Manchester that, not only is this night a celebration of their past, but also a look to the future. Behind the Walls of Treachery, the opening track from 2022’s Seven Words album, marks the second part of the set, in which the band showcase some of their more recent compositions. The introduction is measured and restrained before the blitzkrieg arrives and Xentrix role back the years to deliver a full on rager beneath cold blue stage lights.
Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead and The Altar of Nothing complete the Seven Words contingent, while the title track of the previous record, Bury the Pain, further demonstrates the scope of the band’s new era with devastating staccato riff and barked vocal.
It’s on these tunes that the recruitment of Jay proves itself to be a masterstroke, Mr Walsh’s vocals are so close to Chris’ that one could be forgiven for thinking it was deliberate. There was no baby-out-with-the-bathwater reaction as with 1996’s Scourge.
Of course, a Xentrix show is incomplete without a visit or three to the sophomore For Whose Advantage? And the night is served by the title track, Black Embrace and the finale of Questions.
The band’s desire to conquer the Thrash Metal world might well have cooled over the thirty-five years since Shattered Existence first hit the racks, and the ups and downs of the history of Xentrix would make an interesting read. But great music can’t be so easily wiped away and tonight, our boys again did good.
Photo Credits: David Schutz
