LIVE: HAMMERFALL with SILENT KNIGHT – Fremantle, 14 Jan 2025

LIVE: HAMMERFALL with SILENT KNIGHT – Fremantle, 14 Jan 2025
Metropolis, Fremantle, Western Australia
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
Photography by Damien Crocker

There’s a popular misconception that heavy metal is always a wall of noise topped off with guttural growls and atonal screaming, but nothing could be further from the truth with power metal legends Hammerfall and local heroes Silent Knight’s triumphant first show of their Australian tour.

Sure, the guitars are loud (and hallelujah to that), the solos fast and furious, the drums relentless enough to ensure necks will be sore the next morning, the vocals intense and impassioned – but it’s all as crisp as a Samboy chip and precise as an atomic clock, the vocals as clean as a virgin stream and laden with more than enough melody to have even new fans singing along with the choruses on first listen.

Exhibit A, M’lud: Silent Knight. Over a handful of years they’ve fought the tyranny of distance all Perth bands must confront, and through national and international touring and a series of superb albums they’ve built up a solid fanbase. The sheer amount of SK t-shirts in attendance – almost as many as the headliner – and their appearance as support for the entire tour are proof of their standing.

The quintet don’t fuck around, surging straight into action with huge riffs, soaring vocals and great uplifting songs. This is what Power Metal is all about and it’s barely a moment before fists are pumping and larynxes straining as one with the band.

Swedish headliners Hammerfall have taken 26 years to get to Perth and they’re as enthusiastic as the big, black t-shirt clad crowd, immediately showing why they’re such hot property.

With more leather and studs than a BDSM dungeon at Judas Priest’s house their aural onslaught may be fast n’ loud but it can’t disguise a love of uplifting melody from perfectly epic opener Avenge The Fallen.

The band have stagecraft to match their anthemic songs of battle and glory, each of them working the crowd at every opportunity.

How many songs featuring ‘hammer’ in the title is too many, a non-believer might ask? Well, the answer for Hammerfall is that there are none – none too many, so Hammer High (everyone’s fists raised high like “our own personal hammers”), Hammer of Dawn, Let The Hammer Fall, etc are all welcomed enthusiastically. Bonus points, by the way, for Oscar Dronjak’s hammer-shaped guitar.

Renegade is another mighty call to arms that gets the entire crowd joining in, and Last Man Standing again celebrates all that makes this band so great.

It’s no stretch to say that the night was a tour de force of anthemic metal. Let’s hope it’s not another 26 years before they return.

 

 

Category: Live Reviews, Photo Galleries