The Moshville Times - Gig Review: Burning Witches / Nervosa / BrainBath

It’s been a long time since I was in the Classic Grand in Glasgow, but here we are for Nervosa and Burning Witches in the smaller Lounge part of the venue.

First up are local lads BrainBath, a last minute replacement for SystemHouse 33 who could not make this show. The venue is already pretty full by the time the lads come on and head straight into “Garbage Truck Suicide”, quickly followed by “Dropped in Septic Waste”. They are laying waste to the Classic Grand and the crowd are well up for it. The band treat us to the “Stench of Burning Human Flesh” next before we get “Stripped Clean”

BrainBath are pretty ferocious but fun, and vocalist Kwondo can certainly strip clean walls with that voice. We have a rare cover now from a band who are no longer around: “Boneyard” from Impetigo’s Horror of Zombies album. The song was certainly done justice tonight and had the crowd moshing away. The short but brutally brilliant set ends with “The Thing: From Another World”.

If you like your metal hard, fast and heavy with killer riffage and brutal vocals then these are the boys for you. They have a debut EP out in a few weeks, buy it when it comes out, catch them live and support your local bands.

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Next to appear on stage are Brazil’s Nervosa who hit the now packed venue with a triple volley of thrash metal from last year’s epic Perpetual Chaos. “Kings of Domination”, “People of the Abyss” and “Genocidal Command” blast out and rile up the crowd. Diva has a voice that could cut glass and how Eleni at the rear keeps up that pace on the drums is amazing. There is an intense ferocity in the band’s playing with Prika on guitar just laying waste to the crowd, alongside Mia on bass who looked positively demonic all night.

We have the crushing “Death!” next from 2014’s Victim of Yourself, and the crowd are going mental. This results in yours truly being knocked over the very low stage numerous times during the night trying to keep the cameras from getting smashed! We have another few tracks from last year’s album including the Motorhead-flavoured “Rebel Soul”. The aptly named “Into Moshpit” had the crowd going mental – including stage diving, which is no mean feat from a stage only a few inches high.

There is a lone outing from 2018’s Downfall of Mankind with the brutal “Kill the Silence”… except there is no silence here tonight. The “Masked Betrayer” makes an appearance from their Time of Death EP before another triple volley of Perpetual Chaos. The set ends with us “Under Ruins” with its killer Slayer type vibes.

Nervosa were on fire tonight and the venue feels equally toasty, the sweat trickling down my spine. The band went down a storm and we even had Prika stepping into the crowd at one point with some headbanging riffage. The stage may be low, but Nervosa have set the bar high for Burning Witches to follow after an intense set of quality thrash metal at its best.

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Up next, the Swiss/Dutch band Burning Witches who have a very much more melodic sound than the pure thrash that is Nervosa.

They open up with “Executed” from 2018’s Hexenhammer. Laura’s voice opens up, the twin guitar attack from Romana and Larissa very much to the fore, with Lala on drums and Jay on bass keeping those rhythms flowing. We have a twin attack from Dance with the Devil in the form of the thunderous “Wings of Steel” and “Sea of Lies” (with hints of Metallica in the guitars). Laura is like one of the Valkyries tonight as she prowls the stage to “Flight of the Valkyries”, the first from last year’s excellent The Witch of the North. It features a slow melodic opening before it really kicks in full tilt.

We have a few more from last year’s album including the excellent pounding rocker “We Stand As One”. One of tonight’s standout tracks was “Black Widow” with some fantastic guitar work, just one of those classic heavy melodic tracks that suit Laura’s voice so well. Burning Witches end what feels like a very short set with their signature song, “Burning Witches” – another anthemic fist pumping headbanger of a song

This was another fantastic set from a band with a different style to Nervosa, but no less powerful. With the girls swapping places all night, no mean feat on a stage so small, you would need to be a trio to have room to move.

We had a really hot sweaty evening of class heavy metal with all three bands really pulling out all the stops. The crowd loved every minute and put a lot of energy into moshing, stage diving in a very loose sense of the word, fist pumping and headbanging all night.

Photos by Gary Cooper Photography