Saturday night in Glasgow and the city centre was remarkably quiet as I walked over to Slay for a night of pure heavy metal. I wasn’t sure what time doors / set times were, so I got there a little early and ended up chatting to both support bands, Stirling (who has quite the YouTube channel) and half of Brain Bath.
Opening up were Dublin’s Psykosis, featuring one member who shares duties with AeSect – both bands we’ve encountered at Bloodstock in the past. Psykosis are out and out thrash, and from what I could hear have quite the Nuclear Assault influence. Their set bounced between their current release Mind Games and 2016’s Welcome to the Psyko Ward.
Soundwise there’s little between the two album as Psykosis aren’t trying to do anything new. Their job is to throw around machine-gun riffs and fast-paced vocals that get necks cranking… and they do. Despite a small audience (I’ll hit on this later), the majority were right on the barrier headbanging away and obviously enjoying the set. And there was no reason not to. The band were fun, fast, thrashy and very nice to talk to between sets.
Up next were adopted Scots, Brazilian born (and Italian-influenced!) Murder Worship. Straight up death metal, again they weren’t out to upset any apple carts in terms of trying anything new, but instead pummelled with some great songs. If death metal ain’t broken, why try and fix it?
Like our openers, they have two albums out – 2013’s Hate Celebration and Doomsday from 2021 though the lineup is almost entirely shiny new as of last year. Plenty to pick from and the slightly-larger-by-now audience were well into their dark, heavy sound. Thrumming bass, belting drums and strident guitars backed founder member Diegö Mürray’s vocals, and they celebrated the end of the show with a lovely Brazilio-Scots flag that they had had specially printed for the occasion.
Don’t fancy Patreon? Buy us a one-off beverage!
And onto our headliners. The Troops of Doom were kicking off a very long tour in Glasgow this evening, having travelled all the way from Brazil. Their selling point (other than the great music) us the inclusion of Jairo “Tormentor” Guedz, who was a founding member of Sepultura and featured on their first two releases. As such, their sound is very much like early Seps, bringing together the thrash and death metal styles of tonight’s opening acts. As Paul said in his review linked earlier, “whilst the band are very much immersed in that lates 80s death metal style, they are also contemporary enough to bridge the gap to 2022” (and, indeed, 2025). To my mind, The Troops of Doom are what Sepultura could have sounded like if they hadn’t evolved and changed so much over the years. This is far more raw. Better? No, just different. I very much have time for both bands.
Enough about the what-ifs though. Troops are actually the youngest band on show tonight, formally starting in 2020. With 2 EPs and now two albums to promote, they had no problem filling their set. Complete with intro tapes, audience engagement and some great tunes they had the crowd in the palms of their upturned, clawed hands. Each song is brutal but technical, and there is the inclusion of two old Sepultura tracks in the set.
The band have stage presence, a great “look”, and know how to work an audience as well as throw out some great songs. The set really flew past, and it was fun playing “spot the support band member” in the crowd as everyone downed tools to enjoy the show.
Hearing “Bestial Devastation” featuring one of the original musicians (after having witnessed it with the other last year at King Tuts) was a special moment, akin to finally watching Paul Di’Anno singing those early Maiden numbers, and it was obvious that this was a highlight for the rest of the audience as well as myself. The set was rounded off by the other, obvious, cover of “Troops of Doom” which still holds up after all these years.
The only let-down of the night was the small audience. Those who were there will know it was a solid show by all three bands, but October now is absolutely rammed with gigs. If people don’t have something on the same night, then they have to pick and choose which ones they can afford to go to. This is a crying shame as the range and quality of live entertainment available right now has never, I will argue, been better. Too much of a good thing, really. And tonight was a shining example of that. Three top bands, and a crowd who were really into them.
The Troops of Doom have a fair few more dates left on the tour. They’re well worth switching Netflix off for.
