The newly started Aces High Club presented the ultimate package of undeground heavy metal this weekend, with Flight, Lethal Steel and Steelwing playing at Pokalen.

This Friday, the metal audience in Oslo had several opportunities to catch a gig. Black metal at Vulkan arena with Urgehal, Beastcraft and Endezzma, sludge/post metal act Cult of Luna at Rockefeller, progressive rock band Aunt Mary played at John Dee and finally, heavy metal madness at Pokalen.

Due to the concert upstairs, I ended up in a cue outside of the venue, while Flight played their first songs of the set. When inside, the first song is Don’t Lose It from their first single. Pokalen is far from crowded at this point, but eventually there will be a few more people in the audience. Next up is Devil Woman, the last song on Flight’s self titled album. Vocalist Christoffer Bråthen seems a bit uncomfortable fronting the band, and holds back somewhat on his vocals. There’s no reason for that, though. I think if the band just believe in what they do, the live performance would be a lot better, because  what their music consists of is an example of solid heavy metal with awesomness written all over the riffs.

Two new songs, an instrumental, Arrival, and another which I didn’t catch the name of are included in the set, and Escape, one of their best tunes, marks the end of the performance. A thorough and charming gig, but with more live experience it’s no doubt that Flight will grow and improve for each time and deliver even better the next time I catch them live.

Seeing Lethal Steel in Gøteborg last weekend, I kind of knew what to expect. Well, it turns out I was wrong, because this gig was way better than their performance at Göteborg Rock fest. The set list was mostly the same, starting out with Warrior, followed by Demon From the Past, Nattsvart and Rosier. The audience weren’t allowed to catch their breath before Sirius hit our ears, and the whole concert was a complete heavy metal attack from start to end.

The audience at Pokalen were far more enthusiastic than the Swedish one, and there was even a slightly “ååhååhååååhå”-attempt in between the songs. Quite impressive, since the crowd counted like 50-60-something. And this number was dramatically reduced when the last act hit the stage, unfortunately.

Steelwing is clearly not a big name in the Norwegian underground scene yet. Without exaggeration, I guess we were 15-20 people left in the audience, but that didn’t seem to affect this headliner. Steelwing has gone through a change in style since last time I saw them, live at Rockefeller supporting Accept in 2011. From classic heavy metal with a touch of power metal, to a slight touch of occult heavy metal with an even more futuristic, apocalyptic theme added to it with their latest release Reset, Reboot, Redeem. 

They opened with the title track, and continued with a mix between new and old material such as The Illusion, Zone of Alienation and Architects of Destruction before ending the show with Roadkill (…Or Be Killed). Sadly, We Are All Here Left to Die, was not a part of the set. Maybe that’s because of the song’s length, but it’s without a doubt the best song on their latest release, and it definitely deserves a place on the setlist. Steelwing tried to do the best out of the situation playing for such a small amount of people, and they accomplished it nicely in my opinion.

 

So, I guess Lethal Steel made the strongest performance of the evening, but Steelwing and Flight were enjoyable as well, and I’m more than willing to see these bands live again some other time. Thanks to Aces High Club for yet another great night of heavy metal!

All photos by Unborn.