Live Review

For The Imperium – The Garage, London

• 26th Mar 2013

For the Imperium are a thrash band hailing from the North – by that, I mean Finland. The embarked on their UK tour earlier in the month and made their way through the country, playing with various bands and at various venues, mainly what you would usually expect from a tour of this kind. But what these guys bring to the table is far from what the audience can expect.

Before I get into this, it is important to mention their predecessors on the stage – Seven Deadly. The melodic metal, almost punk, band made their way on stage and bellowed through their half hour set and did the supports job – got the crowd going. Frontman Archie Wilson’s voice echoed through London’s Garage, proving he had quite a set of pipes on him. The rest of the band played their parts well, but the stage belonged to Wilson.

Following that, our Finnish metal heads joined the stage. Despite the light crowd, For The Imperium kicked off their set in gruelling fashion. This, a band described as being the “Bastard son of metal and prog”, or even their self description of defecating on metal, leaves little to the imagination of what they’re like. Their music is big and loud, and I don’t think that this London crowd was ready for it.

It was easy to tell that their on stage presence is a big part of their show, yet sadly it was almost lost in translation. Lead singer Hakim Hietikko was very good for his part, indeed the entire band were very good – songs like Sudden Death or Breathing Life In You could potentially be massive arena tracks – the only issue was that the crowd did not know this band well enough to get involved, and the band maybe could have put their efforts across a little better.

Still, there is a lot to look forward to with For The Imperium. Hopefully they will grace our shores again, to a crowd who will enjoy their set more than those in The Garage did.

Venue: The Garage, London
Support Band: Seven Deadly