Live Review: Mayhem, Bolzer, Departe, Earth Rot

Given that Earth Rot created a sound so powerful that it could literally be heard a block and a half away from the venue, it was perhaps not surprising that the rhythm guitarist blew his amp within the first three numbers. The band carried on regardless as a three-piece until the fourth man could rejoin the fray and the thunderous-attack vocals of Jared Bridgeman were a highlight throughout.

The intense heat following Monday's all-day storm created a tangibly muggy atmosphere inside Capitol, which Departe exploited ruthlessly. While their studio work has proved that the band are more than capable of dealing in contrasts, it was their oppressive tremolo riffs, not least during Vessel, that did the most suffocating damage under the crimson spotlights.

Almost lost behind dense plumes of purple smoke, unconventional Swiss two-piece Bolzer persistently demanded "more effects" from the live sound mixer. Once the desired effects were finally produced, Okoi Thierry Jones' guitar and vocals were so heavily processed that they almost seemed to disembody themselves and howl around the room of their own accord. The effect might have been dream-like were it not stamped so authoritatively on the spellbound spectators. The closing Entranced By The Wolfshook could hardly have been more appropriate.

A ticket to a Mayhem show is like a passport into another dimension, such is their preternatural talent for drama and tension. Mayhem played the audience as effectively as they did their instruments right from the opening Funeral Fog, as the front rows succumbed to a collective hysteria. At the centre of Mayhem's striking visual aesthetic, vocalist Attila Csihar's unholy demeanour suggested something deeper than showmanship. It was as if he were affected by some external force, some curse or a foreshadowing of a grizzly fate that would pursue him like a bear through the woods for the rest of his days. Recreating their notorious De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas album from beginning to end, Csihar bellowed his way through Freezing Moon and with his bandmates' shimmeringly intense assistance built toward the closing title track where reality seemed suspended.

Despite no encore, the performance still amounted to a perfectly whole experience that will remain Xeroxed on the consciousnesses of all who witnessed it for many moons to come.