Monday, 14 July 2008
Resisting the temptation to take the money and run... Given their relaxed release schedule (two albums in the past 17 years, and about 24 shows since 1996), The Fields Of The Nephilim deserve to sink to obscurity through inactivity, rather than be a relatively well-known, legendary act of no small import in their genre. Carl McCoy has led this ever changing selection of musicians through years of silence and inactivity, tinkering endlessly with albums that never saw daylight, or did so through legal necessity as opposed to artistic completition. To an extent, McCoy could be seen as the Goth Axl Rose, his band a revolving door of unknown musicians, his public appearances sporadic and his pronouncements rare indeed.
A year on from their ‘debut’ show, this new look Nephilim have again reshuffled : bassist Gavin King has taken up guitar, and a new bassist and second guitarist effortlessly slot into the band lineup like lawnmower parts. Morrissey would be proud in God’s unchanging hand.
It occurs to me though, that individual members are often about as important to the band as the light manufacturer. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably the Fields Of The Nephilim. After all, when the figures on stage are shrouded in smoke, when they are mere shilouettes in hats and the lights and sound are all you need know. It seems instantly familiar, and the actual names and / or faces of the players themselves are largely irrelevant. Some music is all about spirit and feeling, and transcend the identity of the player. The fact is, I don’t know who most of the band backing Carl McCoy are, and I don’t much care, because they are the Nephilim, who were always an idea instead of individuals. The spirit of the music lives through these musicians, and even though most of them on stage haven’t played a note on any Nephilim record, there’s no sense that these are a session band or backing musicians but a band - albeit one that performs music written by other people.
The Empire, an ancient, and lofty Victorian ballroom, resonates to the Nephs determinedly single-minded, unstoppable, musical mission : to bring atmospheric, goth industrial thrash metal to the world. Ideally, the band would step out of the self-made ghetto to perform at larger venues and perhaps explode in the daylight of heavy festivals, but years of self-exile have seen their commercial stock and draw diminish. Not that you would know it from tonight. Over the course of two nights, this finely honed machine repeat just one song each night (surprisingly, this song is the live debut of “From The Fire”, taken from the 2002 album “Fallen”, which was released by a frustrated record company after six years of not being given a record by the perfectionist McCoy and violently disowned by the group at the time as worthless and unfinished). The first night sees the legendary “Psychonaut” and “Wail of Sumer/There Your Heart Will Be Also”, which are the nearest thing Goth ever got to prog rock with ever longer, denser songs. The second night meanwhile, sees the group barely touch most recent album “Mourning Sun” in favour of long lost LP tracks from Thatcher’s Eighties, and a couple of selections from 96’s overlooked speed metal classic “Zoon”. The opening four punch sees the band roar through “Preacher Man”, “Moonchild”, “From The Fire” and “Penetration” as if their lives depend on it. With so little repetition across the two shows, it’s as if the band are determinedly trying to present an epic-length show spread over two nights with experiences that wildly differ. “The Sequel” and “Celebrate” are brought back to the public eye for the first time since about 1988, the former roaring like a depressed Motorhead, the latter is ghost of a song, an echo, a stain, a memory of a song etched into an empty desolation. As the finale of a two night stand of undoubted historical significance for the band, being probably the apex of this incarnations concert career thus far, it rang more as an elegy than a celebration.
Ultimately, it was exactly like the so-called glory days of the late Eighties and early Nineties, before the band imploded in egos and genuinely enormous musical differences, as the two factions leaned respectively towards epic prog rock, and gloomy speed metal. The warring factions clearly audible in the songs, as McCoy appears to have now resolved the two musical philosophies to create something unique, visionary, and utterly vital.
That said, I’m ready to say goodbye to the Nephilim for now. This lineup is a clear and cohesive band (albeit not the same band) that refuses to kowtow solely to nostalgia yet recognises the history behind the name and respects it. This band is a band, and I’m glad that they have refused the easy temptation to reform bitter enemies like processed meat for easy cash. An artists best work is never done solely for money, and with a lineup of the band this effective, a reformation would both be unnecessary and unwanted.Only registered users can write comments.
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