MØL / The Fleece / Bristol
Another trip down to Bristol and one of my favourite venues, The Fleece on St Thomas Street. A grade II listed former sheep trading market which dates back to the 1800’s. With it’s rough cobbled floor and imposing black pillars it’s a brilliant live music venue.
Tonight we’re here to see Danish outfit MØL on their UK tour.
First up on stage though we have Countless Skies. From Hertfordshire Countless Skies are a melodic death metal band. Their style mixes both brutal, sharp death metal elements with some delightful melodies. This gives their material a complex and ethereal feel, enhanced by the addition tonight of Arianna Maysayah on cello, who recently recorded the excellent ‘Resonance’ with the band.
Countless Skies use two vocalists. Bass player Phil Romeo has an incredible range and tone, and sounds almost operatic, and this is complimented by guitarist Ross King who takes on the far more angular and aggressive growls. The contract is stark, but it works so brilliantly, with one leading into the other effortlessly. You get swept along on the wonderful tones from Phil, to suddenly be pounded by the guttural growls from Ross. Brilliant !
Perhaps the highlight of the performance was the stunning Glow, which was performed in full.
A full 20 minute piece in three parts. Packed with heavy pounding riffs and sections of beautiful harmonies, it is brought to life even more by the beautiful cello playing of Arianna.
I hadn’t heard of, or seen Countless Skies before, but I was mesmerised by their performance. A delightful balance of harsh and delicate.
Only a short break between sets to re-arrange the stage and test the gear and the lights dim ready for MØL. By now The Fleece is bursting. This isn’t their first time here and clearly the Bristol metal community are ready for the return ! From Aarhus in Denmark, MØL mix swirling guitars riffs with growling and hissing vocals but with a kind of dreamy ambience of the shoegaze genre to produce something quite unique.
They released their debut album “Jord” back in 2018 and followed this up in 2021 with the brilliant “Diorama” which I highly recommend you give a listen to.
They head out onto stage all in white tops with black patterning and dive headlong into the track Fraktur. With a filmscore soft opening section, the track bursts into life and we’re hit with the full intensity of the band. Dominating the stage is singer Kim Song Sternkopf who controls a set of strobe lights with a foot pedal, frequently pressing it to blind the audience. The intensity of the bright ice white light matching the material perfectly.
It's like The Fleece’s stage was built for Kim, as he climbs onto the monitors, grabbing the iron pillars and swinging out over the stage as her delivers the savage vocals.
The guitar work from Joachim Rahbek is outstanding throughout, but best highlighted in Itinerari from the “Diorama” album. It cross-crosses from beautiful and delicate sections, to elements of raw intense power seamlessly. All the time, supported by some heavy powerful bass tones from Holger Rumph-Frost.
The intensity and blazing strobes don’t let up from start to finish and although the sets a good 70+ minutes long, it seems to fly by in the blink of an eye. As the set comes to an end, we get perhaps the highlight of the night in Sundowned from their self-titled EP released back in 2014, it’s an intense whirlwind from start to finish. And with that, and thank you’s from the band, the night is over.
And what a night it was. MØL and Countless Skies are very different. Countless Skies more melodic and atmospheric, with delightful cello tones and operatic vocals, whereas MØL deliver a much more fierce and intense set. But the two compliment each other perfectly in my opinion.
Both MØL and Countless Skies are bands I definitely want to see again….. real soon.
