Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

The walls at the o2 Academy have seen some incredible acts in the long years that it has stood on Hotham Street, it has held those memories within its brickwork and steel framing for so long that perhaps it is unsurprising that those reminiscences, the ghosts of fantastic sessions decided to come out of the stonework, to bleed themselves out and drench the audience in sweat at the outstanding and ear obliterating concert given by Heaven’s Basement.

The band were in Liverpool in support of their excellent album, Filthy Empire, which was released in early February this year to great acclaim and yet what the audience got was beyond anything they could have expected just by listening to the C.D.  This was a gig given by the band in which they stepped up to the plate, in which they took on the shades of metal/rock gods and blew them into the ether. This was on par with the Iron Maiden around the time of Somewhere on Time or Powerslave, of Metallica when Ride The Lightning was the supreme new breed, simply put in just over a year since they won over so many who had seen them perform on a muddy field at Donnington for Download 2012 or even supporting Thunder back in 2008, they have grown to the point that the band have got to start going up a notch less they get eclipsed themselves.

The demand that the audience enjoy their evening was well matched by the excitable and hugely vocal crowd, of which hearteningly contained more women than you would have seen at a rock/metal gig 20 years ago and which proves a point that there is an appetite for this genre of music in Liverpool, even if some of the older, more established groups seem to be by-passing the natural home of music in the U.K. for whatever reason, across all ages and across both genders.

With Aaron Buchanan in particular fine form and making the crowd perspire with vocals that gripped harder than a person holding onto for dear life to a runaway stallion heading towards certain oblivion and Sid Glover in the same rich form that saw Steve Harris become the towering titan he is today, the band played virtually every track off Filthy Empire to longer and bigger applause. From Welcome Home, Fire, Fire, the brilliant Lights Out In London, I Am Electric, The Long Goodbye and a wonderful nod to the pre-Filthy Empire era track Paranoia the four men on stage announced themselves in a rock coup, the old guard, however much loved, have been given notice that something new is finally brewing…the bucket loads of sweat that was dripping off those at the o2 Academy can attest to that.

Heaven’s Basement gave what can only be described as a top draw and lofty account of themselves.

Ian D. Hall