LIVE REVIEW: Fear Factory, Butcher Babies, Ignea, Ghost Of Atlantis, Garage, Glasgow, 29/10/2023

Photo Credit: Andy Davies

The doors were open nice and early at 6pm for tonight’s show with four hours of live metal music guaranteed to get the crowd moving. Fear Factory are no newcomers to the metal scene, with over thirty years of experience and ten albums behind them. The DisrupTour is the band’s first full tour since 2016 and the original vocalist Burton C.Bell has been replaced by Italian Milo Silvestro on vocals, and Pete Webber on drums also joins the tour. Tony Campos continues on bass and original member Dino Cazares is on lead guitar. Cazares was in the band from 1989-2002, left then rejoined in 2009.

Ghosts of Atlantis took to the stage around 6.30pm and the Suffolk band played some songs from their latest album Riddles of the Sycophants, released only two days before the gig, including latest single Sacramental. Unfortunately, due to the early start we only caught the final two songs of the set.

Ignea, a band from Kyiv, Ukraine were an interesting choice of support acts. They had to gain special permission from the Ukraine government to travel, amid the ongoing war with Russia. Ignea released their third album in April – Dreams Of Lands Unseen – and the packed-out room at the Garage would get to hear some songs from it. Singer Helle Bohdanova burst on to the stage with so much energy as the band began the set with Dunes and Camera Obscura; two songs from the new album, got the crowd warmed up. Bohdanova then claimed that Glasgow has the perfect weather for the band, as they all enjoy walking in the rain. There is no shortage of that in Glasgow! The set ended with Leviathan, a song written about a roaming beast back in Ukraine. There was a real sense of warmth towards Ignea from the crowd, as everyone knows the horrors that are being witnessed in Ukraine on a daily basis. 8/10

Next up were Butcher Babies, a metal band all the way from Los Angeles. When they took to the stage singer Heidi Shepherd announced that co-vocalist Carla Harvey wouldn’t be putting in an appearance tonight as she was in the USA having emergency eye surgery, but that didn’t stop Shepherd and the band playing a storming set of ten songs as the crowd nodded along with the first circle pits of the night breaking out. The room was really packed out now with 700 sweaty metalhsold-out the sold out show as Backstreets of Tennessee kicked off their set, taken from their latest album …’Til The World’s Blind, released in July 2023. In fact, seven of the ten song set was from the new album, with the crowd appreciating the opportunity to hear the new songs live.

Penultimate track Last December slowed things down a little with Shepherd getting very emotional as she talked about a period of her life when she was suffering from depression. Shepherd was alone on stage for a few minutes before the song bursts into life. The crowd stood in silence as they took in every word that she sang. Outstanding performance with Shepherd having to do twice the amount of work due to the absence of Carla Harvey. 9/10

There was quite a delay between Butcher Babies and the main act Fear Factory, with some sound issues holding things back a little. The atmosphere in the packed Garage was at fever pitch by the time the Terminator 2 Theme tune blasted out and the band began the set with Shock, Edgecrusher and Recharger; a song from the Re-Industrialist album that was released in June. This coincided with the mosh pits opening up again and some extra entertainment in crowd surfing. This sequence would continue throughout the remainder of the gig, with the crowd appreciating the Sunday night energy lift.

The set continued with hard hitting tracks such as Disruptor, Powershifter and Linchpin which kept everyone moving. Dino Cazares was egging the fans on to sing the songs back to him every opportunity he got, which sent a section of the crowd at the front crazy with delight. This band certainly know how to work a crowd! The two newer members of the band, Silvestro and Webber, looked like they had been part of the band for years and their performance was absolutely flawless. The night ended with the songs Pisschrist, Replica and Resurrection and everyone left the Garage knowing that they had just witnessed an outstanding night of music all round. Hopefully Fear Factory won’t leave it so long in coming back to Glasgow. 9/10

Written By: Alan Brown