Thrash Metal, Mongolian Throat Singing & A Dancing Owl: Motocultor Takes Over Camden

Motocultor Festival Across Europe returned to Camden’s Underworld on the 15^th January, bringing with it one of the most unlikely touring line-ups imaginable, covering everything from death metal through to power-metal parody.

With five bands on the bill, early doors meant a smaller crowd for Singapore’s Deus Ex Machina, but that clearly did not deter them from making an impact, nor did the presence of a fill-in vocalist, who roared into each track as if determined to strike fear directly into your eardrums. Their short set was unashamed thrash, with hints of a more melodic side starting to show through towards the end, suggesting a softer edge beneath their ferocity.

Morphium brought a modern metal sound that’s hard to pin down, oozing charisma throughout their entire set and performing with the confidence of a band destined for larger stages. One moment, vocalist Alex Bace sounds more like Corey Taylor than the man himself; the next, their sound is a fusion of modern metal and what could only be described as goth-infused melodeath, with electronic hints that wouldn’t be out of place in mid-00s Korn. It is undeniably catchy and, as they play their final track, it becomes irresistible to do anything but headbang along.

France’s Lone Survivors delivered a more progressive edge to the night and the contrast between them and the rest of the bands hit hard. Low, heavy and unashamedly djent laden riffs were a jolt after the catchiness of their predecessors, but the feistiness of their frontman kept the momentum high ahead of the evening’s headline acts.

Mongolian folk metallers Uuhai practically bounced onto the stage, at least, as much as the space allowed, to the cheers of a now heaving crowd, ripping straight into their unique blend of classic heavy metal with a Mongolian folk twist. Guitar riffs fused seamlessly with the horsehead fiddles, while throat singing contrasted with clean vocal lines.  There’s a pure joy to their stage presence and the crowd lap it up as enthusiastic chants of ‘Uuhai’ ring across the room throughout their set. Band and audience dance together throughout their show and even the introduction of a ballad couldn’t dampen their momentum. There is little doubt Uuhai have a lot more to offer in the future.

There aren’t many bands that could follow Uuhai, but headliners Nanowar of Steel are no strangers to putting on an eccentric show that captivates their audience. A parody metal band, they possess an undeniable talent for capturing the essence of the bands or genres in their sights, and perhaps no song demonstrates this more clearly than when the army helmets come out for a rousing edition of Pasadena 1994, capturing the intensity of the football field, rather than Sabaton’s battlefields.

At this point, Nanowar are only just getting started – the stage and crowd erupts into Disco Metal dancing shortly after, and, in something that has never appeared on my metal gig bingo card, chants of “deep learning neural networks”, announce the opening of HelloWorld.java. It seems that if you’re looking to recruit your next machine learning engineer, a Thursday night metal gig might not be the worst place to start.

The madness never relents, a giant owl dances around the stage and crowd, a huge singalong erupts for Norwegian Reggaeton and there are even attempts at clapping with your feet, until the set reaches its grand finale with gospel/power metal crossover Valhallelujah, performed to an open-armed and adoring audience. If you’re looking for utter absurdity in a one-hour live set, it’s hard to imagine finding anything better.