Live Review: Alcest, Germ, The Veil

Standing in a long, winding line outside while the opening band began playing meant getting into the venue for the tail end of openers The Veil. Melodic droning with rock riffs, gothic vocals and dreamy synth warmed the chill air. The crowd were still making their way in out of the cold during their swirling closer Impermanence.

Making a rare appearance, Wollongong's Germ are an amalgamation of black metal, shoegaze and post-rock. They intertwined soft melodies with harsh vocals, driving double kick drums and raw riffing that could send a chill down the spine. Frontman and creative force behind the project, Tim Yatras (aka Sorrow), stood barefoot and was quite reserved in his delivery, twisting between throat-bleeding screams to brief respites of withdrawn vocals. Closing with Just For A Moment, their set ended somewhat abruptly with a nod and a departure.

Six years ago, French blackgaze merchants Alcest expanded minds in intimate venues around the country. Back with a brilliant new album and seeing the inside of larger venues, the intimacy wasn't lost here as the quartet riffed into opener Onyx. A swirling, expanding slab of decadence wormed its way into the ears of the packed Manning Bar, continuing those epic soundscapes with title track Kodama.

There was minimal banter on stage, pausing only briefly to tell of the band's day at Bondi Beach before the crowd clapped them into Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde. Another beautiful, uptempo movement of post-metal, soulful melodies and a pounding drumbeat that drove us all in attendance to nod in trance. Sur L'Ocean Couleur De Fer was pure melodic bliss; a slow, deliberate number, it invoked the calmness of the ocean descending into a rolling, dreamy sea.

Thanking everyone, the band closed their set with an encore of Deliverance. If the hour prior wasn't a lesson in epic, mind-bending metal, then the closing number surely left jaws agape and ears buzzing. Absolutely beautiful.