Let me set the scene: five Swedes sporting the names Nightmare Industries, Skinny Disco, Bone W Machine, Cat Casino and Whiplasher Bernadotte, one red feather-boa, some glitter, a sailor hat, a mace with a diamond encrusted head, an uber-skinny wind-milling bassist and some glam goth industrial metal. Unarguably the makings of a fabulous evening. Deathstars entertained a gathering of cultishly obsessed gals and guys at the Islington Academy on April 21. A performance that has been scarred into the memories of fans as one of the best ever.
The crowd is a wriggling mass of corsets, eyelashes, lipstick and
heels. When it comes to the Stars of Death, fans know that it’s all about the glam. The band is hugely satirical, mocking the unnerving seriousness and intensity of the black and death metal genres. Who ever said that metal was about death and aggression anyway? In the same vein as the glam metal stars of the early eighties, Deathstars don the paraphernalia and attitude of the Alice Coopers and Twisted Sisters of the world. The masculinity inherent in singer Whiplasher Bernadotte’s beautifully deep voice contrasts ironically with his prima donna stage persona. The man poses, struts and salutes – a weird combination of a Nazi storm trooper and Priscilla Queen of the Dessert. So weird it works brilliantly. Whiplasher flirts his audience into submission with sweet talk and batting eyelids. Mostly, I can’t tell what he is saying but I hear something about 
being tired of seeing blonde-haired Swedish girls and wanting to cover their hair in blood. I guess that is the inspiration for Blood Stains Blondes from new album Night Electric Night. The screeching vocals of bassist and backup singer, Skinny Disco, complement Whiplasher’s velvety vocals – think Danny Filth singing backup for Peter Steele cross Ville Vallo, but not enough Danny Filth to give you the uncontrollable urge to bury your head in the nearest garbage bin.
The evening’s set is birthed into being with title track Night Electric Night and goes on to breathe life into Motherzone, Semi-Automatic, The Mark Of The Gun, Tongues, The Last Ammunition, The Fuel Ignites, New Dead Nation, Trinity Fields, Synthetic Generation, Chertograd, Blitzkrieg, Blood Stains Blondes, Cyanide, Encore: Death Dies Hard and The Revolution Exodus. A great set that boasts a balanced mix of songs from all three Deathstars albums. Death Dies Hard was well placed as a first encore song but it would have been more striking to end with a hard-hitting crowd favourite like Blitzkrieg or Cyanide, just to cement a fantastic performance.
I saw Deathstars play at Brixton Academy as a supporting act for Korn in 08, and I think that I was, sadly, one of about five patriots in the audience. It was awesome to see the guys headline their own show for a bunch of hyper-patriots this time around. Night Electric Night may not be particularly original and the band’s sound remains consistently in fashion with previous albums Termination Bliss and Synthetic Generation but they have a formula that works. Rammstein has been doing the same shit forever and fans keep aflocking. I hope the Deathstars fan base inflates to a size that will enable them to put on a grandiose spectacle of glitz and glitter, as I am sure they would love to. In the meantime, both fans and band are tasked with spreading the glam.
[See Clink Music Magazine for more live concert reviews.]
