Karnivool
Ice Cream Factory, Perth, WA
Sunday, July 19th
Karnivool brought their tour to a sold-out show in their hometown of Perth last night, hastily selling tickets across two nights at Northbridge’s Ice Cream Factory in support of their bruising new record. England’s Tesseract, a band that seemed to be met with the same reverent reaction the headliners elicited, and Car Bomb from the US accompanied Karnivool, promising a night of melodic metal and progressive imaginings.
The crowd was a sea of Opeth, Megadeth, and the occasional Ween shirt paired with a slew of septum piercings and amazingly wide stretchers. Old friends reconnected, new friends bonded over old-school merch, and there was a palpable love of the genre that had brought them all together.
During Tesseract’s set, a fan mused, “If anyone has the potential to blow Karnivool off the stage, it’s them.” The respect for the openers was vast, many fans sporting merch or passionately singing along. That’s the thing about metal fans – they always just seem really happy to be in the presence of good metal, no matter who or where or why.
The Ice Cream Factory is essentially a large warehouse, which restricts visibility, accessibility, and warps sound depending on where you find yourself. Karnivool took to the stage in the midst of a blood-red smoke-infused light to the opening sounds of “Ghosts”, while frontman Ian Kenny convivially asked, “Perth. How’re you doing, my friends?” Unfortunately, that was the most we would get in the way of conversation.
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Kenny’s vocals were flawless and highly reminiscent of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. The band offered a demeanour composed of non-arrogant confidence, seemingly instilled with the belief that this was not a crowd that needed any winning over. Steve Judd proved repeatedly that he has more than enough talent to warrant a one-man show, his precision something to behold (especially when he punches a china cymbal.) The stage itself was layered with high rises, allowing members to fluctuate – although it felt a little under-utilised, the majority of the band (bar Judd) coexisting in their own separate spaces, side by side yet vaguely disconnected.
The excitement among the crowd seemed to occur in a gradual build, rather than an instant explosion encouraged by the band’s presence. This may have been different towards the front, that part of the stage wholly inaccessible and practically a different universe, but there was almost an eerie calmness to the hundreds of fans who swayed and rocked and mouthed lyrics like incantations under their breath.
Credit: Kane Hibberd
Occasionally it felt as though Karnivool’s deeply textured sound was too big, too dense for the walls of the venue it was trying to escape from. There is a certain dominance exuded by the music itself, that perhaps this setting was ill-fit to accommodate. At times it felt like peeking through the curtain and witnessing a really good rehearsal, but one in which a crowd is neither here nor there.
There was something detached – perhaps owed in part to the silence that breathed between each song or the fact that the set was clearly orchestrated to a tee, timed backing tracks dictating the flow of the performance, and perhaps somewhat restricting it.
Technically speaking, Karnivool are at the top of their game, faultless and impressively well-oiled. You can tell this is a band that have played thousands of shows, executing them with precision — beautiful harmonies, impeccable solos, and an innate sense of sonic togetherness — but perhaps what was lacking was a sense of spontaneity, of rawness and realness.
Kenny’s stage presence is incredibly moody, and relies on the ambience of the rest of the band and the stage production to remain affective. Said production oscillate between erratic light shows and nostalgic MTV graphics capturing each member in real time before they became doused in static, merging together and then apart.
Before beginning “We Are”, Kenny said, “This feels like a long time coming,” presumably in reference to sharing the new record, In Verses, in a live setting. But after not hearing from the band for so long between songs, the words didn’t carry as much weight as one would have hoped.
Maybe this was just something that happens when playing shows becomes routine. Karnivool played their stunning compositions to a standard that many other bands could only hope to reach, but it was hard not to feel like they were going through the motions. I longed for moments of authenticity – of specificity. Something to engage us all in the present and give this night, this show, something of its own.
But maybe this is exactly what Karnivool fans want, to be completely consumed by a show that leaves no room for improvisation. Something to surrender to. Maybe the trust between band and fans is so strong that everything has become unspoken.
Check out Karnivool’s remaining tour dates here.
