Gig review: Organic Doom Vol. 1: Arð, Pantheist at Huddersfield Town Hall

The grand confines of the Huddersfield Town Hall must have seen a wide variety of activities since it was built in 1881.

Presented as part of the Kirklees Year of Music and University of Huddersfield’s Cultures of Sound project, tonight’s event is more than likely to present the first full-blown metal event at the venue. It is also guaranteed to be the first time that metal bands have performed to the accompaniment of the venue’s huge pipe organ, played tonight by Town Hall’s organist, the very appropriately named David Pipe.

It doesn’t take long into support band Pantheist’s set to establish that the majestic tones of a vintage pipe organ (dramatically lit in different hues of red tonight to emphasise the instrument’s vast scale – or perhaps to draw parallels with metal’s long-rumoured dalliance with hellfire) are a natural match for the intense heaviness and mournful moods of doom metal, the sub-genre where tonight’s bands reside.

Some typical metal signifiers are on offer tonight: the dress code is none more black, the smoke machine is working overtime, and vocalist – keyboardist Kostas Panagiotou (dressed in what resembles a priest’s outfit, complete with a clerical collar) alternates between demonic guttural screech and equally ominous recitals.

However, there are no traces of the frantic tempos, complex riffs and land speed record-breaking guitar acrobatics in the Belgian-British band’s music, which emphasises relentlessly grinding slow-burn repetition.

Performing their debut album Take Up My Bones in full, Northumbria’s Arð’s superbly dynamic set could well sway any doubters who think that metal consists only of eternally adolescent posturing.

Palpably thrilled about an opportunity to introduce the additional oomph and deep drone power of a pipe organ to the six-piece’s not inconsiderable array of muscular power (as well as having doom legend Aaron Stainthorpe of My Dying Bride on stage for narration), singer – guitarist Mark Deeks leads the band through majestically mournful songs inspired by the legend of the Northumbrian medieval Saint Cuthbert and his followers, who reportedly carried his remains around the North for a century before settling in Durham.

Aside from the gloomy churn and colossal riffs of the three down-tuned guitars (reminiscent of Earth and the band who arguably sowed the seeds of doom metal, Black Sabbath) and glacial tempos, it doesn’t take that much imagination to hear elements of classic British folk-rock à la Fairport Convention and their more contemporary offshoots à la Midlake in Arð’s epically scoped material.

The band have to start set closer Only Three Shall Know twice to get it just right for this special occasion, but the small stumble only adds to the charm of Arð’s impressive and supremely heavy performance.