The Wytches, The Black Heart, London

Early Thursday night in Camden and as the always busy Black Heart gets even busier with the early arrival of The Wytches fans to check out the (handpicked by the band) support acts, the members of the star attraction are spotted among the crowd, greeting people and chatting away as if it’s their own birthday party.

Selling out a single release is always a good sign, and while a few girls get rejected at the door for not having a ticket, the rest of the fans gather as close as they can to the stage, ready to headbang as if there’s no tomorrow.

‘Beehive Queen’ opens the set splattering a wave of sinuous echoey riffs and wrenching vocals, creating a thick atmosphere and multiplying the curiosity level in the crowd by a million. Extremely tight and energetic, the band show off some new tracks including the already-played-live-for-a-long-time-but-recently-released ‘Wide At Midnight’ where frontman Kristian twists his guitar’s tremolo like a broken gear stick in a convertible, going downhill, with no breaks.

The double-night-closer-combo ‘Robe For Juda’ / ‘Crying Clown’ creates an unusual restrained moshpit, the fans screaming the words almost as loud and loaded with emotions as Kristian himself: while they wanted to jump around and push each other, the dramatic breaks of the songs were holding them down.

The Wytches leave the stage after thanking everyone for coming down, but the insistent clapping and cheering of the fans bring them back soon enough with drummer Gianni holding an already opened bottle of champagne. One would like to think the encore wasn’t planned and that they succumbed to popular demand, but either way the bass/drum-lead ‘Tricks And Dance’ closes the evening on a high, this time with a full blown moshpit and a (somewhat) instrument/stage destruction. Exactly what you’d want to see.