"We've got a smorgasbord of Swedish metal for you right here," beams Björn 'Speed' Strid, Soilwork's imposing but ever-affable frontman. He's not kidding; tonight, his band are opening up an absolute dream bill of all things melodeath at Hammersmith's iconic Apollo, and the singer looks genuinely floored to be overseeing such a historic (and, it should be said, pretty rammed) auditorium. Soilwork never quite made the same breakthroughs as tonight's two co-headliners, but they've maintained a remarkably consistent hit rate across their near-thirty year career, steadily evolving from grooving, hooky death metal towards the hyper-polished melodeath with which they made their name. The six-piece will never win any awards for dynamism on stage - Speed's casual swagger bearing the mark of a man who looks more like he's soundchecking rather than playing one of his band's biggest ever UK shows - but when you're armed with choruses as big as Distortion Sleep and Stålfågel, who cares?
In Flames know this venue all too well having first played here all the way back in 2004, but that doesn't stop this feeling like a special occasion for band and fans alike. An outrageous opening one-two of Cloud Connected and Take This Life sets the tone for a joyous, career-spanning set that underlines exactly why they remain death metal's biggest success story. The likes of Trigger and Only For The Weak still sound absolutely colossal decades on, while some welcome deeper cuts in the form of Food For The Gods and Coerced Existence serve as a reminder of just how vital and powerful this band were in their metal pomp.
In Flames were never ones to stand still, though, and there can be little doubting that as divisive as their 2010s material has been for old school fans, songs like Deliver Us and I Am Above are tailor-made for environments like these, the latter eliciting one of the biggest singalongs of the whole night. That State Of Slow Decay, taken from last year's excellent Forgone album, sparks a particularly enthusiastic pit also highlights how In Flames have lost none of their ability to produce urgent, heavy music that can (quite literally!) still move people. "I fucking love you guys," smiles the always humble Anders Fridén, and you can believe it; this set feels like a true celebration of heavy metal greatness for one of our scene's most important and enduring bands.
It leaves a high bar for Arch Enemy to try and clear, but their imperious brand of battering melodeath has always held a different flavour to the anthemic, introspective stylings of their Gothenburg chums. Not that Arch Enemy aren't packing bangers: Deceiver, Deceiver, The World Is Yours and House Of Mirrors cram more hooks into the opening fifteen minutes than many bands manage in a career, Alissa White-Gluz striding around the stage with the kind of chest-beating confidence that befits their status as closers for the evening. That opening triad sets the tone for a setlist that displays plenty of confidence in Arch Enemy's ongoing third arc, with only two tracks from the Angela Gossow era aired tonight.
Leaving fan favourites like We Will Rise and Ravenous on the shelf is a bold choice given the generational feel to tonight's bill, but they pull it off: War Eternal and As The Pages Burn (complete with billowing smoke cannons) are classics in themselves at this point, while the songs from 2022's Deceivers underline how in-form Arch Enemy are as a creative unit. Most promisingly, the two brand new songs played, Dream Stealer and Liars & Thieves, are iron-clad ragers, pointing to great things for the band's upcoming new album.
As a pulsating Nemesis brings the curtain down with a floor-wide circle pit and giant balloons bouncing around the crowd (hey, it's rock 'n' roll!), two things are immediately clear. Firstly: these bands and this movement remain utterly foundational to the DNA of modern metal. Secondly: they are far from done with us.
