I find it hard to believe it’s been just over 30 years since I last saw Balaam And The Angel live, there was a few years when I would see them two or three times a year, playing with among others Iggy Pop and Gene Loves Jezebel. They are back on tour with the bands original line-up to promote the bands recent 12” single Forces Of Evil.
Balaam & The Angel @ The Garage
Main support was from Inkubus Sukkubus the trio whose music has been exploring gothic tales of the Cotswolds since 1989.
They opened with Vampire Queen a suitably dark twisted tale for Candia McKormack to start casting her spells on the audience in among the dark lighting. The blood sucking continued with Vampyre Erotica with Tony McKormack’s guitar baring some rather spiky fangs.
Candia seemed even more imperious while casting shapes and moves to I Am The One, of course she is the vampire to bewitch us darkly, Roland Link’s basslines wove intricately with the drum machine. The dancing and emotive lyrics of Away With The Faeries were captivating with spiderlike movements in amongst doom laden shards of guitar.
Classic mythology was explored on Heart Of Lilith that saw Candia and Tony in sync, searching through the darkness towards somewhere less desolate. Belladonna And Aconite is quite a heady cocktail of two deadly plants, they appear to be using them to open their pupils and keep a healthy head of hair, dark swirling guitar lines hinted at the hypnotic effects.
Wytches are stalking The Cotswolds and The Garage an intoxicating stomp of a song. They closed with a great cover of Echo & The Bunnymen’s Paint it Black, well it was much closer to that arrangement than The Rolling Stones one, it was a magnificent close to a really cool dark set.
After the break it was time for Balaam And The Angel to bring their own brand of darkness, that started brewing on the slow intro into Walk Away that had Mark Morris sounding like he really meant every word, you need to leave now, which was an odd thing to open a set with.
Don’t Look Down had Jim Morris playing a cool twisting guitar solo, large parts of the audience sang along. Feel The Silence had the air of frosty relations, differences that can never be settled by anything but a stonking beat, they scratch their collective heads at everything that’s happened in recent years, this was the first of the songs from Forces Of Evil in the set.
World Of Light from Sun Family also references the Forces Of Evil that stalk our lands, Marks bassline drives home the point, in time for his wife Karen Morris’ keyboards to add more darkness to the brew. Forces Of Evil sounded like a classic Balaam And The Angel goth floor filler, Jim threw his hair about loads while getting everything he could from his guitar.
Slow Down shows they were ahead of the slow living movement on this classic from The Greatest Story Ever Told album. It was confession time on She Knows, once again they’ve been found out, so they stomp all over it with cocky assurance. Two Into One had a lust-stained edge to it, Jim really wrung the emotion out of his guitar.
After Life could as easily have been about the band having a comeback 30 years after dissolving, let alone the real story driven on by Des Morris solid drumming. Light Of The World is searching for ways to make sure we can all let that light into our lives, this got some great shapes being thrown in the audience.
The imperious classic Darklands stomped all over The Garage greeted like the old friend it is. Dancing Senseless from the Forces Of Evil 12” was a perfect dovetail to Darklands, keeping the intensity and the danceability swelling. The Wave seemed to sweep over us in Waves of pulsating bass and some of Karen’s heaviest keyboard notes. Day And Night made absolutely clear that playing music makes them so happy.
Mark then introduced the bands special guest guitarist Ian McKean who is back in the band again, adding his textures to Big City Fun Time Girl, he seemed to feed off of Karen’s keyboards, instead of being a foil for Jims’s guitar. Mark had a special glint in his eye for I Love The Things You Do To Me which got a great audience reaction.
Mark then said the set had ended but they weren’t going off and coming back so Isabella’s Eyes was stormed through like it had been a huge hit, it was certainly a crowd favourite, before they closed the show with a brilliant version of I’ll Show You Something Special that left me hoping I get to see Balaam And The Angel again without waiting 30 years for it to happen again.
Live review of Balaam And The Angel at The Garage, London on 14th November 2024 by Simon Phillips. Photography by Louise Phillips.
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