It is another hectic night at the Slay venue in Glasgow with two monstrous Thrash Metal bands, Dark Angel and Schizophrenia. This was a special event that paid tribute to Dark Angel’s late guitarist, Jim Durkin.
Dark Angel – Schizophrenia
Slay, Glasgow – 10 June 2025
Words And Photography: Razorrhead Productions
As the stage lights go off, it was time for Dark Angel to enter and perform a special show tonight. Drummer Gene slowly enters the stage behind his huge drum kit, raising his devil horns as the audience goes mental.
The other members enter facing towards Gene, back towards the crowd as they wait for their intro to end. They kick straight into Time Does Not Heal.
This show was part of a special tribute to their late guitarist Jim Durkin, who sadly passed away in 2023. To honour his memory, the band performed one of their albums, Darkness Descends, in its entirety. This was also the last album to feature original vocalist Don Doty.
The energy in their set was a lot more immense as there were plenty of mosh pits and crowd surfers. Dark Angel was extremely impressed with this, as they could be seen with big smiles on their faces, pointing at the carnage in the pit.
Vocalist Ron Rhinehard made sure he gave a high five to each crowd surfer as he knew this was an integral part of the Thrash Metal scene. 
The Dark Angel sound was super powerful and tight. The riffs were chaotic but clear enough to hear each note crystal clear. These guys are, off course, no strangers to the Extreme Metal world.
Ron even made a couple of appearances in the crowd as he shook hands with as many people as possible, making them feel like part of the gang before returning to the stage. 
This felt more like a gathering of close friends compared to more Metal gigs as Dark Angel did their very best to make everyone feel welcome and pay tribute to Jim. Their bassist’s t-shirt had a slogan, which mentioned ‘angry music for happy people’ which pretty much summed up the vibes tonight.
It was clear everyone was having fun tonight and felt connected. Their sound is still impressive, even after all these years of playing together.
Dark Angel put on an extremely memorable show. As much as they wanted to continue playing, they had to stop due to the 10 pm curfew, so they finished with Perish In Flames.
They could have not performed a better tribute to Jim Durkin. He will always have a place in the Thrash Metal community, and Dark Angel have made sure of this.
Schizophrenia
There is only one support act tonight, which is none other than the mighty Schizophrenia. They are no strangers to the Extreme Metal world in Glasgow, as they had recently supported Cannibal Corpse last year at the Barrowlands.
They had put up a fantastic and memorable show then, so it would be interesting to see if they were able to pull it off again at a much smaller venue.
Usually, the venue is packed. However, with Download festival just around the corner, it was a tougher night to get the crowd going. 
Safe to say that Schizophrenia did not disappoint. It was an immense one-hour set of head-pounding Thrash Metal. Blast beats and guitar riffs made you feel like your skull was being crushed from within. The vocals filled with delay effects echoed through the venue. Clearly, there are a lot of Death Metal influences in their core sound.
Speaking of Death Metal, they even played a fantastic cover of Morbid Angel’s Maze Of Torment, which did them excellent justice. 
I personally really enjoyed the show, but due to the low attendance, it was a struggle for them to really get the crowd going and get in the mood for some tight Thrash Metal. Even vocalist Ricky had to ask the crowd if they were still with them a few times.
