Future Palace, Our Promise and Seven Blood – three of Germany’s rising alternative Metal and Metalcore bands – took over London’s The Garage, delivering fun, eerily cool and musically gratifying performances.
Future Palace – Our Promise – Seven Blood
The Garage, London – 4 December 2024
Words: Lucy Dunnet
Photography: Antonio Giannattasio
Future Palace
Made up of vocalist Maria Lessing, guitarist Manuel Kohlert and drummer Johannes Frenzel, the Future Palace trio appeared quite the downsize following the six-man outfit Our Promise – but they quickly established that size doesn’t matter when it comes to crowd arousal and musical prowess.
The raven-formed demon of war and magic, Malphas, gave its name to their set opener, and what an enticing start to the show it was. Lessing’s vocals sound fantastic on their records, but live, she makes the clean to unclean vocal transition sound easier than blinking: her voice is addictive. Lessing quickly informed the crowd that she had a cold and apologised if she sounded a bit rough. Well, if this is what she sounds like with a cold, please go ahead and infect us.
Future Palace favour lyrics that deal with challenging personal experiences, particularly depression and toxic relationships. Endless emotion dripped from Lessing’s vocals into the crowd, amplified by Frenzel’s emphatic drumming and Kohlert’s impassioned guitar playing.
Lessing introduced her favourite dance song, Decarabia, with an emotional piece about how so many people she knows suffer from depression and how hard it is to find hope in such a hopeless world. We danced and sang our leather jacket-wearing hearts out, the feeling of support and kinship palpable.
“This song goes out to any idiots who don’t respect women in this day and age.” Following whoops and cheers, Charlie Rolfe of As Everything Unfolds joined Future Palace on stage for The Echoes Of Disparity. Rolfe and Lessing, two absolute female powerhouses, screamed side-by-side and turned The Garage upside down.
Lessing asked Manuel Kohlert how he was feeling, to which he responded: “sweaty.” As a treat for the sweaty guitarist – sorry, I mean for the sweaty crowd who were advised to make the most of a mosh break – it was time for a slower acoustic number: Lately. Released about four years ago, she reminisced about how much they had been through in that time and the toxic relationship she had escaped from – which had been with a man from London, no less. 
The acoustic guitar and raw vocals intensified the emotional beauty of this song. But the crowd could handle only so much intense emotion and stillness, and Kohlert knew this: “Do you wanna get sweaty again? Hold your sweat; we must thank our crew first.” After a beautiful thank you to their entire tour team, of which the bus driver received a particularly loud cheer, they burst back in with the synth-rock track Dreamstate.
Paradise, the Future Palace “theme song,” closed off their set in intense style. The mosh pit that never really stopped culminated in a final wall of death, featuring none other than Rafael Andronic of Our Promise, crashing into people like an absolute fiend. We cannot wait to see the beautiful, grand and unbreakable future of Future Palace unfold.
Our Promise
The six Stuttgart musicians stormed onto The Garage’s stage with impressive purpose and excitement: Our Promise were here to party. Their first song, The Worst, incited an immediate pit and smiles all around. The Our Promise vocal duo, made up of Rafael Andronic and Viktor Schulz, wasted no time and were immediately smashing around the stage, screaming at each other as they went along. 
“WE WANNA SEE A BIG FUCKING MOSH PIT!” The pit enlarged immediately for Evoke, but some of us remained mesmerised on the pit edge by the incredible set of lungs on Andronic. The next song, Satisfaction, brought with it spotlights on the pit, which transformed from erratic youthful rage to arm-in-arm cheerful bouncing. Guitarist ‘KeyKey’ also demonstrated his love of bouncing with a pogo stick imitation accompanying his riff ripping. 
The volume was turned up for Decode, as the crowd screamed the words back at the sextet and went in for a second wall of death. The brief break in the song and the whispered “shh” from Andronic worked disturbingly well live. 
A set that seemed over before it had even begun, due to Our Promise’s infectious energy and abundance of catchy hooks, closed with Panic Waves. It was an absolute riot of a finish, with the crowd jumping and screaming; we even saw several bar hoverers charge forward to participate in the final Our Promise party of the night.
Seven Blood
Seven Blood, Future Palace’s friends and fellow Berlin Metallers, began the night with a vibrant set of emo Metal. Vocalist Azaria Nasiri was overflowing with enthusiasm and grinning from ear to ear as she shouted, “What’s up, London!” Seven Blood were clearly delighted to be here, and you couldn’t help but love their energetic output. 
The set opener, House ≠ Home, was a charming, catchy track with great harmonies from the bassist, Josi Hille, and loud drums from Anfy Hartmann that catapulted off the stage. Nasiri announced that this was Seven Blood’s first time in London and what a nice city they thought it was. There is nothing like a bit of patriotic flattery to warm up a crowd. 
By the third song, the crowd was head-banging in unison and enjoying the Seven Blood journey. At one point, a curious decision from the lighting team led to a number of crowd members being hunted and then blinded by spotlights which they, and we, found immensely entertaining.
With only three singles released, we were treated to a selection of songs from new material that they are working into an EP. But their final song, the 2024 single Killing From The Inside, brought out the largest burst of energy from the crowd. Shouts from Nasiri of: “I can see you at the back!” encouraged all stragglers to put their hands together and join in. 
