Review: VALTOZASH and SNAKE MOUNTAIN - Live in Brisbane

15 July

Written By Sense Crew

Snakes On An Astral Plane

Sunday 13th July 2025

Written by Rashid AlKamraikhi
Photographed by: Rashid AlKamraikhi

Four kickarse acts on a Sunday Night at Crowbar? Yes please!

There’s progressive metal, and then there’s THEREIN. The crowd is immediately transfixed by their mind-boggling arrangements that move from funked-out staccato passages, to fluid, nay, liquid lightning lead work at the blink of a third eye. They treat us to some new tracks that somehow manage to push their ‘formula’, and the listener, even further into madness with the musical alchemy they craft. THEREIN are truly one of Brisbane’s most unique bands that must be experienced for yourself. If you dare.

In contrast to THEREIN, BEAST MACHINE come out swinging, and hit hard with raw power and energy. They may not be as technically exuberant as THEREIN, but neither could they be in any way considered slouches on their instruments, as they pummel the crowd with their patented ‘Heavy as a tank built from T-rex's’ sound. The energy they expound from the stage gets the crowd riled up, and they instigate a circle pit that ends when local legend, Tabea, in her own words, ‘Ate shit’. The band stops to check that she is alright, and after assurances are given that everything is OK, resume the consensual carnage.

Now if you took THEREIN’s technical prowess, and combined it with BEAST MACHINE’s brute strength, we’re pretty sure you’d end up with a fairly close approximation of SNAKE MOUNTAIN. Tonight they perform without their drummer, and while their presence is truly missed, the replacement drum tracks provide an industrial feel to the band’s already behemoth sound. Other than that, it’s business as usual for the gang as blistering guitar work erupts between vocalist Nev’s brutal growls and snarls. It’s the kind of world class performance that we have come to expect from this outfit. Now we just need the rest of the world to catch up.

In the words of MONTY PYTHON, “And now for something completely different.” And not just in terms of the music tonight, but in acts you would find anywhere in the world, or otherworld, in the case of VALTOZASH. This is a band that somehow manages to warp space, time, and spacetime (which they need to do in order to fit all of their members on stage) during their performances. The sheer magnitude of the Jazz Metal Big Band is hard to encapsulate as your eyes ping pong around the stage to the sounds of the different instruments taking the lead. Some relief can be found centre stage whenever band leader, Andre, rips into a vibraphone solo, or vocalist Cam emerges from the shadows for some deep and deathly growls, otherwise, all you can really do is forsake any semblance of normality, melt into the entropy, and embrace the chaos as you ride the waves into the astral plane.