Black metal! From Norway! ARGH! Run for your life, before they beat you down with an axehandle and eat your brains raw with a lovely redcurrant sauce and sweet potatoes on the side. Right?

It’s time to lose all your pre/misconceptions. This is Satyricon.

While they work in the studio as the apparently fearsome duo of Satyr and Frost, live they number six (six six?) and manage to be both mesmerisingly technical as well as absolutely brutal in their delivery.

This is the Tour Diabolical, upon which the band is scheduled to play 31 shows in just 35 days. This is just the fifth date. Burly black-clad frontman Satyr is surprisingly affable when he’s clutching his mic stand, bizarrely fashioned to resemble entwined snakes. While he is the only vocal member onstage, he is more than up to the task.

It seems that Frost barely wants to stop drumming between songs, such is his merciless pummelling of his kit, but this is the perfect environment for the band. While they did not suffer in the blazing sunshine and incredible heat of Download Festival earlier this year, it is in the dark that songs like ‘King’ and ‘Rite Of The Cross’ take on a new meaning.

The rock ‘n’ roll tendencies of these face-painted metal warriors is fully apparent with the rolling riffs that Satyricon supply, and as they return for a second encore with an outstandingly crisp rendition of the mighty Slayer’s ‘Raining Blood’ you feel a grim satisfaction as you realise the pompous splendour before you.

Now where did I put that sheep’s head? And that virgin? Ah yes. To the pentagram!