Uriah Heep.

It’s a curious name to bring up whilst considering Sweden’s leading purveyors of DIY implement-based entertainment; The word HammerFall usually conjours up more obvious names like Warlord or Helloween in terms of soundalike examples, alongside the obvious Accept/Maiden/Priest plaudits, but for a few moments during an excellent resuscitation of Fury Of The Wild (from 2005’s Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken), when Joacim Cans, Oscar Dronjak and Pontus Norgren hit the bullsEye with some frankly otherworldly harmonies the ghost of David Byron looms large in Sydney’s Manning Bar, and it’s the single most jaw-dropping moment in an evening that, to be honest, isn’t lacking in the bastards.

If you’ve seen the band before – I can’t remember how many times I have, but the first was definitely on the band’s debut Glory to the Brave Tour somewhere in Europe in the last decade of the twentieth century- you’ll know that the band is a slick entertainment machine now, largely bereft of the moments of sheer, unhinged metal majesty that used to pepper their shows; But if you haven’t – and, as Cans pointed out before the band launched into a nice rendition of one of their best live staples, Let The Hammer Fall – that’s a large proportion of this audience – then it’s hard to imagine a better introduction to the band in the live environment. Cans himself is in fine voice, and an easy going host who’s chatty rapport with the crowd hits the right mix of self-deprecating humour and self-assured cockiness, and he’s backed by a band that hits hard with incisive precision time after time. There’s not a great deal of showmanship (or indeed showing of) apart from some well drilled synchronised headbanging, but that’s fine when the band has clearly set itself the task of fitting as much metal into their hour and a half on stage as is humanly possible.

Bassist Fredrik Larsson and superbly hard-hitting drummer David Wallin keep things solid at the back, leaving Cans, Dronjak and Norgren with the task of by turns captivating and communicating with the audience, but for the most part all those energetic souls down the front are just interested in pounding the air with their fists and giving their necks a searching workout as the band rage through a career spanning repertoire that can’t have had too many people complaining.

Pure, unalloyed, unreconstructed joy is something that’s in short supply in the World in 2025, so to see so many faces with expressions of just those things on their fizzogs as they sing along to The End Justifies is a testament not just to the timeless brilliance of this band, but also to the stoic heroism of the music itself; Heavy Metal will never let you down, and neither, in the live arena, will HammerFall.