Actually, the P.A. caught fire during the show what resulted in the scent of burning solid states throughout the venue…

In general bands that play complex and rhythmic music can be great to listen to but if they cannot convince on stage like for instance Meshuggah it is just not interesting enough. If they had kept the heavy metal vocalist at home the show would probably have been somewhat better too. They concluded the show with an Entombed cover (Serpent Speech).

Myrkskog
My expectations of Myrkskog ran high because their hyperblasting impressive death/black album “Deathmachine” is one of my favorite albums when I’m in the mood for uncomplicated in-your-face metal violence.

Throughout the history of the band there have been a lot of line-up changes and somehow it reflects back on the band. It is obvious the band currently revolves around Destructhor. Not that this is a bad thing but the interaction between musicians that have a long experience in playing together is missing. Now that Myrkskog are a three-piece the stage was also difficult to fill.

Myrkskog has recently released a new album entitled “Superior Massacre” with more death metal-oriented songs. The set was therefore primarily based upon songs of the new album. The gig itself was not very long though. Myrkskog filled the remaining time between songs with extensive pauses. Every time a song ended they decided to walk to the back of the stage to take a zip of water or tune their instruments.

Their sound was quite bad too; the guitar sounded very shrill. The band could certainly use a second guitar player as well to add some body. There was also little evidence that their bass-player was actively plowing along. My expectations are set back again and hopefully next time they will be able to convince me they are just as good on stage as they are on CD.

No Return
Unfortunately I missed the first couple of songs because my stomach convinced me that metal does not appease his appetites. When I arrived No Return was busy plowing through a tight show with a good P.A.-sound and an enthusiastic audience.

There were without a doubt some regretful feelings gnawing on me that I had not returned earlier as No Return was slashing around with their catchy thrash/death.

Unfortunately the band was unable to bring their drummer and guitar player. For this tour they were therefore joined by guest musicians. That however did not stop them from seriously thrashing around. The audience got excited too and started to mosh on their highly danceable and rhythmic metal attack. Their set ended with a cover from Death: “Secret Face”.

Sinister
The Dutch sinister foursome had an even bigger stage to fill than Myrkskog because with every line-check some of the gear was carried off-stage. This gave the band too much space which gave it a bit of an empty appearance. Their sound however was heavy and solid. Songs were cast out into the audience with a high level of efficiency.

Their performance however lacked a great deal of excitement which made it hard to stay focused on their flesh-grinding sound. It was not until the end of the show the audience became more active and a pit emerged from out of nowhere. Their set consisted of older work and some new songs, “Creative Killings”, “Aggressive Measures” and “Cross The Styx” among them.

Nile
Nile has proven to be not only one of the most unique and successful bands in the Death Metal scene right now but also one with quite a reputation regarding to their live appearances. Not rarely their live-sound comes close to their album-sound. This Sunday they demonstrated that this is no coincidence, and in spite of some lap-top mayhem (damn Windows’ blue screens) the set was once again impressive.

Right after the dark and ominous intro “Smashing The Antiu” exploded through the P.A. and the anticipation of the audience turned into a moshfest which made the venue shake on its foundations. The contact between the crowd and the band was very intense and also very impressive.

The intensity grew higher and higher up to a point were even some fanatics were trying to stagedive. Karl pushed one of those stagedivers from the stage with resulted in some mixed reactions from the audience. Nevertheless the atmosphere in general remained good.

A hefty and balanced set of older and newer songs and the well-known intermezzos with Arabian sounds and vocals plundered like a roller coaster, and kept the crowd focussed right till the end. Songs like “The Howling Of The Jinn”, “Serpent Headed Mask”, “Sarcophagus”, “Stones Of Sorrow”, “Kheftiu Asar Butchiu” , “Barra Edinazzu” and “Defiling The Gates Of Ishtar” relentlessly savaged our fragile ears and made sure we would not forget who was the headliner this evening.

The fellowship of Nile walked off-stage and a wild crowd asked for more. These planned encores usually only work for bands that have made quite a name for themselves, as Nile has. After a short break they returned to the stage and performed their two last masterpieces of the day; “Black Seeds Of Vengeance” and “Destruction Of The Temple Of The Enemies Of Ra”. With a content feeling it was time to get our coats and head back home.

(Review: Wilfred de Zoete
Pics: Marcia Gransbergen)