Metal Reviews

That sucks

Hopefully someone cool will replace them...

@Rio: You're so lucky, in terms of concerts in your area.

Yeah, it's the UK I guess... it probably has the highest "market for metal"-to-"geographical size" ratio in the world. Although, Nottingham where Opeth are playing isn't actually in my area, but it's within easy distance of my parents' house so I can easily get there and stay over at theirs.

Nonetheless, yes, I am damn lucky. It sucks that in the last year or so I haven't taken advantage of it as much as I used to. This is why I am often gently poking fun at a certain famous metalreview.com personality who lives in Manchester, second only to London as the gig capital of the coutry, IMO, who hardly ever goes to any gigs

I wonder who that is, then. Pretty cool site.

YOU'VE WON THIS ROUND

Seeing The Monolith Deathcult tomorrow!



.:crast:.

Damnation today! Just arrived in Leeds at 2:00 AM.

*schlaf*

Bought tickets to Mogwai in March next year

Welcome to Leeds!

I would say see you there but as I'm going South to see Opeth instead I shan't

Cynic and Opeth last night. Expect some serious RAAAAAAAAAAAAGE about curfews in my Live Report.

Saw this last night. They finished very early, but then they also started very early so didn't feel short changed. Could definitely have done with more of Cynic, though! Enjoyed their set a bit more than Opeth's, actually... the latter was too dominated by new stuff. Absolutely nothing off Morningrise

(Yes I know I am one of these people that goes along wanting the "old shit", in Mike's words)

Got home from The Unholy Alliance two hours ago - GREAT fucking show! Mastodon were nothing spectacular (They didn't even play "Blood and Thunder", I thought that was their most popular song ), but Amon Amarth and Slayer completely obliterated everything, and Trivium were quite good too! The moshpit during "Pull Harder on the Strings of your Martyr" took up like 1/3 of the entire crowd!

Btw, 2-3 songs into Slayer's set, Tom Araya wanted to say something, but the crowd just wouldn't keep quiet. After a minute or so, someone in the crowd screamed "Shut up and fucking thrash!" and then they went into "Chemical Warfare"

Saw The Monolith Deathcult on Saturday in a tiny fucking place in Hogeveeen. Awesome gig though, once I find some time to do anything other than work, I'll go through my pictures and post them.

.:crast:.

Back home and Damnation was awesome, actually. Seeing Onslaught again was a retro-trip. Last time I saswthem was in 1985 on the tour supporting The Force. Sy ripped it up, his vocals are completely mad.

Sigh, Carcass, The Berzerker, Napalm, Benediction, and Cathedral were all awesome as well.

I was also at the Unholy Alliance gig, the Oslo gig that is, not the swedish one

Anyway, we had one extra band play in Oslo and that was Purified In Blood which was ok, nothing amazing though. Next up was Amon Amarth which had kind of fuzzy and unclear sound the first 2 song but the sound got better after that.

Next up was Mastadon which had good sound throughout their whole set, however i'm not really a fan of them, but they did play Blood & Thunder which is one the few Mastodon songs i like, overall a little boring setlist but the performance itself was ok.

I am not a fan of Trivium either, but holy hell did they kick ass live, they played a few songs of each album. A highly entertaining show from these guys, i would deffo see them again.

Then, the main event...SLAYER!

What can i say, they fucking annihilated. They played Chemical Warfare, South Of Heaven, Disciple, Dittohead, God Send Death, and a few other songs, before they kicked into Angel of Death and they played the entire Reign In Blood album, wow what a incredible experience. Glad i used earplugs because those screaming solos can be a bit annoying at times, fuck they played LOUD!!

So the Unholy Alliance gig now stands as one of the best gigs i have seen, and if the tour is visiting your hometown, i highly recommend you go see it, you'll have a blast!

When i saw Slayer at Gods of Metal i left after 30 minutes even if they played old songs, they do not have a real thrash attitude anymore. Plus all those fucking interludes with Araya speaking?! Get to the fucking next song!

Evile were replaced by The Berzerker, which was kind of cool... it makes sense as they were already in Leeds for Damnation Festival.

Satyricon were really good, surprised how good they were.

Berzerker! Damn you Rio! (*Shakes fist.)

Personally I would have rather seen Evile, hehe.

Funnily enough, I walked out of a Berzerker gig a few years back. I kind of regret it now. But I turned up, am I'm not joking, there were 5 support bands. One of which was a sort of TDEP/Locust amalgamation played by 15 year olds, and the rest were straight up hardcore or metalcore, which is not really my thing. So, when the fifth suppor band came on I just thought fuck this and went home.

Anyway, they were cool, but Satyricon really blew them out the water.