Behemoth, Suicide Silence - Metal From The Pagan Vastlands

After having toured Europe together with Kataklysm during last year’s fall, Behemoth decided to do another trek with these Canadians. Dates were planned, but then Kataklysm pulled back to ‘recharge batteries’. They were replaced by Suicide Silence, while the opening slot went to Polish black metallers Devilish Impressions, who we unfortunately had to miss due to interview obligations.

Deathcore, after metalcore the new hype, and I’ve already seen tons of bands in this young genre. It’s too bad that very few impressed me live as much as on record. Somehow, especially live, I always get the ‘been there, done that’ feeling. Suicide Silence is one of the many young deathcore bands, but they díd manage to supersede their record. Just two weeks ago I wrote about Bring Me the Horizon that the sharp, mean vocals are one of the best elements of BMTH’s music, but forget about that ‘cause this guy from Suicide Silence topped it! Not only was his scream even nastier, but also his presentation was a lot more aggressive and convincing. Overall Suicide Silence impressed me with their extremely violent presentation. It was their first time in Europe and they showed that total destruction was their main object and they succeeded. “Pull the trigger bitch!” (Sledgehammer Messiah)

Behemoth has been almost constantly on the road since the release of The Apostasy in early 2007, and every time they visit the Netherlands, I try to attend their shows in return! Tonight they commenced the second leg of The Apostasy Tour in the Baroeg in Rotterdam. In this packed and cosy venue, where the sound wasn’t optimal at the start (but improved after the first few songs), they delivered a fine show with more than an hour of excessive metal. All highlights from the Demigod album made an appearance in their set yet again: the titletrack, ‘Conquer All’ and ‘Slaves Shall Serve’ were all played live and gave me goose bumps. Their killer material from 2004 aside, we were also treated to some old school black metal (‘From The Pagan Vastlands’) as well as some recent works from The Apostasy album (‘Prometherion’ and ‘At The Left Hand Ov God’). They ended their regular set with the excellent grooving live song ‘Chant For Eskhaton 2000’, and after an encore with yet another track from the Demigod album, everybody will agree with me that we’d witnessed a very intimate and intense show by one of the current leaders in the death metal scene: Behemoth. (Mindsaver)