Amon Amarth, Obituary, Legion Of The Damned, Keep Of Kalessin - Full Of Hate Tour

Currently raging over Europe is the Full Of Hate tour, presenting the Vikings from Amon Amarth as headliner, with support from old school death metal veterans Obituary, Dutch brutal thrashers Legion Of The Damned and black metallers Keep Of Kalessin. Tonight was the kick-off, which switched venues from the Waerdse Tempel in Heerhugowaard to the Patronaat in Haarlem.

Opening act Keep Of Kalessin started their performance with an atmospheric guitar solo to get in the mood. With that, they succeeded in grabbing the attention of a group of early visitors, of which some for sure came to see these Norwegians here this eve. After having released some records in the past, I got to know Keep Of Kalessin after the release of Armada in 2006. In 2008 they delivered another quality record with Kolossus, but although many acclaim their discography, their live reputation still isn’t so good. They try to set up an atmosphere of dark, black influenced extreme metal, but for the second time in just a short period they didn’t manage to bring it over. No, Keep Of Kalessin live is nice if you want some blastbeat lessons from Vegard Larsen, but otherwise I’d advise you to put on a headphone and just listen to Kolossus at home. (Mindsaver)

Although they originate from my own country, I never saw Legion Of The Damned (or Occult, as they were named in the past) before, and so I was happy to finally witness this thrash monster live on stage. Yet I’m sad to say that although they DO have a good live reputation, they didn’t get me in the mood to thrash along. The bass sound was truly awful, but apart from that - and I could’ve known - Legion would never be capable of playing their stuff so flawless and powerful live as on their records. They would’ve needed the best sound technician to do that and that’s of course not something to expect. The biggest part of the crowd seemed to like their appearance, heavily banging their heads or get insulted in the moshpit to songs like “Werewolf Corpse”, “Sons Of The Jackel” and “Legion Of The Damned”. With that, they almost created more chaos on the floor than during Obituary, so good job! (Mindsaver)


After having lost interest in Amon Amarth at the age of 16, it was strange to see them play live after all those years. With very little knowledge of their recently released material, I noticed many people came to the concert especially for this Swedish death metal band despite the outrageous high entrance fee. Amon Amarth started the show with “Twilight Of The Thundergod“, as I was informed by a friend. The energy of the band was amazing and it actually was a good performance, but due to my lack of recognition of the songs, I was a bit bored. When you don’t know the music that well, you easily get the feeling that it all sounds alike and that there isn't that much variation between the individual tracks. “Death In Fire“ was played as well, which is a song that forces me to a trip down memory lane so at least there was a little self-relevance. The audience seemed to enjoy the show very much, the atmosphere was pleasant and of course there was a small pit and a lot of drinking out of horns. Not a band I would visit any time soon again, but I know it was an amazing show for those fans who appreciate the band to the extent that they know each and every song! (Kaar)