Five bands were touring under the Vengeful Scapegoat Tour-moniker, with among them headliners Incantation, directly supported by Poland’s Hate followed by Divine Eve, Noctem and Nerve. Let’s see what they got to offer us on this first day of the week.

Starting up this early Monday metal night were the Italian metalheads of Nerve. This four piece plays and extensive mixture of metal styles, with an emphasis on death and thrash parts but also with some progressive elements. Overall it felt like they just wanted too much in their music, and therefore it never sounded like they were making music with a face of its own. Vocally I was a bit disappointed as well, even though the singer struggled and strived he never managed to really impress. They did show that they were skilled musicians that can write a decent tune, especially in their track ‘3 Seconds Madness’, yet there is still a long way to go before something really impressing comes out. (DemonDust)

Up next were the Spaniards of Noctem. This group spent some time on their looks, since they were dressed in metal outfits, had make-up and even creepy eye lenses. Despite all their effort, there were only a couple visitors actually taking a look at these guys, whose music was more solid than their predecessor. Blackened death metal with a lot of melodic and even metalcore influences passed by, but although they were tight, they didn’t play anything really interesting. All I can advise this band is to become more extreme. Not in their looks but in their music that is. (Mindsaver)

Formed in 1992, the lads of Texas’ Divine Eve have been playing some doom/death metal for quite a while now. With Incantation drummer Kyle behind the kit they came to Europe for the first time ever to play their songs. Overall the band packed a nice groove and a good solid yet fuzzy sound. Vocally it sounded like they used up pretty much most of their voices, but to the few fans of the band that came down here this didn’t seem to matter. Although I have to admit that they certainly had some nice parts in their songs, the overall performance was far from mind-blowing. Good for them to have finally made it overseas, yet I don’t think they’ll be gaining many new fans on this tour here. (DemonDust)

As fourth act we were treated by a show of Polish death metallers Hate. Only a couple months ago they played this venue as well. Back then I couldn’t be there, but I did see them at two festivals in the past. Today I witnessed the show closely to the stage to enjoy some Polish death metal, but it unfortunately didn’t become as good as I had hoped for. Hate’s set, once again for the largest part filled with tracks from their last two albums Anaclasis and Morphosis, showed us a live band with little variation. Everything they played was of course utterly tight, but all the straight riffing and same blastbeats over and over again made it a boring appearance. A new song played at the end of the show didn’t forecast any good either, being a pretty standard song without blasts but more solid metal instead. Disappointing, ‘cause now I know that this band is better on record with their mechanical sound and atmospheres. They should definitely release a stunning album to keep me interested! (Mindsaver)

Headliner slot of the night was filled by America’s finest Incantation, together with Immolation and Suffocation one of the leading acts within the New York death metal scene. Formed in 1989, the band has released 8 full-length albums and are still touring in support of their latest album Primordial Domination. On tour with big bands such as Krisiun, Malevolent Creation, Vomitory, Behemoth and Rotting Christ, Incantation has toured Europe quite a few times. However, the Vengeful Scapegoat Tour was the first time for them to actually play a full set instead of a support-act slot and they seemed pretty satisfied with this. The band kicked of with the title track from their 2006’s album ‘Primordial Domination’ and filled the rest of the hour-or-so slot with a nice mixture between old and new material. The newer material can be considered as more traditional death metal, while the older tracks are more Immolation-like technical work all mixed with some doomy Autopsy-like riffs. The band found a right combination between these different styles and the crowd seemed to enjoy this even more! Alongside Divine Eve (who have the same drummer as Incantation by the way), the band definitely had the best crowd reaction of the evening. Not the easiest death metal to get into but after actually taking time for it, you won’t be disappointed. Apparently the band have planned yet another European round as they are playing at the Stonehenge festival in Steenwijk in July, make sure you don’t miss out on them on the next tour! (Brent_)