After almost a full month of touring, Avocado’s Bonecrusher Fest was striking down in Utrecht’s Tivoli for its final date. This metal circus features seven bands who play various styles of metal, in which they differ from core-related tours such as Never Say Die!, Hell On Earth and Thrash And Burn. Here’s our ride through the evening.

The party started with U.K.'s slamming death metal band Ingested. With the venue quickly filling up, the band played some very brutal tunes from their 2009 debut record Surpassing The Boundaries Of Human Suffering. The guitars were a bit blurry at the beginning, but soon after the groove became prominent and the bouncing on Ingested’s slam could begin. Drawback of the band’s playing was drummer Lyn Jeffs, who at some points missed his double bass completely. This while he left Annotations Of An Autopsy to fully focus on Ingested, plus after one month of touring you should be able to play your own material tight, right? Further on it was good stuff, if correct they’ll come back soon with Rose Funeral and Martyr Defiled. (Mindsaver)

I’ve seen Obscura 3 times over the past year so to be honest; I wasn’t really looking forward to see them for the fourth time this night. However, in contradiction to the last few shows I’ve seen from them the sound was finally right! This death metal band from Germany plays very technical music with lots of detailed guitar and bass parts and it finally sounded like they came together this time. Even though the crowd reaction was very tame, except for a polonaise by some people who were apparently not too amused by this band, tracks like ‘Anticosmic Overload’ sounded like they should. The set only contained 4 songs or so which was just enough to convince me of Obscura’s capabilities. I really noticed Hannes Grossman’s drumming skills this time, showing Ingested’s drummer how to really perform a decent blast beat. Maybe this band just needed some time to warm up but if they continue like this I can only see this band growing bigger and bigger. Good show! (Brent_)

Carnifex has probably just as much fans as haters, even in the crowd tonight. On forehand I was a bit sceptic after seeing them in the same venue one year ago, when they weren’t playing really tight and during last year’s Thrash And Burn tour they couldn’t convince me either. Today I was totally surprised how much I liked their performance. With loads of energy they took over the stage with their set of brutal deathcore with countless breakdowns. The youngsters in the crowd created a space to mosh and also some circlepits followed. Drummer Shawn Cameron, who made some striking mistakes last time, was in top condition today and made it a complete show, doing windmills and rotating with his sticks while bashing the shit out of his kit. If they continue tearing places up like this I might starting to like them again. Some haters will disagree however... (Mindsaver)

First time for technical death metal band The Faceless in the Netherlands! After the biggest piece of enter-level deathcore crap Carnifex it was finally time for some real death metal! The Faceless released their latest album Planetary Duality in 2008 and just got back from a tour with Dying Fetus in the United States where they played the entire record every night of the tour. Sadly not the whole record this time, but we were treated with a fine 25 minutes of The Faceless. Kicking off with the interlude ‘Shape Shifters’ followed by ‘Coldly Calculated Design’, the sound started off very bad with some crackles and distortion, but got fixed soon after. It was amazing to see this band perform exactly as tight as on record and they might not get wild on stage as a band like Carnifex, but perform ten times more technical. The fusion/Cynic-like intermezzos and cd samples, including some vocoders added even more atmosphere to this stunning stage performance. Ending with ‘An Autopsy’ from their 2006 album Akeldama, the band finally got the crowd reaction they deserved and a decent moshpit emerged in front of the stage. Can’t wait to see these guys again with a full set at the Hellfest festival! (Brent_)

I reviewed Necrophobic’s latest album Death to All! several months back and I was curious to see how they translate their blackened death metal into a live performance. Even though the band was slightly out of place on a package like this, as soon as the album intro started they got a lot of support from the audience. Not very weird, as the band definitely knows how to put on a show, including mascara, leather, a lot of horns and fists up in the air and of course the Satyricon-like ‘hey-hey-hey’s’ all the way through the set. But when it comes to making music, that’s the part where Necrophobic failed. The performance at the start of the show was very sloppy and the drum sound, as well as the drumming itself couldn’t keep up with the rest of the performance. Besides, the vocals sounded like absolute crap, which was weird as this is one of the things I liked most about their latest album. The sound got a bit better towards the end of the show and I did enjoy hearing the track ‘Revelation 666’ from Death to All but it was too late to convince me. The audience seemed to like it but I’d rather avoid Necrophobic next time. (Brent_)

I already knew 3 Inches of Blood wasn’t going to be my thing, but these guys surely know how to put on a great show. Besides, the band surely knows how to play! They played over half an hour and even though they failed to keep my concentration for the whole time, I’m sure they gained a lot of new fans as the crowd absolutely exploded. With their hit ‘The Goatriders Horde’ the band rounded off a very decent set even though they also seemed a bit misplaced between all these death metal acts at first hand. If bands like 3 Inches of Blood are your thing, please consider filling in the application form to be a Metalrage reviewer. Or else, good bands like this will have content the same quality of this review in the future ;] (Brent_)

It was nice to see the crowd reaction was really building up towards the last act of the night. Where I was already impressed by the crowd at Necrophobic and 3 Inches of Blood’s performances, Tivoli nearly exploded when The Black Dahlia Murder kicked in with ‘Funeral Thirst’, an oldie from their 2003 album Unhallowed. The Black Dahlia Murder released their fourth full-length album Deflorate late last year and we were treated with a nice 45 minutes set in support of this album. Some new tracks such as ‘Necropolis’, ‘Black Valor’ and ‘Christ Deformed’ next to Nocturnal tracks such as ‘What a Horrible Night to Have A Curse’ and ‘Everything Went Black’ and even older tracks like ‘Miasma’ and ‘Closed Casket Requiem’ were amongst the presents The Black Dahlia Murder treated us with this night. During ‘Closed Casket Requiem’ a guy in a monkey suit even entered the stage for some more entertainment value. Another band that showed impressive vocal skills, as vocalist Trevor Strnad has absolutely no problem with switching between high squeals and low grunts on top of an impressive band who definitely master their instruments at the max. I was warned for an over-triggered drumming kit from Shannon Lucas, but it never annoyed me. After a good 45 minutes of proper melodic death metal and metalcore, the band finished with the last track from Deflorate called ‘I Will Return’ and shocked some of the audience who just got in the venue for the night programming at Tivoli after the Bonecrusher event. As the band has already planned a performance at the Ieperfest festival in Belgium in August, Europe will probably soon be treated with yet another The Black Dahlia Murder tour. Make sure you catch them there! (Brent_)