So the first band we saw was Spawn Of Possession. This was actually the very first death metal band I ever saw, and back then they already made a good impression on me. I saw them some time later at some festival in 013, but I didn’t see too much of it then. So I was quite curious on how this show would be. Well, in short, extremely high technical death metal that was played on extreme tempo’s for most of the show is what these Scandinavians put up. If you didn’t pay attention for three seconds you would miss like twenty guitar and drums strikes. It was all played fairly tight and the vocalist made sure there was some enthusiasm on stage as well. In the end we were completely overwhelmed with death metal riffs, blastbeats and grunts and thus more than warmed up for the mayhem yet to come

 

When Hate Eternal entered the stage you could immediately see the charisma of these guys. The respect for them grows almost to absurd heights when you see them perform live. They gave a show which absolutely approaches the essence of aggressiveness and hate; you really feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins and it’s remarkable that this endures the entire show. The drummer, Reno Kiilerich for this European tour, plays a major part in this. He just keeps throwing those blastbeats out of his body and striking the bass drums; and this extremely tight without losing any of the enormous power he puts in his hits. The vocals of Erik Rutan and Randy Piro work out fantastic and especially in a song like ‘Behold Judas’ they are extremely well combined. Between the songs there where regularly atmospheric samples on tape played, which gave the band a moment to restore their strength and tune the guitars and gave the audience a pleasant pause before getting the hate spit out over them again. It’s a positive point that they perform in a three piece, because in this way the great solos can be excellent heard and a second guitarist isn’t missed a moment. This amazing show ends with one of my favorites: ‘The King of all Kings’. Erik and Randy really should sing the chorus of this song simultaneously because then it would even blow you further away. With this small occurrence the only negative point passed by in an extremely stunning and hateful gig.

Review by Sledgehammer Messiah