Nile, Grave, Severe Torture - Ithyphallic Europe Tour
Being a death metal head, of course I’m present when there are death giants playing in my country. Nile did two shows in the Netherlands, one in Haarlem and one in Eindhoven, of which I visited the first one.Because I arrived a bit later then planned I missed melodic death metal opener Omnium Gatherum, a band of who I think that they shouldn’t be on this package anyway. Too bad I now couldn’t judge them fairly.
This way the first band I got to see was Severe Torture, secretly my favourite act on the bill tonight. Why? Because they proved to me five times in two years that they’re at the top of the brutal death metal scene. Every gig I’ve seen from them was excellent and again, this time the band left me stunned. The sound at de Patronaat was fine, resulting that Severe Torture’s extremely tight playing stood out even more. A pity that the venue wasn’t really filled at this time, because all the empty space didn’t really improve the atmosphere. The band ended their short set with the epic song “End Of Christ” from 2005’s Fall Of The Despised record. Headliner-worthy band, this.
After Severe Torture things were slowed down a bit with Grave. A band I got to see quite often, but with every show they’re becoming less spectacular. Their thrashy and more slower parts are starting to bore me, while only three or four songs in their whole set lead to some energy in the hall. I wonder why they still are such an active band and why they’re not doing a fewer amount of shows with a higher entertainment-level? The only one who really seemed to enjoy their gig was Nile’s frontman Dallas Toler Wade, who appeared at the side of the stage a couple of times. He seemed to be very familiar with Grave’s discography, heavily headbanging while playing air guitar as well as air drums, hitting al the right notes. Hope to see Grave not too soon again.
During the pause we were outside to catch some fresh air, but when we returned Nile was already on stage! The first thing to attract the attention was the sound, that didn’t stand out at this point. With a beer in our hands we quickly ran to a better spot close to the stage but still I wasn’t satisfied with the volume of the bass drums and most of all the cymbals. George Kollias hung up 15 of ‘em and they’re almost not noticeable! That pretty much sucked, but concerning the rest of the performance (setlist, presentation, brutality) the band did really well. My favourite Nile record Annihilation Of The Wicked was well represented with, if I’m not mistaken, ”Cast Down The Heretic”, ”Sacrifice Unto Sebek” and the long-lasting self titled track. The mighty track ”Black Seeds Of Vengeance” was also performed, but this time surprisingly not as the final song. All in all a great performance of one of the flag carriers of extreme death metal.
Related Content
Other Related Content