Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Venue: New Age, Roncade, Italy
Concert date: 27.01.2011
Attendance: 500
We’d been waiting a good while for the American death metal heavyweights to swing by again. Sadly the current Those Whom the Gods Detest tour skipped us, but luckily it stopped in not one but two places close by. On the day we were headbanging at Kino Šiška with Helloween, Nile and co. were demolishing Močvara in Croatia, and a day later the tour rolled into New Age in Italy. A package of Nile, Melechesh and Dew-Scented is something you simply can’t skip, and a lineup this good is impossible to resist, so a trip to Roncade, the day after the Slovenian invasion of Močvara, was a must.
First up on stage, in front of a completely empty New Age, was Swiss brutal death metal outfit DarkRise, who did their thing with total confidence. The instrumental foursome in particular proved they’re technically top-notch, while the vocals were a bit weaker, with generic “copy-cat” cookie monster growls. But considering the junk we sometimes have to sit through before the headliners, DarkRise were an absolute treat for the ears.
Next up were Sweden’s Zonaria, a little more tailored to the Italian crowd (at least image-wise, hehe). The band has been cooking up a new record for ages, the follow-up to 2008’s The Cancer Empire, but as far as touring goes they’re way more active than when it comes to recording new material. In a good half hour, these powdered pretty boys served up a medley of songs from their first two releases, which still sound like a pretty generic mix of heavy Hypocrisy and Dimmu Borgir influences and industrial metal like our own Noctiferia play it. Right before the start of the tour the guys had the misfortune of losing bassist Markus, but they found a replacement quickly and beefed up the ranks with a new guitarist too, American Caleb Bingham (ex-Ascension, Five Finger Death Punch). Vocalist Simon thus got a free hand for even more posing, but the fresh blood and changes in the band don’t (yet) mean any real difference. Zonaria’s music remains mostly monotonous, the riffs generic, the rhythms repetitive, and the band members’ make-up-caked faces about as evil as the vampires from Twilight. In other words, nothing. I’m curious what Zonaria will have to say with their third record, which is supposed to come out soon, but this time the Swedes didn’t really fit this package.
Third time’s the charm, they say, and only with the third act did the night properly kick off, with the kind of killer tempo and style that only German death/thrash madmen Dew-Scented can deliver. The guys recently released their eighth full-length, Invocation (every Dew-Scented album title since the debut Immortelle starts with the letter I), proving the Germans know no mercy and have no plans to stop. And if that goes for their studio output, it goes even more for their live shows, which are an energy bomb of merciless thrash. The German crew pulled off a fantastic thrash blitzkrieg in forty minutes that, thanks to the energy of excellent frontman Leif, the adrenaline-pumping speed and the crazy aggressive thrash anthems, flew by faster than a Bavarian Hans polishes off a sausage and downs a big mug of beer. Like Zonaria, Dew-Scented weren’t lucky before the tour either, as guitarist Martin Walczak left them, but no worries: in true thrash-brother fashion, guitarist Michael Hankel of another German thrash legend, Holy Moses, jumped in to help. Michael played all the solos with unbelievable confidence and chopped out a brutal collection of riffs, and the band picked an excellent selection of songs. It was time to present the new tracks (Arise From Decay), but the iron-clad classics like Cities of the Dead, Turn to Ash and the closing Acts of Rage also loosened up plenty of necks. A crazy show by a crazy band that deserved a better response from the sorry Italian crowd, who did deliver a mosh or two, but it looked kind of like kids playing in a sandbox. But Dew-Scented simply can’t be bad live! Phenomenal!
From the moment Dew-Scented took the stage, it was all uphill from there, especially once it was time for the Dutch band of Israeli origin, the masters of “mesopotamian blackened thrash” metal, Melechesh. Led by charismatic frontman Ashmedi, the band delivered an hour-long mystical, occult journey through Sumerian and Mesopotamian myths and legends, in a way that makes it clear live why this band has risen so mightily out of the underground in the last year or two. If Melechesh were still swimming in obscurity with their first three albums, the previous record, the masterpiece Emissaries, lifted them among the bigger and more respected names of the genre, and with the new magnum opus The Epigenesis, released via Nuclear Blast, they’ve only cemented their phenomenal form and their rise among the biggest names in black metal. The band fired up a well-oiled machine without mercy and it spat out one banger after another. The setlist was mostly made up of songs from the new album and Emissaries, and the furthest back Melechesh traveled was to the album Sphynx with Triangular Tattvic Fire. A song or two more would have fit nicely, for example Genies, Sorcerers and Mesopotamian Nights, while an epic like Caravans to Ur is probably just something to dream about (although the band promises they’ll occasionally play the 11-minute epic The Epigenesis live). The band proved that every instrument in Melechesh really matters; drummer Xul filled the shoes of former drummer Proscriptor (Absu) with dignity, and the skins suffer under his blows like whipped slaves. Surprisingly, the bass plays an important role in a black metal band too, but the best part is undoubtedly hearing the breathtaking guitar lines of Ashmedi and the guitarist who stood in for regular guitarist Moloch on this tour (and yes, that’s the third band with lineup troubles). The duo traded fantastic solos and ass-kicking lines like it was nothing, and Ashmedi also delivered a brilliant vocal performance. Melechesh really played a show that should have had the crowd eating out of their hands, but once again the Italian audience proved to be the most ungrateful one for miles around. That’s exactly why they didn’t deserve Ashmedi’s usual trick, where Xul hands him his drumstick and Ashmedi then plays a solo with it. Regardless, Melechesh proved why they’re one of the most respected names in metal right now – the music, the performance and the attitude of this band are at such a high level that they deserve nothing but even more “fame” in the future.
The one-of-a-kind finish to a one-of-a-kind night, at a time when Egypt is being shaken by protests against corrupt political leadership, came from death metal giants Nile, who are reminding Europe of the glorious days of the mighty Egyptian pharaohs with the Those Whom the Gods Detest Part II tour. And as mighty as pharaohs, the members of one of the most revered death metal bands of all time monumentally climbed onto the stage. Coffeeeeeee!!!! Oops… Kafiiiiiiiir!!! the excellent, newly shaven-headed Dallas Toler-Wade growled phenomenally, and the one-hour pharaonic rampage across Italy began with the opening track of the new album Those Whom the Gods Detest. Bassist Chris Lollis provided quite a surprise right from the start; after three years in the band (he became a full member last year) he has obviously been given a vocal role equal to Dallas and Karl, since he may have gotten even more vocal lines than the guitar duo. Which isn’t necessarily bad, as Lollis has a brutal, slightly higher-pitched growl worthy of a pharaoh. With three alternating vocalists, Nile deliver fantastic variety and dynamics live, but the central spot still belongs to the incredible Toler-Wade, who, besides a growl worthy of Ramses’ name, also handles unbelievable guitar lines and, together with his colleague Karl Sanders, makes up one of the most unique death metal guitar duos around right now. Karl’s brutal low and deep vocals sound like something straight out of H.P. Lovecraft’s worst nightmares, and George Kollias hammers the drums like he’s keeping time for the thousands whipping slaves while building the mighty pyramids. Unfortunately the American band’s set this time was short, but all the sweeter for it – most of what they played came from the new record, the centerpiece of which was surely the fantastic title track. With the rest of the songs, Nile took us on a nice stroll along the banks of the gargantuan Nile, playing at least one song from every record, though from the album Ithyphallic I’d have preferred to hear the three-minute death metal bomb Papyrus Containing the Spell to Preserve Its Possessor Against Attacks from He Who Is in the Water over the title track, and I definitely wouldn’t have said no to another song or two, at least Ramses Bringer of War, for example. Nile wanked it out for all the gods, not just the god of war, and showed what a lesson in real death metal looks like. “We Are They Whom the Gods Detest!”
What to say in closing? This tour package was absolutely worth seeing, the lineup was excellent, and the performances by Dew-Scented, Melechesh and Nile were finger-licking good. But I can’t stop thinking about how this show would have gone down here. The Slovenian crowd would have given the bands such a reception that the pathetic Italian audience could only hide and from now on go only to shows by Italian power metal bands.
Photos: Nina Grad
Setlist
Dew-Scented:
1. Intro
2. Downfall
3. Arise From Decay
4. Turn To Ash
5. Cities Of The Dead
6. Never To Return
7. Critical Mass
8. Soul Poison
9. Condemnation
10. Acts Of Rage
Melechesh:
1. Illumination – The Face of Shamash
2. Sacred Geometry
3. Deluge of Delusional Dreams
4. Ladders to Sumeria
5. Grand Gathas of Baal Sin
6. Triangular Tattvic Fire
7. Ghouls of Nineveh
8. Rebirth of the Nemesis
Nile:
1. Kafir
2. Sacrifice Unto Sebek
3. Hittite Dung Incantation
4. Serpent Headed Mask
5. Ithyphallic
6. Those Whom the Gods Detest
7. The 4th Arra of Dagon
8. Permitting the Noble Dead to Descent to the Underworld
9. Sarcophagus
10. Lashed to the Slave Stick
11. Black Seeds of Vengeance
Photo gallery
