Arriving a bit late we only caught the tale end of the GRAVE set, nevertheless they kicked out some tight old school death metal that seemed to be well received.

Next up were Brazilian three-piece death metal combo KRISIUN. These guys have to be one of the tightest death metal bands out there. Their stripped down, unpretentious death metal is surgical in its precision and devastating in its brutality, the highlight of their set had to be ‘Bloodcraft’ taken from their AssassiNation album, with a blastbeat barrage that sounded like somebody firing an M60 machine gun. Drummer Max Kolesne executed some killer blasts and double bass work and was definitely the standout of the gig. If you want direct, brutal death metal with a decidedly old school flavour then I strongly recommend KRISIUN especially if you have a neighbour you want to piss off.

Next up were Egyptian-themed death metallers from South Carolina (that hotbed of Egyptian culture…) NILE opening with the intro ‘Kafir’. As soon as ‘Sacrifice unto Sebek’ kicked in it was obvious even to the uninitiated that NILE are a very different proposition to KRISIUN. Clearly influenced by the interest in Egyptology of behemoth-like guitarist Karl Sanders, Their music with all its pomp and sometimes slightly disjointed Egyptian themes is the antithesis of KRISIUN. NILE then blasted through ‘Execration Text’, ‘Serpent Headed Mask’, ‘Ithyphallic’ and then the hilariously titled ‘Papyrus… (Containing the Spell to Preserve Its Possessor against Attacks from He who is in the Water)’ executing them with very professionally and convincingly but I felt they lacked the vital ferocity and brutality of the main support band, this is most likely due to the material itself as it is by it nature more complicated and drawn out than KRISIUN.

Karl Sanders did seem to still possess a genuine enthusiasm for the music as was evident in his constant grinning (which got a bit disturbing after a while…), fair play to him though his guitar leads and sweeps underlined the quality of the song writing and subtlety of the arrangements. Unfortunately they did have some bad luck at this point. During the rendition of ‘Dagon’ the PA tripped out and killed the song dead. Credit to the band in that they didn’t throw a fit and continued with ‘Permitting the Noble Dead to Descend to the Underworld’ from the new opus Those Whom the Gods Detest but yet again the PA threw a wobbler – at this point NILE really were limping home, after ‘Sarcophagus and Lashed to the Slave Stick’ the audience had their calls for ‘Cast Down the Heretic’ fulfilled, but again the PA gods did not smile upon them, they managed to squeeze off a killing rendition of ‘Black Seeds of Vengeance’ with members of the support acts providing backing vocals.

Overall it was a killing night of quality death metal with KRISIUN standing out the most convincing. NILE frankly got a raw deal with the sound system screw ups but even so I felt that even without the PA dying they would have struggled to top the raw brutality of the Brazilian crew, in my opinon it was a slightly strange pairing. Nevertheless you can’t take it away from Sanders’ merry men; they do produce world class death metal and the night should not have ended in the relative anticlimax that it did.

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Photography by Alex Shaw(For Photo’s Click Here)