My day job involves saddling up to the system and telling it that it needs to change. Prior to this evening’s show, the system went toe to toe with me, looked me straight in the eyes and made it very clear that it had no intention of changing. This had both a positive and negative effect on the day. On the downside, my sizeable ego and faith in my abilities took a considerable beating, but on the upside I was in the perfect frame of mind for an evening of relentless extreme Death Metal. Omophagia take to the stage at the ridiculously early time of quarter to seven, not sure who was there to witness their particularly vicious brand of Death Metal, I certainly wasn't.

I do however arrive just in time for Vitriol, a band with considerable buzz about them. For once, those online influencers bigging them up are actually bang on the money, as Vitriol are nothing short of bloody brilliant. They trade in a dense swirling cacophony of technical but savage Death Metal. It is jittery and twisting, full of shifting time-signatures and stilted notes. The fluctuating and all-consuming noise that the they create is utterly mesmerising and you find yourself immersed in their layers of sharp riffs and piercing drum beats. Kyle Rasmussen and Adam Roethlisberger trade growls like a primal Gene and Paul and both men spit out their words with venomous intensity. It is that utter brutality merged with the precise irregularity that makes this what Vitriol do so enticing. We get a sizable chunk of material from their excellent new record “To Bathe From The Throat Of Cowardice” and the evolution that it marks in their sound is evident. The earlier stuff aired towards the end of the set is great, but it sounds almost pedestrian alongside the sonic assault of Vitriol’s new stuff. There is something very special happening here and I can’t wait for them to come back in March 2020.

Erik Rutan is a Death Metal God and it is clear that he is worshipped not only by tonight’s audience, but also the bands he is touring with. Not only is he the driving force in Hate Eternal, but he is also a skilled producer and an in-demand supply guitarist. On top of that, he shreds like there is no tomorrow and it is an utter joy to watch his fingers blur up and down the fret board during his numerous solos. As a purveyor of short, sharp driving riffs he is quite simply unequalled. However, whilst Erik’s playing might be utterly exquisite, the set as a whole lacks something for me. It is obvious that for a good portion of the crowd seeing Hate Eternal is akin to the second coming and I could lose friends here, so I will be careful with what I say next. But from my perspective they suffer from being sandwiched between two bands that are pushing the technical boundaries of Death Metal. Hate Eternal’s very old school approach to the genre ends up sounding to these ears just that. Old. It’s not in anyway bad and they are superb at what they do (especially the solo’s which make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end), it just feels like they plod after the speed and driving intensity of Vitriol. I may be missing something, but there just isn’t the variety and expanse of sound that there is in Vitriol or Nile, it felt narrow and one dimension rather than kaleidoscope of dense intricate noise. But I am also aware that a number of people whose tastes I hugely admire consider Hate Eternal to be the last word in Death Metal. So before the backlash even starts, I am prepared to say that I am probably wrong and ill-informed here, but tonight, guitar histrionics aside, I just find them a tad dull.

Those who write Death Metal off as simplistic and basic certainly have never encountered Nile. This is Death Metal at its most bombastic and wide-screen. Every track of their immense seventy minutes set is full of ambition and soaring melodic hooks. Yes it is still brutal and yes it is still heavy, but the song structures are intricate and full of breath-taking guitar work. Nile don’t do minimalism, every song tonight is big, epics in their own right adorned with layered guitars and pulsating drums. We get a whistle stop tour through their entire discography (only 2007’s “Ithyphallic” is (in my humble opinion) criminally ignored) and you cannot help but be blown away with the power that manage to invoke. Yes Nile nowadays is essentially Karl Sanders and a bunch of hired hands, but that does not stop them being a tight pulsating monster of an act and they just fly off the stage tonight. The three tracks from the forthcoming “Vile Nilotic Rites” shows that they have not compromised in complexity. In fact, the new material seems to even further push the boundaries of what is possible with Death Metal.

As the set precedes, they just keep ratcheting up the level of bombastity till we get most of the grand sprawling ‘4th Arra of Dagon’, very much a high-water mark in how huge and extravagant Death Metal can be. The set concludes with a piece of pure searing brutality in the shame of “Black Seeds of Vengeance” stunning title track. Then with heartfelt thanks they are gone. They have been doing this for twenty six years and bloody hell, they are good at it.