Death metal was envisaged as a repugnant knee-jerk reaction to the excess and blatant commerciality of eighties hair metal. It was meant to burn bright and leave a grizzled corpse. However, something caught and nearly 40 years later Death Metal is in rude health. Tonight is an interesting and potent mix of obnoxious upstarts, cult heroes and venerated legends of the genre. Rebellion is heaving and the generational mix is both fascinating and varied. The old guard are out in force in their faded battle jackets but so too is the younger vibrant generation, besuited in vinted purchased retro ware who have had made their way into death metal via entry-level routes of Bring Me the Horizon and Beartooth. 

For an evening that promises ferocity and brutality of the highest order, Pestifer provides a rather sedate and reflective jumping off point. Yes, the requisite death metal growls are there; deep, penetrative and menacing. But the music being snarled over can be at best described as prog and at worst free-form jazz. It is as if Yes decided to make one last dash for credibility and hired Corpsegrinder as a frontman. There are definitely distinct similarities with Opeth to be found and the jaunty musicality is both impressive and enticing. It's not unpleasant and there are flurries of nods of approval from those up front, but given what is coming up it feels all a bit odd.

Intrepid are much more like it. Hailing from Estonia, they ply a trade in highly authentic old skool death metal. Mid-way through the set, vocalist Raiko Rajalaane declares that they have been doing this since 2016, which by the look of them must mean they formed in kindergarten. They are blissfully young and their youthful vibrancy pumps through the set. They may be dealing in a style that came into bearing decades before their parents got jiggy with it, but they perform it incredibly well. They are stunningly tight and everything feels meticulously constructed.

The drum kit used by all three opening acts takes up most of the room stage front, meaning that they don’t have much space to meander. Instead Raiko and his playmates stand stock still and pound out the riffs and the blastbeats. There is an infectious vitality about how they roll out a style we have all heard hundreds of times before in a way that feels incendiary and blisteringly exciting. ‘Opiated Consumption’ sees them stretch their musical wings as they slow the tempo down. The protracted creeping riffs produced by Simo Atso are astonishing and prove beyond doubt that they can evolve. It however is business as usual with set closer ‘Overthrone’, a gloriously impressive clatter of gnarled guitars and barked vocals. The audience reaction is justifiably rapturous and the biggest commendation they receive is the chattered excitement of hundreds of soul having finding their new favourite band. 

Italians Hideous Divinity play Death Metal with a flare and flamboyance that is befitting of their nationality. Their level of musical opulence means they come across like a Power Metal Band that has decided to make a stylistic U-turn mid-career. The blastbeats and buzzsaw guitars are all in place, but everything feels rather theatrical and extravagant. They are not bad, but it lacks the dirt and penetrative grit that you associate with this style of music.

Enrico is an accomplished front person and he doesn’t let the space limitations get in the way of him careering around the stage, impressively and passionately performing with every facet of his body. He is jovial and expressive and expertly stage manage the frequent technical glitches that blight their set. They are not particularly bad or anything like that, it is just with the colossal bulk of what has come before and will proceed them, it comes across as a little light-weight. 

When bands reach album number ten in a lucrative 31 year career there is a temptation to coast. After all when, like Nile, you are considered one of the most influential and dominant forces in your genre what else do you have to prove? Well the answer is actually quite a lot as the recently dropped “The Underworld Awaits Us All” is exceptionally good. It refuses to rest on laurels or to trade in previously earned good will, instead it takes Nile’s trademark technicality and just accelerates with it. It sounds like Nile, but Nile on steroids. We get three slices from it, including the simultaneously wonderfully and ludicrously titled ‘Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Faeces by the Four Apes’. They slot in fantastically with the “classics”, feeling neither out of place nor under appreciated by the now frantic masses. 

Tonight we are a man down, fairly recent recruit Brian Kingsland is nowhere to be seen. However, this scale-downed, four-piece version of the technical death metal juggernauts doesn’t in anyway impact on the intensity of the performance. Whilst Nile are very much driven and shaped by sole founder member Karl Sanders, in a live setting it is distinctly a communal affair. Karl, Dan Vadiom Von and Zach Jeter continually trade vocals like some unholy perverted version of The Beach Boys. The persistent use of dual grunting gives everything an added emotive power. Nile have always played in the sandbox of anthemic but tonight everything feels gargantuan and additionally epic.

Whilst they may well have produced their best piece of work in years, they also make great play of trotting out those aforementioned classics. ‘Kafir’, ‘Sarcophagus’ and ‘Lashed to the Slave Stick’ are all welcomed with reverential wonder. But the biggest outpouring of euphoria is saved for the imperious return of ‘Annihilation of the Wicked’, reinstated to the setlist after two decades absence. It feel titanic in its scope and it that scale that just makes the evening so special. This is Death Metal with ideas well above its station. It is big, weighty and utterly magnificent. 

Karl seems genuinely touched by the chants of Nile that crescendo around the room whenever there is a break between songs. He utters heartfelt thanks and the impression is of a man that takes none of this for granted. There is no encore, the title track of “Black Seeds of Vengeance” simply brings everything to an explosive finale and we get the first crowd surfers of the evening, as if the audience has suddenly awoken from a bewitched trance. As the last notes fade away, Karl makes a protracted journey around the lip of the stage, fist bumping with anyone who wants to. A superb display that cements once again their reputation as the utter overlords of large-scale technical Death Metal. 

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Nile + Hideous Divinity + Intrepid + Pestifer