Atrophy is one of the many lesser known thrash bands from the late 80s. They released two albums back then and vanished. The band has been revived and buried again a few times over the years. But seems to be back now with a new line-up of which only the singer is left from the original line-up. And there is also a new album released this year. They were invited to a festival in Germany and decided to add a few club gigs as well. I never got to see them live before, so a good opportunity to catch up in a venue that I can bike to even, despite the rain and all.

There was one support added as the band didn’t bring any. That was the Dutch thrash metal band Project Pain. Even though they have release 4 albums already I had never heard op them. And frankly I think I know why. It is quite a mediocre band with mostly uninteresting riffs done a million times before, equally boring drumming and a terrible singer. Never the less the guitar solos were actually the only interesting bits yet scarce. Somehow local support band in this venue are always mediocre.

Then it was time for Atrophy from the USA; now that’s an entirely different story. Of course they played a lot of old songs. Starting with Chemical Dependency. Only the lead guitarist broke his high E string halfway through the song. And with no spare it took a while to replace the string. After he managed to change his string, the thrashing continued. Preacher, Preacher, Socialized Hate, Puppies and Friend, In Their Eyes, Violent By Nature. All sounded great; and the new songs sounded much in the same style. Although they had to shorten their set a bit, it was a really good gig, which they ended with Killing Machine as the choice of the audience and the peculiar Beer Bong closed the set. And they promised to come back next year for a European tour.