It has been 35 years since the US death metal band Atheist released their debut album Piece of Time. So they set up a European tour in celebration of that. There were 3 Dutch dates but either during my holidays or quite far away. However, I could make a stay over in Trier for a few days on my holiday trip and go to the gig there as well as explore the area – the Eiffel is awesome – and the city. Quite some Roman remnants there. There was a last minute change to the location, which was ever closer to my hotel. The reason however was I presume that pre-sales were pretty disappointing as the turnout was quite low – I doubt there were 50 persons there. When I arrived I was the second person in. The pictures from the Dutch gig I saw the day after was a fuller venue but still far from a sold-out gig. Strange as a year and a half ago they played with Cryptopsy in Fluor – an even bigger venue and it was quite full then. Anyway, they brought no less than 4 support acts.

The first band is Infested Angel from the UK. Weirdly, the guitarist broke a string only 5 bars into the set and they broke off the song. Anyway he returned after a bit for the next song. The guitars were heavily distorted and downtuned which made the sound quite muddy, and hence hard to make out actual riffs. They played a bit of Into the Void as the intro to one of their songs in tribute to Ozzy. And another song had a kind of jazzy intro. For the rest it sounded not all that interesting.

The next band was Death Rattle from the US. I already expected the worst when I saw the Pantera back patch on the guitarist’s jacket. They started by playing In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins from tape and when the drums fell in with the world’s most famous drum solo the drummer actually started to play along. I expected the rest of the band to follow and break into one of their own songs, but they didn’t. The song just stopped and then they started playing their own music. Mostly groove metal with some heavy metal and other influences – so yeah pantera-esque. Not all that bad, but not all that great either.

Gorgatron was next. They are also from the US and they have multiple albums out and exist for some 20 years or so. I had not heard of them though. They play mostly brutal death metal but with some party elements thrown in the mix. They brought only one guitarist who played a pink guitar. The other guitarist – apparently the sole remaining founding member stayed home. Musically its all been done before. They tried to engage the audience quite a bit which was a bit funny at times.

The last support act (or the co headliner) was Origin also from the US. Their technical prowess is another level for bass, guitar and drums. It is all super fast and crazy technical and in general quite overwhelming. The downside is that the songs aren’t very memorable and largely sound interchangeable as it becomes sonic mishmash. Later songs they played had some slower parts too.

Then at last Atheist. The sound was a lot louder all of a sudden, but generally pretty good. Maybe not as technical as Origin, but at least there is some good songwriting here and they were one of the first technical death metal bands out there. They played largely the same songs as a year and a half ago minus Mineral and with Brains, The Formative Years and A Room with a View. Hence nothing from their latest album Juniper The song playing was super tight. Quite a good gig.