Pestilence is one of the big Dutch death metal bands from the early days. Consuming Impulse and Testimony of the Ancients are classics and helped shape the genre. One album later they split up, only to resurface a decade and a half later. Newer albums never were all that successful and line-ups have changed a lot. Patrick Mameli is the sole original member left. Fortunately they play live quite often. So on this Sunday autumn evening I was able to catch them in Haarlem.

There was one opening band called Misanthrophia. They are also Dutch but play melodic black metal. They are around for some 20 years and have 5 albums under their belt, but I had never heard of them. After a dull intro, the band kicked off with a fast paced that keeps the middle ground between black metal and melodeath. Lots of blast beats. Some flashy guitar solos. The songs tend to sound a bit the same in the end. Only the third song stood out as it contained lots of recorded keyboards. Decent warm-up band. Not band, not great either.

Then it was time for Pestilence. They took some longer time to setup, but that didn’t really result in a great sound. The drums were very loud and Patrick’s guitar was difficult to pick out. They started off with Lost Souls and throughout the set quite some classics followed. They mixed them with newer songs though, like Deificus from their latest album and three songs from Resurrection Macabre. Live these songs actually sound better than on the album, which probably has to do with the really dry production. Patrick screwed up his solo in Twisted Truth, but other than that it was quite a tight set. Out of the Body wasn’t the set closer this time, as it was Land of Tears this time. Hopefully we get to see Pestilence some more as Patrick is moving to Thailand. Quite a good gig