Bolt Thrower shortly ago announced they had to postpone the recording of their new album as they were suffering from some kind of writer’s block. They also announced that besides the gig at the Party San festival in Germany, they would do two more gigs this year. One in Antwerp, the day after Party San and this gig in Atak. This would be the last gig ever at the old Atak venue. And as Bolt Thrower played their on every tour since 1990 (which is no less than 11 times) they thought it would be nice to play there one more time as a kind of special show. That is, there is no entrance fee, and it was on invitation basis only. You had to write them a story that explains why you would have to be there. Anyway, all the 275 tickets were given away weeks before the show. I was fortunate to have obtained one.There were two support acts. First off was the German band Cone of Silence, a rather young band who only had a demo out as far as I can tell. This band plays a mid-paced death metal with some modern touches. But they lack any serious punch, in both music and stage performance. In they end, this turned out to be a rather dull combo, playing something that has been done before a thousand times.

The other support slot was reserved for another German band. Fallen Saints was far more experienced, having two albums out already and a much better stage act all together. Musically, this was melodic death metal, also mostly in the mid-paced regions. Never renewing, but enjoyable for the duration of the gig to say the least. Henri Sattler of God Dethroned joined them on stage for one song.

Then finally it was time for Bolt Thrower. After the mandatory intro, they kicked off with “Contact – Wait Out” . They had already announced their set list was a bit different from what they played the last couple of gigs. The first couple of songs were also on the set for the last tour. Not that that matters much though. It was obvious that they enjoyed themselves and that carried over to the audience too, with lots of headbanging, moshing and stagediving. World Eater was played but again without the mid-section. I had hopes that they’d play it completely this time as it still is one of my favourite songs, but they switched over to Cenotaph. The first real surprise on the set list The Shreds of Sanity, which was neat. It must have been a long time since they played more off War Master than … For Victory. Oh and it left Karl to point out that the lyrics contains the text “the final Atak” too. But the biggest surprise was a song they hadn’t played for some fifteen years. The first song they wrote in 1986: “In Battle There Is No Law”. Very nice. It is a little bit different from the rest of songs but it was really cool to hear this classic live. This should be a regular in their set. Awesome. They concluded their set with When Cannons Fade. As in Atak there is no way to get off the stage, except through the audience they stayed on the stage in the dark for a while and a new intro was played over the PA. Three more encores followed: … For Victory, Killchain and Powder Burns. A really good show from a great band that showed you don’t need to play 60 minutes of blast beats to play brutal music. Now let’s hope they get some inspiration from these gigs and start writing that new album again.

Set list:

• Contact – Wait Out
• World Eater
• Cenotaph
• Mercenary
• Entrenched
• The Shreds of Sanity
• The IVth Crusade
• No Guts, No Glory
• At First Light
• In Battle There Is No Law
• When Cannons Fade
• encores:
• … For Victory
• The Killchain
• Powder Burns