I got into Impious a couple years ago as I found a copy of their album “Terror Succeeds” for no more than 50 cents at some crappy store. Considering I know their style was thrashy Swedish death metal, I was willing to take the risk. It turned out to be actually quite a decent album. So a year or 2 later they appear in the Baroeg on this leap day during a 3-day minitour with State:Chaos. So that is a pretty good reason to spend an evening in the Baroeg.The Dutch band Fuel blooded – formerly Sacramental Sachem – were ready to start when I entered the venue. The first half of the gig was actually quite boring as the thrash metal sounded thin and simplistic with similar structure throughout. This got better to during the second half where they played far more powerful and varied songs; the sound as a whole appeared heavier and darker as well.

The second support band was the DutchState:Chaos. I was not familiar with this band, and they were advertised as death thrash. Even though I heard little thrash in it, the aggressive yet melodic death metal was presented with a lot of dedication, and particularly an active stage presence of singer Remco. An impressive band, especially considering they have only one 4-track demo out.

Then the Swedish Impious took the stage to promote their latest opus “Holy Murder Masquerade”. Interestingly the lyrics in the booklet come in the form of a comic book; quite interesting. Natheless, the band played there set of old school Swedish death metal tightly and focused on their last three albums. Stylisticly this band reminds me mostly of the classic Swedish bands like Dismember and Grave, with a little more speed and less maidenesque lead guitar work. Peculiarly enough most of the audience left half way through the gig leaving maybe some 20 or so die-hard fans. It didn’t seem to bother Impious tho as after their regular set they even returned to play two encores. A pretty good gig for a pretty good band even tho there is very little originality in their music.