Vital Remains went on a European tour to support their new album Icons of Evil, and the first dates of the tour were even before the actual release. They were supported by three largely unknown band. At least I didn’t know any of them.

The first support act was the Italian band Kenos who play death metal but take a progressive, technical swing at it. The good side of them is that they were really into their music and really up front the entire time and overall their music was quite interesting. On the downside, it wasn’t all that tight with some sections that simpley don’t work – or perhaps don’t convey well live.

The second band – Dread was a lot less interesting; an Italian combo that plays a mixture of straightforward brutal death metal – sometimes reminding me of Deranged – and metalcore. Now I’m not really into either style – so this really isn’t something I enjoy. And saying “hello Amsterdam” in Rotterdam, can be a fatal mistake….

Godphobia is a relatively new Swedish death metal band, who seem to be made into the next “big thing” or whatever. Nevertheless they brought little to nothing new to the Swedish scene – very typical Swedish death metal. Not that it was bad or anything; it just is the so-many-eth death metal band from Sweden.

Then there was Vital Remains who were here a year and a half ago to promote their previous album Dechristianize. This time they were here with a completely different band around the two main men: Tony Lazaro and Dave Suzuki – and of course not with Glen Benton. Although the line-up was more than capable, it wasn’t as strong as that of the previous tour – particularly the omnipresent blast beats were weaker and the vocal delivery wasn’t as aggressive. Where Dave handles the drums as wells as the guitar, he chooses to play the guitar live. And it must be said that he is a very capable guitarist, who seems to play these very fast guitar solos very easily. The first half of the set was used to promote the new album, starting with a taped version of the album intro and then playing four songs off it. Then the intro of “Dechristianize” was played off tape followed by four songs off that album, ending with the encore of Savior to none, Failure for all. And that was it. No songs of “Dawn of the Apocalypse” and not even the might “Battlefield” off “Forever Underground”. So it was good, but a little unbalanced. And I hate it when bands ignore their old material.