In the late 1980s, Sweden was the origin of many bands who created a blend of death metal with heavy, crunchy riffs and melodic guitar work with some punk influences and a guitar sound that was inspired by the English grind band Unseen Terror. Typically these bands didn’t play mid-paced with simple but varied drum work. Three of most influential bands in this scene were Carnage, Nihilist and Grave. Carnage fell quickly apart and continued more or less under the name of Dismember; Nihilist was renamed to Entombed, while Johnny Hedlund left and started his own band Unleashed. And Grave still exists. In 2006, these four bands still exist and got the idea of doing a tour together through Europe with alternating headliners. The first day of the tour took place in Leeuwarden, in the former theater Romein.

Nevertheless, the Belgian band Exterminator were the opening act for this Friday evening. They were already started in 1991 and since then released some demos and two albums. However, the band was completly unknown to me; they’d never gotten much attention and as today are not signed. They played a blend of death and thrash metal, which is rather generic and this is probably the reason that they’re quite unknown, but solid and reasonably well-written. Natheless they played a tight set and it was obvious that the band was experienced.

Then it was a surprise of which of the four co-headlining bands would open. Fate has shown that it had to be the mighty Grave. They opened with the classic track “Deformed” of their debut album – it couldn’t have started better. And their set consisted of a mixture of songs from most albums, skipping Hating Life and Fiendish Regression. Their new drummer (Pelle Ekegren quit shortly before the tour) did alright, but no blast beats were played – I do not know whether they chose or needed to skip them. The sound was a bit too bassy but generally reasonably good. Anyway, Grave was mighty as they always are – tight as hell and heavy as can be. The only small thing is that Ola (g/v) could be act a bit more interested. After about 45 minutes they ended their set with their first-written song “Into the Grave”.

Setlist:

1. Intro
2. Deformed
3. Intro
4. Burn
5. You’ll never See
6. Turning Black
7. Christinsanity
8. Unholy Terror
9. Rise
10. Soulless
11. Intro the Grave
12. Outro

The second band of the evening was Unleashed – a band I never was much interested in; a previous concert of them that I attended simply confirmed my idea that they’re quite boring. Tonight this was changed, the band was seemingly enjoying themselves on stage and played with vigor and aggression. The band focused on their new album Midwinterblut. However, they didn’t forget their older tracks including “Into Glory Ride” and “Before the Creation of Time” off their debut. The volume was turned up for them and became even more bass-dominated, which it would remain for the most of the evening. All-in-all not a bad gig.

Entombed was third. Once they were the Swedish death metal band, stirring an entire generation with their classic album Left Hand Path. Their third album was quite a change of style towards more rock and punkish metal (often named death ’n Roll) and many early day fans turned away. In the 2000s they returned somewhat to their death metal roots. They kicked off with the title song of their most recent EP, named “When in Sodom” which is a good example of their current style; mostly death ’n roll with some death metal points there. But as usual with this band they played songs of their classic two albums as well, including “Crawl”, “Sinners Bleed”, “Stranger Aeons”, “Supposed to Rot”, “Revel In Flesh” and of course “Left Hand Path”. Not a bad performance, however, the band just aren’t the gods of early days and the departure of their second guitarist (Uffe) doesn’t improve things.

The last band of the evening was necessarily Dismember. Like most of the other bands Dismember played lost of older songs, but kicked off with “The God that Never Was” – the title track off their latest album. The band is fanatic and energetic on stage and plays a tight set, including “Skin Father” “Skin her Alive”, “Dreaming in Red”, “Casket Garden”, “Tragedy Of The Faithful”, “Autopsy” and even “I wish you Hell” – a rather obscure track off the Pieces EP. After a short break (where the lights in the hall ahd already gone on) the band returned to play “Override of the Overture”. Of the four bands, Dismember has remained closest to the style they played early on – inspired (according to their own saying) by the classic bands Iron Maiden and Autopsy.

What sounds on paper like a good idea, turns out to be splendid in real life. Four of the classic bands within a genre getting together on tour. More of such classic tours should happen in the future, such a the great English death metal bands (Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death, Carcass (if they re-unite) Benediction) or the great American thrash bands (Testament, Exodus, Death Angel, Slayer) doing such a tour.