It was again time for the annual X-mass fest tour; this time co-headlined by Hypocrisy and Exodus. 013 was reasonably full this year, but I strongly doubt it was sold out. The first band to play in the small hall was Before Silence, which I guess would be called progressive or so. Not really my thing. Wintersun was to open the main hall. A melodic death metal band, not bad but a bit too melodic for my liking.Old school band Pleurisy along with Leng T’che was the replacement of Aborted. Pleurisy was reasonably good; nothing fancy tho. Leng T’che is grindcore. I only like very few grindcore bands (like Napalm Death, Terrorizer) and Leng T’che isn’t one of them

In the meantime, in the main hall Onslaught about to start, so I skipped the remainder Pleurisy to watch this old school thrash metal band that hadn’t played for some 15 years. Not that I was familiar with them tho. Anyway, during their short 30 minute set they played a mixture of old tracks and new tracks from the yet to be released album. I was positively surprised by this band and definitively worth checking out.

Naglfar was the next band in the main hall. Nothing really interesting here, just well-played but dull melodic black death or something. In-quest apparently needed a whole half hour to set up their stage in the small hall, and weren’t even finished when it was time to play, so they had to skip the soundcheck. This blend of hardcore and death metal bores the hell out of me, so I went back to Naglfar.

Entombed was next in the main hall. With a pretty bad sound (too much bass) , the band played mostly old songs including Revel In Flesh, Left Hand Path, Supposed to Rot off the debut, and Wolverine Blues, Eye master, Out of Hand, and a couple of other of Wolverine Blues. The big surprise I guess was Serpent Speech of the Hollow Man EP. Further the set was completed with a few songs off “To Ride, … ” including the title track and a coupple of songs I didn’t know – so I presume they’re from later albums.

Back in the small hall, Fear My Thoughts played already, tho I found this a rather dull band again. So I went back to the main hall where Exodus meant to play. Have now only one original member left, in the person of Gary Holt, and a new album that wasn’t really great (but not real bad either) I didn’t know really what to expect. They kicked off with “Bonded by Blood”, but now the sound had gotten even worse, the triggered bassdrums were way too loud, so it was pretty hard to hear the rest of the music. A couple of newer songs followed, including Raze, Deathamphetamine, Black list – not bad, but these songs are just a bit too long and spun out. Then followed Another lesson in Violence, after which I left to the small hall.

In the small hall, namely it was time for Primordial to play. Strangely enough they had only gotten 30 minutes to play their set, so that meant only four songs. The singer painted himself in his favourite war-paint and got really enthusiastic. Opening with a song off the new album – The Golden Spiral – displayed the immense power and originality of this band. It was followed by a track of their previous album – Son of the Morrigan if I’m not mistaken. Then it was time for “The Coffin Ships”, imo the best track on the new album and probably the best track by Primordial all together. Finally a song of an older LP, which name escapes me. All in all, this was a pretty good show, with the only negative point being the short time that they got. They promised to be on tour in early 2006 with a proper set.

The final band was Hypocrisy, in the main hall. After a few songs I remembered quite clearly why I didn’t like this band much any more after their “Osculum Obscenum” album. They’re rather boring and not a very good live band either. Nevertheless they managed to play “Inferior Devoties” and “Impotent God” of the second and first album, respectively, which established once again the potential this band had at that time, but failed to fill in after Masse Broberg left.