Yep I saw Vallenfyre two days ago, but after the tour with Bolt Thrower, where they only played about half the dates, they continue on a headlining tour of their own. And since it is not too far away, worth to check them out again.

The opening band was the Dutch Massive Assault who play old school death metal. Yep heard all before. HM-2 Swedeath sound. Some grooves, d-beats, some faster parts too. Pretty basic stuff. Nice for a opening band at a gig. Generally well-played, but in the end all a bit too generic. But they seem to fun themself, I guess that is important too.

Vallenfyre started off their gig like two days ago with Scabs off their newest album. Apart from the beeping feedback in the song, a very strong opener. It seems tho that they stuck more to the faster songs on the Bolt Thrower gigs, as they played all those again, but the ones that they added were mostly the slower songs like Bereft, Grim Irony and Splinters. So that give a much more varied set and I think that their strenght lies in the variation – some proto-grind like Scum, some Celtic Frost like songs, some more doom / death like really early Paradise Lost. The playing was great (including the lead guitar, last time I saw Hamish with My Dying Bride, he was sloppy as hell), the sound was good, but the vocals sounded a lot better last Sunday. They played no encores since they “aren’t Van Halen”. Right. Anyway, it was great gig and still worth it, despite seeing them twice two days apart. Hopefully they continue as an active band in stead of just a side project. Because, frankly Vallenfyre is far more interesting than Paradise Lost has been since 1992 or thereabouts.