Primordial is doing a small number of club gigs this year and one of them were in Rotterdam. They didn’t bring any supports, so there were a few Dutch bands opening.

First there was Skaldgrim who were said to play melodic death metal. This must be one of the most boring death metal bands ever – utterly simplistic, one pace with no aggression and a terrible singer.

Then there was Weltschmerz who play fast black metal. even tho this style of black metal isn’t my thing, it was well played and sounded pretty cool. That grabbed at least a number of audience members as they played an encore.

Third there was Visionary 666. They were also announced as melodic death metal, but they reminded me more about monolithic deathcult. Very fast, and technical, but I guess the actual concept of songs is beyond them as there seem to be little structure or variation.

And so after the supports it was finally time for Primordial. First time I saw them live was around 1999 I think and then they cleared out most of the venue. Nowadays that is a lot different as the venue was quite full. After the mandatory intro tape the band started with the first song of the latest album. But quickly fell back to older songs like Autumn’s Abslaze, Gallows Hymn. Oddly enough their guitarst change tuning in between some songs (E to D and vice versa) which seems like a nuisance, and one of the guitarists broke a string apparently and jumped off stage to replace it (it seems to happen a lot with gigs I go to lately). The drummer started a song not on the set list ad lib and the other band members joined in (I think Dark Song) which is awesome. And when that was finished they continued with the set, consisting mostly of material off their last 3 albums, which are also their best. Primordial have a very unique style and are really awesome both live and on album and this was probably the best gig of them I have seen.