Morgoth are a German, underrated death metal band from the nineties. Musically, they are much akin to the early Death and Pestilence sound, yet still with a ringing of their own. After great two EPs and a full-length they started to experiment a little on Odium, and concluded their career with the the terrible Feel Sorry for the Fanatic. That is until they got rebooted in 2010 or there abouts, with three original members until they parted with singer Marc Crewe. Now there is a new album titled Ungod featuring the new singer and that needed a tour to support it. I saw them a year and a half ago when they supported Bolt Thrower and now I was keen to see what they would do on a headlining gig. No less then 4 support acts were added to the bill, which meant that the show would start early on a Monday. Well 18.20 or so is quite early considering rush hour, work and all that. So I skipped the first band Omophagia from Switzerland.

The second band was the Methedras. They are Italian and already have released four albums. I had heard none of them. Surprisingly this was quite a solid thrashy death metal band, with a very strong bass sound. In fact the bass put a more definitive stamp on it that the guitar. That became quite noticeable when the bass player broke his E string on the first song – which seems to be a rare occurrence, I can’t remember a bassist breaking a string. Anyway he got it fixed quickly. They worked their way through a short set – another downside of long bills. I just might have to check out how they sound on album.

Darkrise is a Swiss death metal band, more in the brutal, technical style who I didn’t know either. The singer wasn’t very good at English which reminded me a bit of the crazy announcements by the Japanese Abigail. That sounded a bit clumsy. None the less the music wasn’t. The guitars sounded quite clear for this style, so you could pick out the riffs easily. Although quite a decent band, the songs start to sound a bit similar where only the melodic bits seem to set them apart. Contrary to the previous band the bass was nearly inaudible, which was a shame considering the rapid finger picking.

Then there was Incantation. I like their first two albums, and the EP and album that followed weren’t too bad; after that I never really followed them much, but ran into them every once in a while. They never made a really good live impression on me. They were at least now with two guitars and that spices up the sound. They set the pace high from start to finish and worked to their through their entire back catalogue. John was in a good mood and they played real aggressive. So that was a pleasant surprise. They even played Unholy Massacre, which – as John announced – was the first song they ever wrote and is still one of the best songs. And Emaciated Holy Figure of the second. They ended their set with Impending Diabolical Conquest. So an excellent gig even though I only knew less than half the songs or so.

The intro from Ungod sounded over the PA after a quick changeover and Morgoth took the stage. There was a strong focus on the new album with no less than 7 songs. All in all the new album is quite decent but has a bit more “rock” sound than before, and it doesn’t live up to Cursed. That album provided the majority of the remainder of the set with 4 songs. Unfortunately they left off Exit to Temptation. And the rest of the set consisted of Resistance and Under the Surface from Odium and only a single song from the two EPs. No White Gallery, no Female Infanticide, just Burnt Identity. Musically, the band was very solid; and I particularly like the hard hitting drummer. I however was much less impressed by the new singer – originally from Disbelief. Marc Crewe’s distinctive, howling grunts are a major part of the sound. On the album the new guy sounded okay, but a bit generic. Live he was crap, his vocals sounded hoarse and he did some parts clean. So all-in-all on decent gig, but it is a shame Marc left.