The second gig I went to in the weekend was a whole different beast. No doom, but a mixture of death and black metal. Venom Inc. is 2/3 of the original Venom line-up. I was never really much of a fan of the band, I guess I’m just a bit too young. But I acknowledge the influence they had is starting the extreme metal genres. I had never seen them live either so this tour with Vital Remains was a good opportunity to change that. And this was the last show on the tour.

The Brazilian Nervochaos was the first band I saw. The actually first band that played was Desecrator, but it was too early in the evening to be there on time. I had seen Nervochaos before, a while back in Tilburg and then their death metal didn’t impress me much. There may have been a slight more aggression in the music this time, but still quite a forgettable band all together.

The second band was the Italian Mortuary Drape who already exist for some 30 years, but I knew them only by name. The looked like a black metal band – corpse paint and all, but there was a lot of death metal in the sound as well. It sounded quite okay, some good lead guitar and some cool riffs. Drum-wise a bit so-so. The singer wore a cape and hood that covered most of his face, that doesn’t work much for the presentation really.

The at least Vital Remains, the line-up had changed very frequently over the recent years but what has stayed are the great lead guitar work and the superfast drumming. The focused mostly on the last couple of albums with Scorned, Dechristianize, Hammer down the Nails and Icons of Evil, as well as a new song Where is your God Now. And they promised to record a new album soon as well. Musically it was all quite good. Tight drums and riffwork, great leads and the singer was pretty good as well – they don’t have to bring back Glen Benton as far as I’m concerned. Hopefully they come back for a headlining tour next year and pack some older songs too, like Forever Underground, or Battlegrounds.

Then the last band was Venom Inc. They dug deep in to their discography to uncover all the old 80s material. Especially the debut was prominent in the set, but Black Metal was not forgotten either – the only album I heard in full, most other song I know because of cover version. A few songs from other albums were thrown in too. They played quite tight and they seemed have a passion to play. But after a handful of songs, it all started to wear me out. They played to encores, Countess Bathory – which I think is probably their best song – and as the Demolition Man said a song they only played at this gig to close the tour, In League with Satan for which they invited all the bands on stage. All-in-all it’s good to have seen Venom live once – but I still am not a fan of them.