This is the third gig for me in a weeks time. These are busy times, indeed. The fourth – Blitzkrieg on Sunday – unfortunately got cancelled. There were three bands scheduled to play, who I hadn’t seen before. All are Norwegian. I was mainly interested in Obliteration.

The first band was Vorbid whom I didn’t know. They are quite young still, formed in 2013 and play thrash metal at the core. Yet a major part of their music is in the lead guitar which plays more power metal leads, with lots of melodies and fast runs across the fretboard. Quite original and the execution was quite good. Technically a very proficient band. Although the music was largely instrumental, there were sparse sections of vocals, which were quite high pitched and screechy. Definitively a style I don’t like much. Yet an interesting band, but not something I could listen to a lot.

The second band was Obliteration. They have a really fresh approach to death metal, without drowning in experimentation or adding all kinds of odd influences. They sometimes hint to Autopsy and Asphyx with the heavy slow riffing. There are some thrash elements here and there, some dissonant riffs; generally fast paced without excessive blast beats. The live performance of it is really good and tight although the singer keeps complaining about the monitors. The 8 songs played are a cross section of their 4 albums. There are few words said in between the songs and the singer seems angry. I don’t know if that was real or part of the act. He seemed quite relaxed later on at the merch boot. Great gig though.

The headliner of the evening was Aura Noir. I had heard of them and probably heard a couple of their songs, but never paid much attention to them. For 25 years they have been around and released a bunch of albums. It is mostly thrash metal with some black influences,  Motorhead, early Sodom and Venom are obvious influences as well. Not really my interest, but enjoyable for a gig. The guitarist had to improvise a bit as he broke a string mid-song and Aggressor was sitting most of the gig due to a disability which looked a bit odd. Apollyon didn’t join them for this tour, apparently to relax at home according to the singer.