Concert Report Oslo

July 16th, 2007 by *--*

Death metal, death metal .. yes!

Yesterday evening Oslo Norway had some fucked up visitors. The american band Nunslaughter (pic left) played at the local studentclub Betong in the cellar of the Chateau Neuf building. The gig was organised by metal promotor South of Heaven. The organisation had put up three support acts! Value for money or…??

First band playing was Unspoken, a local band from the Oslo area. Unspoken seemed like a young and promising band. Although they are clearly not in the league of the rest of the bands of this evening (yet?). Vocalist Kent Are Sommerseth made a very good impression with a strong aggressive voice that was at times even understandable (!). Also the bassplayer made a very good impression with his fingerpicking fretless bassplaying. The lead guitarist clearly did not have his night though. Unspokens tunes were quite decent mid-paced death metal. Maybe in a few years time we’ll hear something from these enthousiastic guys. Enjoyable!

Second this night was Nominon from Sweden. These guys looked like veterans… and that’s how they played. The drummer is probably one of the strong points of this band. Their fast and ferocious style of death metal sounded impressive and tight. Sometimes they reminded me a bit of their fellow countrymen Unleashed. The stage presentation was a blast. Particulary guitarplayer Christian Strömblad is worth mentioning with his tall posture and hilarious drunk stage anticts. Aanrader!

How different was Demonical. This band also hails from Sweden and since they had some more time to get the alcohol flowing they, as I might be so free, absolutely sucked. They were pretty drunk and the singer was an irritating little dwarf that kept on bugging the soundman in between the songs for more sound on the stage monitors. The music sounded very average and the guitar player had the type of guitar sound that just completely takes over the whole sound spectrum. Very unprofessional stage appearance and behaviour. The Oslo audience was seemingly not happy with them either, there was an undercurrent of hostility in the air… I suspect they fucked up before when they were visiting Oslo in April. A part of the audience was shouting that they should ‘take their shit back to fucking Sweden’. Sucked monkeyballs with their unprofessional behaviour.

Headliner Nunslaughter knew how to please the audience… Their simplified minimalistic form of death metal went straight to the core. (You could even argue that Nunslaughter is the Spinal Tap of Death Metal…) Their lyrics and music are reeking of an extremely thick extract of the essence of what death metal was and still should be. No solos, no long intros just old style death metal that goes for the jugular. Drummer Jim Sadist is hilarious with his in between song banter and stupid jokes. Songs of Nunslaughter seldom last longer than two minutes. Lyrics are reduced statements that listen to names like “I hate Christians” or “The Power Of Darkness”, very deep and intellectual (he he he he). But: Great set, high enjoyment factor and the crowd kept on shouting for more. Nunslaughter is first and foremost a load of FUN!

Nominon’s latest album “Terra Necrosis” is a damn fine death metal album. Take a listen to it. Fans of that good ol’ Swedish Death Metal should LISTEN!
Nunslaughter’s latest album “Hex” is a festival of the straightforwardness in death metal music. If you don’t like clichés then stay away.. If you can enjoy the feeling of 80’s thrash/death and are not bothered with anything else then I say: go for it!