Bloodbath has been around for a good many years now in the death metal scene, as one of those super groups that are so popular. Personally, I’ve never paid them much attention, but when they put Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost in front, you just know we had to check them out!

“Good evening Copenhell. This is Bloodbath from Sweden. And England.”
- Nick Holmes (vocals)

Bloodbath was the last band of the day, and the festival, to grace the Hades stage with their presence, and they did so before a huge crowd. No doubt this was one of the more awaited bands signed to the festival this year. I did find it odd though, that they were placed overlapping Marduk’s concert at the Pandæmonium stage. Both are high profile Swedish extreme metal bands, and should appeal to the same group of people, so why not spread them out? Oh well…

Anyway, the band was up for the task of ending this section of the festival in style, and the style was old school death metal, if anybody didn’t know.
We saw a band clad in leather and spikes, and Holmes walked around in a worn cleric’s robe, looking mighty grim with his face bathed in blood. In fact, I was impressed with the level of commitment that Holmes put into the show. His voice was one thing – it’s been forever and a day since he did these kind of vocals for his main band, and yet he pulled it off quite well – but it was just as much his performance that did it for me. As with his voice change, his performances with Paradise Lost have been a bit down-tuned as of late, but here he walked around and reached out for the audience, and I liked it.
The rest of the band took an obvious backseat role, while still walking around quite a bit, and delivering a solid wall of headbanging and noise.

“I see it’s raining now. It’s Satan’s work! The cunt.”
- Holmes (vocals)

Bloodbath kept their style intact all the way through, and delivered a solid show to the still hungry and now also wet Copenhell audience, and they got a very positive response in return.
For one thing, this was probably the largest audience I had seen amassed at this stage through the entire festival. Another thing was that the crowd didn’t hold back in showing their appreciation of the band – there were loud shouts and fists in the air, and a lot of headbanging in response to the loud music pumping from the stage.

It was a good experience overall, and especially Holmes delivered more than I had hoped for, but still I didn’t completely click with the band, and I think the blame is to find in the music itself. It’s not bad death metal in any way, and the band delivered it just the way it was supposed to be delivered. No, it was just not my cup of tea, and that stopped me from fully surrendering to the performance.

Setlist (incomplete):

Mental Abortion
So You Die
Breeding Death
Cancer Of The Soul
Soul Evisceration
Unite In Pain
Eaten
Cry My Name