A first in several ways, Darkane was the first band for us at our first Brutal Assault. It is also the first time for me to review Darkane, and possibly the first time I saw them (can’t remember seeing them before, but could be mistaken).

For those who don’t know, Darkane hail from the southernmost part of Sweden, and they play a sort of deathcore / thrash-death hybrid with loads of energy.
This energy was effectively brought to the stage, and even though they were playing as early as a bit past four in the afternoon, and only had 30 minutes of stage time, they still managed to get a fair amount of action out of the assembled crowd, considering the circumstances.
It was a midsize crowd, but still they had a good mosh going, and Jens Broman (vocals) also got people to raise their arms and loudly scream “Hey” along to the music. Actually, not just him, but all the bandmembers were a pretty lively bunch, and they were good at using the entire stage for their performance; Christofer Malmström (guitar) was even seen taking a walk out on the cameraman’s catwalk to get a little closer to the crowd.

These things aside, I still couldn’t help but feel a little bored with the Swedes’ performance. The music didn’t connect with me, and the most pressing feeling I got from watching the concert was that I was in a serious lack of beer...