Unbeknownst to me before this, Swedish Degradead served us a hot bowl of typical no holds barred Swedish melodeath soup as they warmed up as the first band before Zonaria and main-act Satyricon this night at The Rock.
Actually, in one of the earlier songs in the set, where some pre-recorded synth sounds slipped through my thoughts were very much turned to fellow Swedes In Flames during their Reroute To Remain era. Now, this isn’t a bad thing; I consider Reroute To Remain to be their best album (I know a lot of people will disagree with that, but that is how I feel). However, later in the set I felt I had to take the In Flames comment back again, as Degradead proved much more aggressive and energetic in their music than said band has felt for a very long time now.

As Degradead went on stage just about at the same time as the doors opened for The Rock, their audience was far from impressive in size, but they did grow in numbers throughout the show; never reaching an impressive height though, this would have to wait for the other bands.
Neither was it an active audience that met the Swedes as they pounded away on stage, as everyone was still settling in and acquiring drinks from the bar. Thankfully, this didn’t diminish Degradead’s will to play though, and they gave a very energetic show, fitting the music perfectly; leaving both myself and others around me impressed with what they had to deliver, even though we had never heard of them before.
Because of this I can’t really help out with a setlist for their show, although I do remember them finishing the concert with Everlasting Hatred.

If I have to rag about something it would be that Degradead’s set felt to short; then again, it began before anyone had had a chance to enter the concert hall.
The other thing, which really wasn’t the bands fault either, would be that now when The Rock has gotten such a good musical output with their (relatively) new equipment it is absolutely about time to start investing in something new to heighten the experience of the place. May I suggest some lights, so that we can see what goes on on stage?
As I said, none of these problems were in the bands hands, and they did their best to give the audience a good kick off of the evening; and as an added bonus they walked around in the crowd later in the evening handing out copies of their latest (and second) album Out Of Body Experience to anyone who wanted one. Great way to introduce a new audience to ones music!