Copenhagen based brutal death metal band Dreadlord was the second support band at Pumpehuset, where main-act Iniquity was performing one of their reunion shows.
First up had been a band called Disintegrated, another Danish old school death metal act, thus proving that Pumpehuset wasn’t afraid of putting together a night of pure death metal for the fans of the genre. Judging from the amount of people in mashed together in the lower room of the establishment, this was appreciated by the locals…

“Our name is Dreadlord and we play death metal.”
- Mathias Junge (vocals)

For any band, and especially for a band within this genre, Dreadlord made an uncharacteristically modest introduction of themselves before playing, where Junge nearly sounded as though he wanted to excuse the fact that his band was going to take our time. Odd, to say the least.
Still, after the short words he had to say, Dreadlord got straight to it and blasted out a very wicked wall of death in our direction, kicking their gig off with Death Guaranty, the opening track from their debut album Execution Of The Weak (the names alone implied something a bit more powerful than what the introduction had given us).
As the crowd took the music in with a polite interest and not much more, Junge decided already in the first song to get off the stage and into the audience up front to party with them whilst still singing. Only problem was, there was only one guy standing in the front row, and he left after the song was over...
Fairs fair though, he did show up later again with a newly poured beer in his hand, so he had apparently only left for some refreshments, but the initial act had still left a bit of a mark on the show.

If in no other way, it had at least apparently cemented the belief in the band that the Copenhagen crowd were completely and utterly indifferent towards Dreadlord, or at least that’s how it seemed in the way they acted throughout the night.
Junge did introduce most of the songs of the evening, most of them revolving around the theme of hurting/killing yourself or others, but the way he did it, with his voice the very opposite of confidence, and his head hung low as he constantly fixated on the ground immediately in front of him (as did his bandmates much of the time), just didn’t instil any confidence in us that there was a reason to take this band seriously.
I still want to mention that the music, without bringing anything new to the scene, was still loud, hard and uncompromising, and in the new song Graveyard, apparently inspired by the band Dying Fetus, Dreadlord really turned up the already rather high tempo and Junge showed us just how low his vocals could really descend. Which was pretty effing low, let me tell you!
When the band reached The Tomb, Junge again found his way onto the floor to mosh with people, and by this time and for the rest of the gig (yeah, one more song) Dreadlord had finally managed to get some action out of the Copenhagen crowd, visible in the still small and rather timid, but at least present mosh pit that had formed in front of the stage.

Actually, when I think about it, and look away from the fact that this really isn’t my area of expertise, I can’t see why Dreadlord’s music wouldn’t hit with this crowd. I am certain that the main reason for them having such a slow backing from the crowd this evening came from the fact that they were so incredibly apologetic in their demeanour on stage. They were throughout the show putting out the vibe that they were certain we didn’t want them there, and because of this, this was the feeling we ended up having in the end.
Next time, they would benefit from a more confident approach, or at least that’s my two cents.

Setlist:

Death Guaranty
Take Me To The Gallows
Graveyard
Execution Of The Weak
The Tomb
The Only Power