Good old Engel was replacing Ghost Brigade in the position of first band of the evening for this Samael / Paradise Lost concert at KB in Malmö; however it was a somewhat crippled edition of the band which invited to party. For one reason or the other guitarist/founding member Niclas Engelin was absent from the gig, and his presence was sorely missed.

The band was in bad luck right from the start actually, since they took the stage a full half hour before the announced time, resulting in a very low attendance, and since they only played for half an hour, not many made it in time even for the ending…
This did not discourage Engel from having a blast anyway, and vocalist Magnus ‘Mangan’ Klavborn did his best to connect with the audience, and get some action out of the part of the crowd who had managed to show up in time for the music. Not to very much success though, I’m afraid; he asked for a moshpit to start for Sense The Fire (first single of their upcoming album), but what he got was a couple of nods from some and a small amount of lazy headbanging…
Klavborn also excused the small amount of talk between songs with “…it’s not my thing”, after which one humorous (read= intoxicated) member of the audience suggested that he should read a poem instead; Klavborn was quick with the response that he would if said person would write one!

If you have read my earlier reviews of Engel, it should come as no surprise I also liked them this night; however, this was still not as great as I had imagined it would be. The lack of audience in general and a guitarist in particular made the energy run low, and it never really got past “pleasant past-time” while I was waiting for the other two acts of the night...
(note: the baseball-bat shaped mic-stand was a fun inclusion in my opinion)