It was, almost to the date, the 25th anniversary of the debut album Slowly We Rot, and Obituary had come to Copenhell to show just how slowly it goes.

On the warm and sunny afternoon, the Florida death quintet had decided to ease our way into things by way of the groovy Stinkupuss, but after the taste of decay had set in, the band went all in with the speedy Intoxicated. Not surprisingly, a lot of the set was held in the Slowly We Rot area, as well as a few detours to other early releases, but Obituary had a couple of tricks up their sleeve as well – two songs from the upcoming fall release were played, and while neither album nor songs were mentioned by name at this point, I can tell you that the first one played was a scorching speed monster with a slight thrash feeling to it while the other was a slow-moving heavy-grooving thing that pounded us to pudding, and that both has good potential to be liked by the old-school fans as they fit very well in the set next to all the old material.

“I was supposed to introduce the next song, but I think it’s more fun if I just shout something and you shout back at me!”
- Trevor Peres (guitar)

While the music was moving along just as smoothly as expected, and with a surprisingly good sound to boot, the performance left something to wish for. It wasn’t necessarily bad, Trevor Peres and Donald Tardy both performed admirably as I have come to expect, and especially John Tardy also seemed to enjoy the experience (he even took a lap in the security pit at the end of the show to knuckle the closest fans), but the overall performance wasn’t as captivating as it could have been.
Still, it was good enough to get the crowd going, and while not actively engaging our lungs in screaming contests with Peres, our legs and necks were respectively activated in a wild mosh and an ocean of banging heads.
All in all, it was a good show, but it’s not necessarily one of those that will be remembered for very long.

[EDIT: The two new songs were called Violence and Inked In Blood]

Setlist (incomplete):

Stinkupuss
Intoxicated
Violence
Turned Inside Out
The End Complete
Inked In Blood
Slowly We Rot