Hypocrisy had two bands supporting them on their End Of Disclosure release-party at Klubben, Fryshuset in Stockholm.
The second one, to take it backwards, was Overtorture, and the first one, the one we will be concentrating on here, was The Curse.

Before this gig, I had heard of neither of the support bands, and afterwards The Curse was definitely the one bringing me the most trouble in finding some info about. Anyway, this is as far as I have come – in Sweden, there apparently are and have been several bands called The Curse through the ages. The one we are dealing with here is young, as a band anyway, as it was formed in 2010. The Curse is called an all-star band, and at least some of the members come from the split up act Kaamos, such as bassist/vocalist Karl Envall and guitarist Konstantin Papavassiliou. Other than that, they play death metal with a strongly resounding 90ies Stockholm sound.

The stage at Klubben was pretty pressed for space for the support bands, as Hypocrisy’s secretly covered up gear took up a lot of space, and thus shoving the supporting drummers’ kits to the front of the stage, and the other musicians out to either side.
This didn’t stop The Curse from being active on the stage though; as soon as they began playing, they were also actively trying to crush their own necks with a whirlwind of headbanging lead by Envall but closely followed by the rest of the band. Of course they couldn’t exactly walk around anywhere because the stage was as filled as it was, but they used what they had been dealt in a good way, and their performance felt energetic and inspired. In this way at least, the evening was off to a good start!

Since it was the first band playing, I can’t say much for the turn-out though. The hall, which in itself wasn’t very big to begin with, was sadly under-manned and the people who had shown up didn’t seem too keen on the idea of hearing someone else than the main act. All in all, we got some nodding around the room and some polite applause between the songs, but nothing more was to be wrought out of the crowd at this time, and it was a shame as I would say the band made themselves deserving of a little bit more love than this.
One reason could of course be the fact that Envall never really addressed the crowd while speaking; The Curse played their music well enough, but between the songs all we got was repeated wishes for the sound-technician to turn the volume up in the stage monitors and growled and near incomprehensible song title announcements. I know they had a short time only to deliver the goods, but for such a new name it would probably have been a good idea to introduce themselves a bit more so that interested parties would have an easier time in searching them out afterwards.

Anyway, in the end a gig is nothing if not a musical showcase, and in this category I must say that The Curse was delivering the goods.
They didn’t exactly bring anything new to the table, but what they delivered was an excellent exhibition in a love for the classic Stockholm death metal sound. The music went from blast happy speed to crushingly heavy and back again, and throughout it was those Sunlight Studio sounding buzzsaw guitars which were driving the action, well backed by the hammering bass and drums.
I admit that I didn’t enter The Curse’s realm a hundred percent, but with the risk of being hunted down and stripped of my flesh and skin by the gods of death for writing this, I thought they delivered a charming and positive homage to the death of old. And you should know that this was the bands first ever live performance, so things can only go up from here!

Setlist:

Azazel
Morbid Mass
INRI Stigmata
Of Darkness Born
Ancient Curses
Come Forth