Danish modern thrash band The Kandidate (earlier know as The Downward Candidate), fronted by Jacob Bredahl (ex-Hatesphere, Last Mile) was the band chosen for supporting Entombed on their mini-Denmark tour, possibly because of their acquaintance from when they were both supporting Volbeat just last year.

The Kandidate is actually a name popping up more and more when you watch the Danish metal scene these days, so it didn’t come as a huge surprise that The Rock housed quite a lot of people already from the beginning of the show this night, despite the general rule of fans only showing up for the main act.
What did surprise me though, was to see how everyone kept a respectful distance to the stage even though the floor was crowded, and how little response there was for the bands performance.
In all honesty, the band and especially Bredahl was doing theirs to tear up the stage with a hard-pumping, aggressive performance. Heck, even though both Allen Tvedebrink (guitar) and Kasper Boye Larsen (bass) mainly held their positions on the flanks, leaving more space for Bredahl to move around on, they were still very much part of delivering the energy of the show; The Kandidate was grooving the shirts off of their own backs!
Bredahl even tried with some improvised humour at one point, trying to hand the mic over to Tvedebrink for a short while, but it kind of fell flat as the guitarist only gave him a surprised look instead of the expected metal shout-out…
After the last song rang out, the band was quick to pack up and leave, even though Tvedebrink gave it one last attempt at crowd connecting, as he tried his luck with throwing his pick out into the audience. Eventually, someone picked it up…

The Kandidate was rewarded with a few half-hearted shouts between songs and when they were done, but on the whole this was far from the response I would have expected for the band. Even though the band could clearly perform, it would seem that this was simply not hitting home with the assembled crowd.
For me it was the same; I found myself thinking about why I wasn’t torn into the show when they were obviously trying their best on stage, and I believe I found the answer in the music. The songs were simply too much alike, blending into one another, and they were all missing that one special ingredient; the RIFF!
A good defining, recognizable riff is what can make a song really take off and make it immortal; headliner Entombed have some great examples in Hollowman, Damn Deal Done and several others. The Kandidate had sadly none, and will hence not be remembered after the show’s done…

Setlist:

Doom
Jehova
Give Up All Hope
Yours Truly
In Hell
Shut ‘Em Up
7eren
Maggots
Distress And Decay
Live A Lie
Total War