In windswept January, an evil trio of metal-acts visited Copenhagen.
They were led by Kataklysm, closely followed by Belphegor, and as vanguard Suicidal Angels, a Greek thrash metal act, was sent in to warm up the gathered troops.

Suicidal Angels may be considered a fairly young band on paper (formed in 2001), but their music shows much love for old-school 80ies thrash bands such as Slayer, Destruction and Kreator.
This was what they brought to The Rock, as well as the courage and willpower to go out before a badly populated concert hall and still do their best to bring down the roof and get people fired up for the rest of the night.
To begin with, people only took the music in rather calmly despite vocalist/guitarist Nick’s strong attempts at getting things going, but towards the end, in the song Apokathilosis, a small but furious mosh broke out between four young guys, who managed to fill out the entire floor by themselves in their short-lived outburst of excitement.

Even though the weight of the music was based on lightning fast punishment of the instruments, many songs held short breaks showcasing a slower, heavier riffing which was a welcome change in tempo.
Technically, their performance showed routine and capability as all members (except drummer Orfeas of course) moved around the stage a lot instead of monotonously standing around headbanging as some do. After the show Nick was also more than happy to shake the hands of the people in the frontline on his way off the stage.
Still, I felt there was something lacking, some special spark which would have brought the band further over the edge of the stage and into the crowd. Maybe it just wasn’t my thing though, but I wasn’t gripped by Suicidal Angels even though they seemingly had a lot of things going for them…

Setlist (incomplete):

The Pestilence Of Saints
Inquisition
…Lies
Mourning Of The Cursed
Apokathilosis