Septicflesh
February 22, 2018
The Regent – Los Angeles, CA
Greek symphonic death metal band Septicflesh released their tenth album Codex Omega in 2017. Since then, they have been actively touring in support for the album. A USA tour was finally announced for the album and they brought with them some very evil friends from out of the country. Stating the show would be the black metal band from Colombia, Thy Antichrist. They got their name from the Friedrich Nietzsche book, “The Antichrist”. They released their newest album on February 23, 2018 titled, The Wrath of the Beast. The second band playing was Swedish black metal band, Dark Funeral. They released their sixth album Where Shadows Forever Reign in 2016. With a black metal lineup stacked like this, it’s for sure one of the year’s best shows for metal heads everywhere to enjoy. The Regent Theater in Los Angeles, California was the first stop on the tour and to make things better, it was a sold out show so for sure things would get really crazy.
By the time Thy Antichrist was getting ready to hit the stage, the venue was already packed with metal fanatics hungry for some pure black metal. Thy Antichrist came on stage and quickly received a positive response from fans. Thy Antichrist painted themselves with traditional black metal corpse paint to give themselves a rather grotesque look which went perfect with the band. They played a few songs from their new album including the newest single, Metal to the Bone. They had a short 30-minute set, but it was well worth it to see one of Latin America’s most important black metal bands.
Dark Funeral had finally made their return to US soil since they last came 5 years ago. Plenty of fans in the crowd could be heard saying how this is the first time they’re seeing the band. The venue was packed to capacity and was hard to move around due to how many fans wanted to get a taste of one of Sweden’s finest bands. Dark Funeral came out and started the show with the first song from the newest album, Unchain My Soul. Fans went crazy and right away, started moshing to the band. Even crowd surfers made an appearance. Dark Funeral made sure to play plenty of classics for fans and one such song was The Secrets of the Black Arts from their debut album of the same name from 1996. One of the best songs performed was one of their most popular songs, Open the Gates. It has the crowd singing along with the chorus, “Open the Gates…Sataaan!”. It’s one of the many times where Dark Funeral‘s lyrics come into play which mainly deal with Satanism and anti-Christianity. Dark Funeral would continue to lay waste to their legions of followers as they played songs like The Arrival of Satan’s Empire, Nail Them to the Cross, and Vobiscum Satanas. Dark Funeral came to an end as they played the ending song to their newest album, Where Shadows Forever Reign. They thanked the audience for coming out and left the stage for headlining act of the night.
Septicflesh came out and started the show with a song from the newest album titled, Portrait of a Headless Man. Bright lights and fog cannons gave the band an even more amazing look. The second song played was The Vampire From Nazareth from their 2011 album, The Great Mass. Septicflesh had good interaction with the crowd as they regularly had the fans put up their metal horns in the air in the middle of a song. Even though their music is mainly death metal, the band also adds symphonic metal to their music and it showed in most of their songs that have piano, choirs, and orchestras. One such song was a newer song Enemy of Truth where it ended and the band paused while the orchestra track of the finale played in the background giving the song a chilling feeling. Septicflesh played songs from throughout their catalog which included Pyramid God, Communion, and Prometheus. Nearing the end of the show, Septicflesh had the audience split in two and crash into each other on their count and caused a wall of death which turned into a huge mosh pit on the floor. The band took a quick break before coming back out and continuing with the first song from the newest album, Dante’s Inferno. To end the show, they played Anubis followed the grand finale, Dark Art. Septicflesh thanked the audience for coming out and left stage. Lots of sweaty and tired fans were walking out the venue, but surely had a great time seeing three amazing bands back to back.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
Septicflesh
Dark Funeral
Thy Antichrist
