DARK FUNERAL – Austin, Texas, U.S.A. 2019

Devastation on the Nation Tour 2019: DARK FUNERAL, BELPHEGOR, INCANTATION, HATE – Come and Take It Live – Austin, Texas, June 10, 2019.

DARK FUNERAL brought a veteran cast of black/death metal bands to Austin, Texas as part of the Devastation on the Nation Tour 2019. Each band showcased their own style, but there was a connection in each band’s devotion to Satan. BELPHEGOR and HATE presented a blackened death metal sound, but their differences were noticeable. INCANTATION offered pure death metal with doomed tempos. DARK FUNERAL was true to the Scandinavian black metal style without death metal overtones.

Poland’s HATE have often been compared to fellow countrymen, BEHEMOTH, but garner much less attention. Both bands emerged around the same time in the early ‘90s, and Poland’s earliest death metal band, VADER, seem to influence both groups. The influence on Adam The First Sinner’s voice is noticeable, but there is an aspect of black metal in HATE’s sound that’s not found in VADER. Also, HATE’s latest full-length, “Auric Gates of Veles” is more straightforward than BEHEMOTH’s last recording, “I Loved You At your Darkest.” HATE came to the Live Music Capital of World armed with material from this recording.

I arrived at the venue around 7 PM, just in time to catch HATE’S set. It’s been nearly a decade since I last caught their act when they toured with ROTTING CHRIST and MELECHESH eight years ago. They still have a similar approach. They still wear corpse paint. They still bang their heads, windmill style. Pavulon’s drumming really made a bombastic impression on the crowd, especially his kick drumming. Although the group took the stage around 7:30, the crowd had already amassed. Their grooves, big drum sound, and horns-flying-high stop parts pumped the crowd and a few pits broke out.

INCANTATION were the most seasoned veterans on the bill. They emerged in 1989, a couple years or more before the other bands on the bill. INCANTATION are not a typical death metal band in that they incorporate slow, brooding tempos into their music. In some parts, the band blazed through the material. Their use of guitar harmonics are similar to IMMOLATION, but not used as much. INCANTATION were a suitable band to play this tour in the fact that their sound is much different from the other bands. However, the evil sounds the group produced—they’re one of the forerunners of evil death metal—fit right into the Satan-worshipping, God-blaspheming metal on display. The pit was a bit less energetic than their predecessor due to the crawling tempos, but there were plenty of heads bobbing and pits broke out during faster chords.

Death and black metal both seem practical and efficacious methods for conjuring unclean spirits. BELPHEGOR utilized both these styles. Vocalist, Helmuth also has a bit of the yelling, VADER style. He assumed a kind of moaning, pain-induced voice not far removed from Attila of MAYHEM for intros. Drummer, RAVAGER kept the pace blistering with more impressive double bass work and blast beats. They appeared much more stripped down when I saw them last, over a decade ago opening for KREATOR and EXODUS. The fact they were on a tour that big so long ago means they’ve been steadily gaining more fans and perfecting their live show. Their stage set up was a black mass of crosses large enough to nail a person to, animal-bone structures, floor stands upholding ritualistic bowls and corpse paint. Slayer once said, “evil has no boundaries.” BELPHEGOR certainly pushes those boundaries.

With human-sized inverted crosses, corpse paint, spikes and large metal pentagrams adorning the stage, one doesn’t have to think too hard to recognize DARK FUNERAL’s devotion to Satan and his underworld cohorts. At one point, vocalist Heljarmadr rubbed a cross on his crotch, threw it down on the stage, and spit on it in true black mass fashion. One of the fathers of the true black metal movement in Sweden, the band played a set list culled from throughout their career including classics “My Dark Desires” and “Secrets of the Black Arts.” The group played my favorite tracks from their recent LP, “Where Shadows Forever Reign,” the title track, “Ahriman’s Temple,” and “To Carve Another Wound.” Anti-Christian values were also on hand not just in a satanic sense, but in a perverse sense. Heljarmadr turned the concert into a B&D/S&M show for a minute, using a whip to lightly lash crowd members during “Goddess of Sodomy.”

Along with MARDUK, DISSECTION, DARK FUNERAL were instrumental in jump-starting black metal in Sweden. Guitarist Lord Ahriman’s bleak riffs and dark harmonies define the sound produced by the second wave of black metal. I missed their show at the same venue also with BELPHEGOR. I’m glad I made it this time to catch the satanic horde in place this time. The tour is almost over, check below to see if it’s coming to your town before the bands leave the States.