Road Reports Archive

Hate Eternal / Krisium / Into Eternity
B.B. Kings . New York, USA

B.B. King Blues Club was set to shake once again as the band Hate Eternal rolled into New York with a handful of other Death Metal groups in support. For this performance they would be joined by Krisiun from Brazil and Into Eternity as well as Incantation, All Shall Perish, & Jungle Rot. Clearly the audience would be getting a lot of bands for the money and given that aspect I must admit that I was very disappointed in the attendance for this show. B.B. King Blues club has two setups, one with tables and the other without. When the club has tables setup it holds 650, without its at about 1000. Suffice it to say the lack of tables made the room very open and I was informed that no more than 400 people came.

The band Jungle Rot began the mayhem with their brand of hard core influenced metal but sadly I was too busy getting in gear for the later groups and did not focus on them or All Shall Perish for that matter. I ended up consulting a Friend on ASP as she was raving about their performance. Into Eternity was who I was interested in most as I just recently saw them with Amorphis. However, this was a bill that I felt was totally out of place for this band. Granted their music is a well-crafted mix of Progressive and Black, but I felt their textured riffs and the Queensryche-like vocals of Stu Bloch were lost between all the Death Metal groups. The last minute addition of Jungle Rot also caused a shortening of their set. As a result there would only be 4 numbers played, each from the Century Media release “Buried By Oblivion”. I was happy to see that despite my feelings on their placement, that they band did seem to have people getting into them.

It seemed as though when Krisiun hit the stage that they club was most intense. This Brazilian trio was clearly the best group of the entire show and delivered a level of brutality that I have not seen since the likes of Slayer or Behemoth. They were very tight and dead on for a band who played this fast and furious. It was impressive and they made me feel as though they should have closed the evening. While I am very new to their material, they played such tracks as Murderer and Slaying Fate. They are a band that fans of brutal and intensely delievered Death would love. The crowd-surfing was pretty intense during this, as was the pit. It made me glad that I had someone else taking pictures while I safely observed. Its proving a little difficult to jot notes down in the middle of the Mosh pit of late.

Hate Eternal came on as the headliner and closer for the run of bands. They were good, but I really think that it fell short after the Krisiun set. The audience was volatile during the performance but again it seemed to me as an observer that this was a lot more focused and intense when Krisiun played. The band certainly did play a lot of material, but with their set running a little over 1.5 hours I think it was a bit much. Interesting to note during their set was the fact that several surfers made it to the stage itself and stayed on singing until they jumped back into the fray. It was a good time, but too long especially with Hate playing that much at the end. Still, the audience was able to get a whole lot for their investment and that’s a plus when so many bands are not doing the same.


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