The 21st of May 2011
Nosturi Helsinki, Finland
Review and pics by Arto Lehtinen
Hail Of Bullets visited the Jalometalli festival in Oulu a few years back and did a real bonecrushing and headsmashing gig in front of a lunatic crowd. Both their albums have been highly appreciated and praised amongst the press and die hard death metal fans. Their brutal grinding metal roared out with a blasting blitzkrieg.
But but once again where was the Helsinki audience?! It seems like the latest death metal metal gigs have suffered from a major lack of audience. Appx. 200 death maniacs had arrived at the Nosturi club on Saturday. Seriously, if this trend keeps up and attendance is decreasing all the time, there is a risk there will be no death metal gigs here. So when any death metal is coming to Finland, drag your corpses to the gigs.
The night was kicked off by the domestic yet unknown death metal patrol named Maveth. The four-piece made a deadly strike at the Black Mass Ritual festival last autumn and therefore seeing them on the stage as a support for Hail Of Bullets was a well chosen. Their more old school sounding death metal in the vein of the classic names ala Morbid Angel. The frontman Christbutcher straight backed pose reminded slightly of Steve Tucker or Sechtdamon. However Maveth doesn’t make any unpleasant compromise and shows no mercy in their lethal traditional death metal approach.
The second support was the domestic thrash patrol named Hateform. With two albums out, Hateform haven’t reached an ultimate strong following. Besides opening for Hail Of Bullets was kind of wrong place for a thrash band as the audience was definitely prepared for a death metal assault. Obviously the band wasn’t in the sharpest fire on the stage. Why the bassist and the vocalist had to share the vocal duties as the vocalist would have been able to handle his job anyway – that thing popped up several times.
The death metal of the battle by the Dutch Hail Of Bullets was like an artillery assault. After the opening intro the death metal battle was kicked off by “Operation Z” and was followed by songs picked from both the full length albums. The sounds were absolutely extremely crushingly heavy. The frontman Martin Van Drunen’s voice is one of the more recognized death metal voices in the genre. His way to rip his throat is merciless and brutal. The guitarist Paul Baayens appeared to be a relentless one on the stage. Hail Of Bullets definitely ruled and conquered. The sounds were murderous and brutal. The audience went completely insane in the pit. Hail Of Bullets have managed to capture the true old school feeling of death metal. There ain’t any core or melodic elements, just pure extreme murderous death metal to the bone. Even though each HOB member has reached their status in other legendary bands, but Hail Of Bullets don’t need to rely on doing cover songs from other bands, as the songs of their own are just killers. If HOB happens to be gigging, do not miss them.
Operation Z
Advancing Once More
Red Wolves Of Stalin
Kamikaze
Nachthexen
Full Scale War
Warsaw Rising
On Coral Shores
Berlin
Guadalcanal
Tokyo Napalm Holocaust
Ordered Eastward
General Winter
