MODU, Athens, Greece 09.06.2017
Along with BEHEMOTH, HATE is one of the most popular bands originating from Poland. Their long career traces back in the late 90s, where they managed to influence Europe’s death metal and become quite popular among the underground music scene. The band continues to stay constantly active and three years after ‘Crusade: Zero’, they recorded their latest disc, ‘Tremendum’, arranging also shows in Europe. Athens was one of the cities the band planned to visit and their concert took place in June 9, sharing the stage with four greek support acts, WOMB OF MAGGOTS, LLOTH, BLACK PATH & WARHAMMER.
With a small delay, WARHAMMER opened the show and were the first support act that had the chance to present its music and warm-up the stage for Hate. It was the very first moment I had the honor to watch Warhammer performing and I must state that the band has some quite interesting ideas to present. However, the sound was not helping them presenting those ideas and I found their performance somehow rushed and not quite flattening. In a forty minutes performance (quite long for a first support act right?), the band performed songs of their own discography, along with a couple of medleys, only to come short by the problematic sound and their non-solid act. It’s a pity to watch ideas getting wasted in a not flattering performance but there’re always chances of improvement.
BLACK PATH was next. I was quite curious to watch the band unfolding their technical death metal riffs on stage and I must state that they have managed to blast it. The band started quite strong, shaking the stage with aggressive drum blasts and bloody brutal vocals. The issues with the sound of the guitars which WARHAMMER also faced persisted in Black Path too, however in a minor scale. The band’s debut album ‘Final Act: Martyr’ should be a rather strong one, given the fact that their ideas sounded quite decent in their live performance and in their released EP.
Next support act was our beloved LLOTH! There’s no introduction about them. The band was quite known in the black metal scene of Greece and even those who did not know them before were able to get in touch with them via the tragedy of Tristessa, the founding person behind this band. The rest of the band is keeping the flame alive for her and continues with an upcoming release in order to honor the person that first started LLOTH’s journey years ago. As far as their live performance is concerned, I have nothing more to write rather than that it was awesome. Their appearance on stage, as well as their sound was solid and the band-members seemed quite bonded with each other. We had the chance to taste some new material and the song ‘Athanati’ as well, which is referring to the tragedy of their beloved friend Tristessa. LLOTH were definitely decent and the best support act of the night!
The last support that succeeded LLOTH was the pretty known WOMB OF MAGGOTS; a great band to watch on stage. Nevertheless, the specific performance did not support their efforts. The sound was pretty much bad and no matter how the band pled for the sound engineer to try and correct their monitor sound, the problems kept persisting. Lead guitars were almost wiped out and the crowd was numb, no matter how the band tried to get them to mosh and look alive. I know that WOMB OF MAGGOTS deserve better and I’m looking forward to enjoy them in a different venue, in a concert that can enforce their talent.
Erasing almost every bad memory of the previous acts, HATE came on stage and managed to conquer it. Being communicative with the audience, we had the chance to enjoy anthems like ‘Omega’ and ‘Valley of Darkness’. What I enjoyed the most, besides Adam’s excellent vocals and the band’s productive on-stage appearance, was Domin, the lead guitarist of Hate. He was constantly communicating with the audience, even with a tongue expression or with raising his fists. The crowd’s welcome to the guys from Poland was unexpected given the fact that they completely ignored the support acts. After the specific performance and their love and respect for Greek fans, they deserved more than a shitty treatment and a sloppy arrangement of their next two concerts in our country.
HATE managed to save the day, but not without suffering lousy backstab. I am not going to expand my thoughts on the pathogens of Greece’s metal scene (this topic is ideal for the next Sludger’s Inferno), but I am not going to choke on my words; if you need the audience to treat you with respect, you should respect art and music first. Professionalism is high appreciated and this concerns everyone.
Check S&D Photography for more photos.