Considering the great show Asphyx did even in broad daylight at last year’s Jalometalli, bringing these Dutch death metal krushers back for a club gig was definitely in order.  Further attraction to this one-off Finland appearance was added by three well-picked quality acts from the Finnish underground that I would have gone to see any of, even if they had been playing on their own.

By the time Evil Angel went on, it wasn’t crowded yet, and they seemed to be a little bit out of place in the deathly company with their Sarcófago-like black/thrash.  The band hadn’t played Helsinki in quite a while, and this was the first time I saw them with their new session vocalist Axekutioner, whose convincing vocal execution didn’t come to me as a surprise, as I was already familiar with her previous bands.  The rest of the bunch played their parts well, too, but the overall performance wasn’t very energetic, apart from the intense drummer, and neither was the small audience.  Some new not-yet-released songs were introduced, along with older pieces like “Fire in Pentagram”, which contains some damn catchy thrash riffing.  After a couple of songs, we made a fateful visit downstairs, and got stuck in conversations with some people, therefore missing the rest of the set.

Up next was the young local trio Swallowed playing apparently their first gig – a good start to be supporting the mighty Asphyx, one might say!  As if their strong Autopsy influence wasn’t obvious enough, it was further underlined by the drummer doing the vocals (always cool!) and the cover “In the Grip of Winter”, already known from their demo tape.  While the delivery was nothing to be ashamed of, a more imaginative pick would’ve been preferable, as I’ve already heard the song covered by at least Total Devastation and Fleshpress before...  The rest of the set consisted of a couple more songs from their demo, and all three tracks from their new 7” that appears to be taking Swallowed to a slower and more obscure direction, without abandoning faster parts entirely.  Friends or not, they had a bunch of devoted headbangers in the front, whose energy partly made up for the band’s static stage presence.  However, the music spoke for itself impressively enough, and seemed to positively surprise many.  A good start, indeed.

The last domestic act of the evening was Winterwolf, who are something as confusing as a resurrected pre-Deathchain.  Musically they were quite different, though, presenting a classic Swedish-sounding take on death metal.  Despite their enjoyable material, they didn’t really manage to keep my concentration for most of the gig, although it was interesting to hear Abomanitor occasionally do his guttural grunts, better known from his earlier band, the old school gods Demilich.  Oh well, maybe I should get more familiar with Winterwolf’s debut album, and then give them another chance live.

It was already well past midnight when Asphyx marched out in front of the enthusiastic and well-sized crowd.  The band performed with headbanging frenzy, and offered the fans a real treat with their long set, combining classic pieces from their first two albums with the strong shit from their newest.  While I find the early albums a bit numbing in their suffocating (or asphyxiating) heaviness when listened through in their entirety, songs like “The Sickening Dwell” and “M.S. Bismarck” truly come to life when performed on stage, and especially when combined with fresher pieces of meat like the anthemic “Death the Brutal Way” that always hits me like a hammer.  Speaking of hammers, some songs into the set I started being so hammered that recollections from the later moments of the show are quite hazy, and some technical problems that I later heard of went totally unnoticed in my case!  However, others confirmed my assumption that only songs from the three Van Drunen albums were played, which is a shame, as both the self-titled, and especially the 2000 album On the Wings of Inferno contain plenty of good material that would surely enrich Asphyx’s live set.  I have no doubts that Martin’s voice would succeed in giving these songs a great interpretation, so what’s the damn problem?
~ Ossi Turpeinen