In what will stand as one of the year's best tour packages, SOILWORK, DARKANE, WARBRINGER and SWALLOW THE SUN invaded the Highline Ballroom for a post-St. Valentine's Day asskicker, an excuse to blitz area headbangers with an overdose of melodic death metal and treat to those of us who didn't have to get up early for President's Day.
Bad timing cost me openers Swallow the Sun's set, but in their place Warbringer kicked off the night with a entertaining blast of '80-inspired thrash. Recalling some of TESTAMENT's early monsters, the only American band on the bill were straight-faced but never self-important, even during the most hectic moments of their set. Hooky enough to transcend the average metal rehashes and engaging enough to win over fans of more extreme metal, Warbringer plugged an appropriately-billed spring tour with EXODUS and KREATOR, plus a new album which could plausibly make some noise.
Darkane, showing off new vocalist JENS BROMAN and a stellar new album in Demonic Art, tore through several of their best new songs, including the title track, "Leaving Existence" and the mind-altering "Execution 44." The entire set confirmed CHRISTOFER MALMSTROM's status as one of metal's most underrated guitarists, and the hyperactive tunefulness of songs like "Secondary Effects" and "Innocence Gone" made it hard to understand why these guys aren't selling out bigger venues.
Despite the lineup changes, Darkane pulled off songs from their entire career without ever sounding disjointed. Earlier tracks like "Rape of Mankind," (dusted off from their first album, Rusted Angel) showed that the band's heaviness and songcraft, while always impressive, have come a long way over the past ten years. Coupled some sweaty stage dives and synchronized headbanging, Darkane were the band to beat that evening, and they can't be denied their spot near the forefront of Sweden's death metal scene.
Still, even the second-best band on the bill would have earned the admission price on their own. After an extravagant start that included a recording of a Michael Buffer-esque announcer introducing Soilwork over THE WHO's "Baba O'Riley," the band kicked into "Follow the Hollow," as if to assure us older fans that classic albums like Natural Born Chaos would get their due. The rest of the set lived up to the promise, with "Black Star Deceiver" and "As We Speak" sitting next to the band's less aggressive newer output. Songs from Soilwork's most recent album, Sworn to a Great Divide, were performed with a speed and intensity that nearly matched the older material, and it wouldn't have been easy to tell the difference, save for the fact that some of the audience clearly only recognized the newer songs. But whichever is your preferred version of Soilwork, the band put on a forceful show that had the thoroughly wrecked crowd still screaming by the time that "Nerve" closed the encore set.
Between this, THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, METALLICA and MESHUGGAH/CYNIC/THE FACELESS all performing in the NYC area this month, any metal band that comes around for the rest of the year will have trouble holding a candle. Good luck, dudes.
Soilwork setlist:
1. "Follow The Hollow"
2. "Like The Average Stalker"
3. "Exile"
4. "Needlefeast"
5. "Rejection Role"
6. "Black Star Deceiver"
7. "20 More Miles"
8. "Song Of The Damned"
9. "Shadowchild"
10. "Sworn To A Great Divide"
11. "Distortion Sleep"
12. "The Chainheart Machine"
13. "Light The Torch"
14. "Stabbing The Drama"
(encore)
15. "As We Speak"
16. "The Pittsburgh Syndrome"
17. "Nerve"
