Well, personally I think that C.D.M. could find better bands for this festival than such worthless acts as f.ex. VOODOO from Minsk with their absolutely uninteresting and boring hard rock - besides that they have nothing in common with all the other bands who played at this gig. Anyway, let’s leave C. D. M. free to choose what bands to invite to Camelot and talk about the fest itself.
First day.
The band who opened the gig on 6th of June were Moscow’s GALGEN. These guys really surprised me. If I’m not mistaken there’re four individuals in the band, and the oldest of them seem to be 17 (!). But despite such a young age, GALGEN impressed me, for sure. They play something which can be easily defined as grind / death metal with inhuman vokills and rather diverse music, at least it features plenty of acoustic passages and great variety of melodies. Yes, GALGEN’s music is great (in my view, they were the best band who played that evening), but as to people... Later, after the concert was over, GALGEN’s vocalist, being drunk as fuck, broke the window with his own head which resulted in the serious injury of one of the guards...
Ok, let’s go further. The second band were ORTHANC and their performance was quite mediocre. Personally I think that their performance on 29 of March 1998 was much more impressive. This time Vadim (Scald - vocals) painted his face, trying to observe the «evil» black metal image, but his makeup looked somehow funny, especially in the end of their play when the paint started to trickle down Vadim’s face. All in all, ORTHANC’s performance was quite pleasing and the sound in a whole was good, just like when GALGEN performed their songs.
Then we could behold SYMBOL, also a Moscow band. If you already read a review on their demo «Nothing Comes Closely», you should know that SYMBOL is a kind of group which I’m absolutely indifferent to. Their «alternative / doom» music didn’t thrill me being represented on the tape and the same goes for their live show. Nothing interesting or intriguing. I even left the concert hall before they finished to play...
Approximately 10 (or 15) minutes passed and REGRESSUS AD INFINITUM appeared on the stage. This band was always close to DECEPTIVE musically, besides that they’re good friends. But anyway, I was a bit surprised when I saw Dmitry Perevezenzev (DECEPTIVE’s vocalist) singing in R. A. I. As you probably know, this band’s creations lie in atmospheric doom metal vein, however I fear that REGRESSUS AD INFINITUM’s «Empty Illusions» album appealed to me much better than this act’s performance. It wasn’t bad or anything, but it also didn’t seem to be something special... So, the same as with ORTHANC - neither bad, nor good, i.e. mediocre.
Fortunately, R. A. I. didn’t bore me to death, simply because their show was quite short. VOODOO from Minsk (Belorussia) were the next band to play. Well, what to say about them... I consider them as a hard rock band, others - as gothic / dark wave project, so, really, I don’t know how to define their style the way which could make all those who heard their music to agree with me. If I had to rate their performance, I’d give them «3, 5 of 6», consequenly I hope that you’ve already realized that VOODOO are not one of my favorites. The best point in their music is the singer, who possesses nice voice. As to their tunes which I heard during that fest in the whole... Well, see above. The best thing with VOODOO consisted in the following fact: They. Did. Not. Irritate. Me. And that’s already good...
And finally, we came to the final band who definitely was the highlight of that evening’s programme! After these Slovakian antichrists released «Kill The Thought On Christ» CD, they became almost a legendary band in the European underground. But that’s not all! DEMENTOR (yeah, that’s the band I’m talking about!) perfectly fit the league of the best satanic death metal bands with such acts as DEICIDE, ACHERON, SINISTER, LUCIFERION, DEVILYN, INCANTATION, APOPHIS and PANZERCHRIST... Unfortunately, they played only a couple of songs in the first day and after 15 (or so) minutes passed, DEMENTOR left the stage... Actually, it wasn’t enough for me and maybe that was the reason why I left Camelot being somehow disappointed...
Ah, almost forgot! Besides the bands which I mentioned above, there were NEOTRUTH (from Tula) and DUCK BRAKKALAR (sorry, if I spelled their bandname wrong). Both are absolutely worthless ones in my view. NEOTRUTH play child shitz, something like grindcore-punk-crap, and I guess I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like this «band» at all. Although DUCK BRAKKALAR weren’t better. It’s even hard for me to tell you what this group is all about, since I managed to listen only one song of theirs...
ORA PRO NOBIS also had to appear at the festival that evening, but they didn’t come to Moscow... Quite sad, isn’t it?
Second day.
Ok, here’s the second day of DEATHRIDER festival which took place in Moscow’s Camelot Club. FESTERGUTS from Kaluga was the opening band and their performance was awful! Maybe someone of you remembers that I reviewed their «Delicious Evisceration» demo (1995) in the first issue of my mag and wrote many good words (unfortunately, I don’t remember the exact mark I gave them...) Since that FESTERGUTS changed their style in a VERY drastical way. Too bad - bad for them, because once they were undoubtedly interesting and original band and now... Pathetic posers... Who else can say things like «we hate BM», using pure black metal vocals, or change the style from gore death / grind with keyboards to the present one: black / death metal??! Besides, they were only three people on the stage - singer, guitarist and a female with horrible voice (speaking more clear - she doesn’t have any kind of voice at all). No live bass, no drums, no keyboards, while all of these instruments sounded as a phonogram!! Can you imagine it? Suckers... I’m not even talking about their comtemporary music which is absolutely worthless and uninteresting...
Fortunately, my extremely bad mood caused by this «band’s» performance transformed into a good one, because FESTERGUTS left the stage and liberated the place for DREAMING SOUL, one of my favorite Moscow bands! Their dark / doom / black metal, played in inimitable manner, lacks any shortcomings, and VENOM’s «Black Metal» tune (usual for their performances) was great as always... I don’t feel the need to say anything more about this outstanding band, instead you’d better purchase their «Children Of Night Flowers» tape and enjoy. 
STONEHENGE superseded DREAMING SOUL, and just like this band’s previous show in Camelot (on 29. 03. 98), the appearance was quite splendid. The only bad thing goes for the number of songs they played - only three! Too damn short for me... Besides legendary tune «Black Swans Of Dark Paradise» and «Voices From The Past» (taken from «Victims Gallery» album, STONEHENGE’s debut effort), they also presented their new song - «Река Забвения» (seems like it should sound «River Of Oblivion» in English, but Sergey (guitars) told me that this song’s English title sounds in another way...). I really liked it, mostly thanks to the fact that it was composed in the way all the tracks on «Victims Gallery» were, e.g. dark, slow and obscure, with grim atmosphere which was possessed without (!) using keyboards...
MENTAL HOME had to be the next band after STONEHENGE, but something changed and... the fans saw DEMENTOR. I don’t why they decided to play earlier (actually, these Slovakian guy had to be the last band), but who cares anyway? This time their performance was much more thrilling and impressive, and needless to say that I utterly agree with DEMENTOR’s motto «Fuck the christ!», heh heh... These guys also spoke on Russian a bit (which stroke as extremely pleasant thing for my ears) - I bet not that much fans expected them to do it!
Then we had MENTAL HOME and problems with the sound... DEMENTOR’s performance lacked any sort of shortcomings regarding sound, but when MENTAL HOME began to play, some kinds of shit with the equipment became evident for everyone, I believe. But in spite if this, I liked their show, perhaps mainly thanks to solid doze of aggression spawned by this group.
Finally, MERLIN replaced MENTAL HOME. This band play grinding techno-death with female vocals, however only few males can sing more brutal than this girl! But I can’t say that their appearance appealed to me that evening (although «night» seems to be more appropriate word). Guiars were almost non-existent, hence I could hear only those guttural vocals, clanging bass and hammering drums. In the end, MERLIN’s guitarist began to imitate his instrument’s destruction - maybe he imagined himself as Kurt Cobain reincarnated? Who knows...
Good that this circus didn’t last for long... I went to the bar in order to buy some more beers and shortly after I heard cold unholy sounds spawned by THRON’... Basically, their appearance was the same, despite that in contrast to the last one in Camelot (also on 29. 03. 98), the illumination was much more impressive... Generally speaking, THRON’ is the worthy band which undoubtedly deserves a certain success (as well as deal with a serious label). 
Well, it looks like I have to say something in conclusion? Hmmm... I think that DEATHRIDER was quite successful fest, with interesting bands (mostly), good sound and illumination. At least, I liked it more than f.ex. other gigs reviewed in this issue...