Anyway, it was cold February's evening, when we (me and Orkkh) entered "Rasputnik" (definitely not the best concert hall to play at), in order to see what BEHEMOTH is all about, live.
What I still can't really understand, is the HOSTILE BREED's participation - hey man, BEHEMOTH is black metal, and the same goes for ROSSOMAHAAR and STIGMATIC CHORUS, therefore what the hell this angry / hardcore act was doing there?! If I'm not mistaken, formerly they were known as TRANSYLVANIA (don't really know what made 'em to
change
the moniker), however, despite the different bandnamer, it was all the
same old shit. Hardcore, with a rather professional approach to every single
thing, however, as I absolutely don't get high on this kind of music, I
(as well as Orkkh) preferred to stay away from the headbanging crowd and
have a couple of beers in the bar (as well as playing few sets in pool).
Fortunately, HOSTILE BREED's performance didn't last for long, and shortly after we beheld STIGMATIC CHORUS (ex-CHARON) entering the stage. Well... I don't remember if I ever reviewed their MC ("Waters Of Styx") as well as split-CD with Norway's ANTAIOS (out through More Hate Productions), therefore it seems like I should say few words regarding this combo. Ok, it's pretty enjoyable black metal with synths (still being "true to the core", y'know), NOT anonymous, NOR generic, with a quite pretty girl handling keyboards. I'm strongly convinced that you have to check 'em out, either by purchasing that MC or split-CD, or by attending the gig they take part in.
And
now... holy hell, Russian black metal gods entered the stage in order to
devour the whole crowd with their uncompromising, yet intelligent, enrapturing
mixture of black and death metal. Yep, this is what ROSSOMAHAAR is all
about. Definitely the best band to play that evening. And yes, with a live
drummer they sound thousand times more impressive (is there a limit for
perfection??).
As to BEHEMOTH, who replaced Lazar and co., fourty minutes later (or half an hour, or hell knows when...), they were quite good, although I wouldn't say that they impressed me the way I expected. One more thing I can't really get into: they have fantastically skilled drummer, so why the hell both "Satanica" and "Thelema.6" feature drummachine?! Can anybody tell me?! Ok, back to their set.
Nergal (rather arrogant chap, to say the least...) and co. came up with mostly new tracks (off "Thelema.6" and "Satanica"), even though they didn't forget about earlier works of theirs, thus performing few tracks off "Grom" and "Pandemonic Incantations". Actually, they were REALLY good, however they didn't manage to beat ROSSOMAHAAR anyway.