Keep Of Kalessin & Abigail Williams Put On Impressive Performance At Mayhem’s Hollywood Gig

By Andrew Bansal

Nov. 27th 2011, House Of Blues, Hollywood CA: Norwegian black metal veterans Mayhem are back touring the United States for the first time in more than two years, and last night they made a return to the same LA venue they played on their previous US tour. They brought with them fellow Norwegians Keep Of Kalessin, Polish blackened death metal band Hate, and Los Angeles’ very own Abigail Williams to complete the line-up. Honestly, I’ve never been a huge Mayhem fan, but I had never seen them live and was willing to give them a chance. Quite often, I’ve changed my opinion on bands after seeing them live for the first time. Live music is what I enjoy most, and thus I went into this show with an open mind. Hate always puts on a good show but for some reason never get a decent response from crowds, and I was waiting to see if that changed this time around. But I was most excited to see Keep Of Kalessin and Abigail Williams, two bands that definitely caught my attention with their previous live performances in LA.

At 8.30, Abigail Williams kicked off their short 25-minute set. Having seen them open for Immolation and Deicide in the past, I largely knew what to expect, and they didn’t disappoint. Black metal fans, specially Mayhem fans have this whole thing about European black metal being better than American black metal. It was hilarious to see the bored looks on the faces of people in the front row during Abigail’s set. I never understood that, because I loved their set. Their music is beyond being merely black metal, and they blend a prominently psychedelic, almost Floyd-esque touch to their sound, which is their biggest strength in my opinion. I can’t wait for their next album “Becoming” which comes out January 24th on Candlelight Records, and I would like to urge extreme metal fans to forget about the European vs American thing and give these guys a listen.

Next up were Hate, another band I’ve seen a couple of times in the past, as they opened up for Hypocrisy and Rotting Christ on those occasions. Both those times, the band was musically tight and put on a good, high-energy show, but for some reason they never managed to capture the audience’s attention. Last night was pretty much the same story. I felt bad for frontman ATF Sinner as he tried his best to get the crowd to “make some fucking noise”. He kept asking them to make noise, and even after about five attempts, only a total of 10 people actually did so. Nonetheless, they certainly woke up the crowd, and played a good set. I feel they would go together well with their fellow countrymen in Behemoth, and fans of that band might appreciate Hate a little bit more. So a Behemoth tour would be perfect for them in my opinion. Even though they previously did tours with Hypocrisy, Rotting Christ and Sepultura, none of those bands draw even decent crowds anywhere in the country, so I don’t think those tours were too beneficial for a band like Hate. Judging from the turnout here last night, sadly this tour seems to have met with a similar fate for them. I think their music and stage presence is solid, and I hope they get on bigger tours in the near future.

Keep Of Kalessin hit the stage next, and right from the moment they did so, they were nailing it with every aspect. I got a feeling straightaway that they fit perfectly into this package, because it was almost as if they combined the spacey, epic, psychedelic aura of Abigail Williams with the brutality of Hate, and amplified both styles tenfold. Frontman Thebon not only did a great job on the vocals, but also had a firm grip on the audience right from the get-go. It’s always a treat to watch Obsidian C play guitar, and last night I would say it was even better than the previous time when I saw the band open for Nile. I was really glad to see them get a 45-minute set last night, as opposed to 25 minutes on that tour. I think their music was best represented and they clearly showed how well they perform it live, making each song sound better than its album version. Their tour with Sepultura did not hit LA, but based on what I read in Obsidian’s blog, they had technical problems, and were not getting the desired sound. Those worries seemed to be well behind them, and everything was just clicking right into place at this show. I thoroughly enjoyed the slow, extremely heavy parts they had in their tunes, as it allowed for some epic head-banging, and of course, the faster sections were equally good. They stole the show in my opinion, and set an example on how to put together a live performance. Their set had plenty of ebbs and flows in it, and did not come across as monotonous at any point. The folks in the front row still had bored looks on their faces though, which I again failed to understand. But, Keep’s music definitely got a lot more people to head-bang and mosh, as compared to the first two bands. All in all, a highly impressive performance by Keep Of Kalessin, and for me they were undoubtedly the best band of the night.

At around 11.15, Mayhem appeared on stage and played for what seemed like the longest hour of my life. As I said in the first paragraph, I was hoping they’d change my opinion and turn me into a fan of theirs, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Their performance completely lacked venom. This is exactly why I’m not a huge fan of black metal bands that take themselves too seriously with the Satanism. They behave as if they are the most intense, brutal people on the planet, but when it’s show time, everything fizzes out. Keep Of Kalessin were a lot more brutal and fierce than Mayhem, and they did it purely through the music, and music alone. I would also put bands like Vreid and Kampfar much above Mayhem in terms of sheer musical intensity. I’m not saying that I hate the “gimmick” and the theatricality, but the bottom line is, the live musicianship should be good, and everything else comes after that. Sure, Mayhem’s vocalist was holding a skull in his hand the whole time, dark red lighting was used for the most part, and strobe lighting was also in effect for a few moments. But where was the music? Sorry, but it didn’t do anything for me.

Even though an hour of their music was already more than enough for me personally, I felt they should have played longer for the sake of their fans who’d been waiting to see them for a long time. At least three songs from the set list posted below, “Buried By Time And Dust”, “Chainsaw Gutsfuck” and “Pure Fucking Armageddon” were not even played. A 60-minute set for a headlining band that has travelled from Norway is just not good enough. To make things worse, their stage production definitely looked downscaled. The turnout for the show was extremely poor. I don’t think the show was promoted in advance as well as it should have been. Nobody made posters for the tour, and the venue/local promoter didn’t make any flyers for the event. They didn’t even have all four bands listed on their website. So all in all, it was a half-assed show by Mayhem last night, and the support bands were the only saving grace of this event. I hope to see Keep Of Kalessin and Abigail Williams again soon, I’d like to see Hate on a bigger tour, and as for Mayhem, well, I’d give them another chance in the future, but they need to write new music, music that justifies their image, and they’d also need to need to turn up the intensity of their live musicianship a thousandfold.

Rating: 7.5/10 (This is an average rating. My individual band ratings are: Abigail Williams 9/10, Hate 7/10, Keep Of Kalessin 10/10, Mayhem 4/10)

Setlist: