After the Covid related lack of festivals during the last two years I was eager to go to the End Of Days Festival in Bochum in early November. I have to say that I didn't know all of the bands so I was pretty curious about them. Starting with the German black metal guys from Pestlegion this was a very good opening act. According to the vocalist they had some time issues so that there wasn't time to put on some corpse paint. Well, there's no business like show business – they did a very cool show nevertheless. Just having released their second full-length "Sathanas Grand Victoria" on Osmose they performed some really fast goat-blasting black metal stuff in the vein of Dark Funeral and co. Great start for a Friday evening.

Setlist: 'We Deny Thy Name' / 'The Portal' / 'Entsage Gott' / 'Sathanas Grand Victoria' / 'Into The Golden Valley' / 'Warlock's Curse'

Right after it German deathers Wilt made sure that the audience got a nice portion of Swedish HM-2 sound. They presented some new stuff from their upcoming (hopefully soon) album but also some tracks from their debut "Faces Of The Grave". Stylistically you can put them into the same corner like German Revel In Flesh (or fill in some Swedish names here). Nice show!

Setlist: 'Into Nothingness' / 'The Servants' / 'Faces Of War' / 'Dracunculus Med' / 'The Blades Within' / 'Rise From The Grave'

In Element came after and as a band (at least in my humble opinion) they didn't mesh too well into the billing. Wearing some really crazy masks they did perform a mix between some melo-death, hardcore and nu-metal. The show was okay, they did a really cool stage-acting but I wasn't really convinced about this.

Now it was time to take a deep breath and to be prepared for some punches into the face. What Krisiun did that evening was an absolute kick-ass performance and so unbelievably intense. They reduced everything to rubble. If you know the music that the Brazilian maniacs play, you also know what to expect. This was an absolute blast beat inferno and I really wonder where they get all the energy for such ass-kicking 60 minutes. It was no wonder that their drummer was drenched in sweat after the gig.

Setlist: 'Swords Into Flesh' / 'Combustion Inferno' / 'Scourge Of The Enthroned' / 'Descending Abomination' / 'Vengeance Revelation' / 'Necronomical' / 'Blood Of Lions' / 'Serpent Messiah' / 'Hatred Inherit'

Now, on the day of the 100-year anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb, what else could be more adequate to listen to than Nile??? What a great coincidence! It was quite difficult to top the Nile gig for the Egyptologists but they also played a fantastic gig that evening. Guitarist / Vocalist Scott Eames did a fantastic job with a lot of cool gestures and appeared as if he wanted to evoke the Ancient Gods on that stage. They played a very cool collection of tracks from all of their 9 studio albums, all were killer tracks indeed!

Setlist: 'Sacrifice Unto Sebek' / 'Defiling The Gates Of Ishtar' / 'Kafir!' / 'Call To Destruction' / 'The Language Of The Shadows' / 'In The Name Of Amun' / 'Lashed To The Slave Stick' / 'The Howling Of The Djinn'  / 'Vile Nilotic Rites' / 'Sarcophagus' / '4th Arra Of Dagon' / 'Black Seeds Of Vengeance'

Day2 - 11/05/2022

The Saturday started with a German melo-death band called Divine: Zero. They did a quite good job on the stage although there wasn't too much audience around at that time yet (they started at 4.30 PM). I have to say that I also missed most of the gig because I stood in a usual German Saturday traffic jam but what I could listen to reminded me pretty much of a mix between Dark Tranquillity and Ablaze My Sorrow.

Setlist: 'Orison In Lead' / 'Colors Of The Buried Ones' / 'Twilight And The Void' / 'Headshot Messiah' / 'In Dark Liars' / 'Bloodpounding' / 'Scardust'

Now I know who stole all the Halloween decorations in my neighborhood! I had to laugh pretty hard when I saw the stage decoration of the black metal band Rotting Demise. Oh my God how ridiculous! Some cheap plastic torsos and shrink heads were hanging everywhere, plastic memory lights were lit and a small coffin with an upside down cross stood right in front of me. Well, apart from this monkey business the band played some really tight black metal and their vocalist (hung with more upside-down crosses and plastic torsos) tried to sound pretty much like Dani from Cradle Of Filth with his high-pitched screams. Well, this was quite different from their 2019 EP "Casket Birth" and what we got told is that the guys are going to release a full-length album soon. Apart from the much exaggerated show the music was quite okay.

Setlist: 'Intro' / 'My Whole Wrath' / 'Arachnophobia' / 'No Time To Die' / 'Dreams Of Despair' / 'Kayako's Grudge' / 'The Arrival Of The Apocalypse' / 'Casket Birth'

Time for some death metal with German lyrics. I wasn't sure what to expect from Torment Of Souls but I have to say that they had something in their music that was really cool. Their groovy sound was something to bang to and it was much fun to see them on stage. Especially the vocalist and their bass player who looked like a younger version of Rob Halford were amazing and their guitarist looked a 10000 times spookier than the guys from Rotting Demise. You can say whatever you want about German lyrics in metal but this gig was cool!

Setlist: 'Intro' / 'Schlachthaus' / 'Aus Der Erde' / 'Dämon' / 'Pandemie' / 'Fidelis Ad Mortem' / 'Mehr Hass' / 'Legion' / 'Outro'

Fractured Insanity from Belgium played some very brutal technical death metal. Vocalist Stefan Van Bael was truly an impressive person on stage and not only because of his stature. He is a real giant and did a great show performance that evening. Musically the quartet showed a lot of technical skills and reminded me a lot of Suffocation.

Setlist: 'Habitual Killer' / 'Inferno Of A Narcissist' / 'Crusade Of The Offended' / 'Forced To Rome' / 'Hell Of No Man's Land' / 'M.A.D.' / 'Panic Abuser' / 'All Shall Fade' / 'Man Made Hell'

Now the Ruhr Area death metal veterans of Sabiendas entered the stage and got a lot of support from the audience. They performed some brutal old-school death metal with a lot of atmospheric and melodic parts that is quite similar to bands like Immolation. They seemed to have a lot of fun on stage and didn't disappoint their fans this evening.

Setlist: 'Intro' / 'Necrophobia' / 'Savagery And Bloodthirst' / 'General Buttnaked' / 'Served Cold' / 'Human Centipede' / 'Cheating Death' / 'Divine Manhunt' / 'The Siege' / 'Dungeon Keeper' / 'Column Of Souls'

Now it was time for some good mood death metal. The guys from Deserted Fear had quite a lot of fun being in Bochum, interacted greatly with the audience and made a lot of jokes. You may not be really into their death metal style but the audience liked them and had lots of fun during their show.

Setlist: 'Part Of The End' / 'The Final Chapter' / 'Kingdom Of Worms' / 'Wrath On Your Wound' / 'Reborn Paradise' / 'Funeral Of The Earth' / 'The Battalion Of Insanities' / 'Welcome To Reality' / 'Face Our Destiny' / 'The Carnage' / 'Bury Your Dead' / 'All Will Fall' / 'Mortal Reign'

Memoriam were the last band of the festival and who had the chance to see Bolt Thrower live knows what to expect when Karl Willets enters the stage. He and his band mates did a real inferno and Karl acted really great. From suffering on the ground to swinging his hips all was included. At the end of the gig he even entered the photographer's pit to shake hands with the fans. It was a fantastic closer to a very cool festival which will hopefully take place next year again.

Setlist: 'Undefeated' / 'Onwards Into Battle' / 'War Rages On' / 'Shellshock' / 'Resistance' / 'This War Is Won' / 'To The End' / 'As Bridges Burn' / 'Flatline'

Michael