Enslaved and Insomnium - 2 heavy metal European giants just completed their grand North America tour supported by New York’s very own Black Anvil. We were present at their very last show in Baltimore on April 30th. The tour started in New York and touched many major cities and had a bunch of sold-out shows. It was a big opportunity for the fans in these regions to see the European Legends live in action.
Baltimore Soundstage was getting packed up when the night started with Black Anvil at 7 PM. The band has some dark presence on stage - with the makeup that really goes aptly with the Thrash Black Metal sound. For the next 40 minutes, it was pure brutality that was going on stage - but I found real honesty and uniqueness in the sound they were creating. The setlist consisted of songs like - “The Bet”, “8-Bit Terror”, and “NYC Nightmares”.
Around 8 it was Insomnium who took the stage. It was already full house and the audience was ready for what was coming next. The Finish Death Metal band is one of the pioneers of the European metal scene. The sound that they create can be described as “destruction with a finesse” - the melodic death metal sound has elements of Progressive and even touches of European classical music. For more than one hour they performed all of their greatest hits as well as songs from their latest album - “Anno 1696”. The setlist consisted of - “Godforsaken”, “The Witch Hunter”, “Lilian”, and “Heart Like a Grave”. Though one of their lead guitarist Ville Friman was missing for the tour the other members made up for the absence and delivered the best possible show for the fans.
Finally around 9:30 PM Enslaved came to the stage as the final act for the night. The Norwegian Extreme Metal band is known to do a lot of experiments with the sound. Norwegian heavy metal bands are known to use the Nordic Mythology in the lyrics and they are no exception to that. They were they use keyboards in the music and the use of both Extreme and clean vocals creates an exceptional experience of sound. In some songs, Grutle Kjellson the lead vocalist and bassist was using a device to create some electronic sound that almost sounds like thunder. The setlist consisted of songs like - “Homebound”, “Kingdom”, “Congelia” and finally “Allfǫðr Oðinn” where Markus Vanhala from Insomnium joined them in the final song of the entire tour.
Overall it was an exceptionally great show and I would really like to congratulate the management for pulling off such a tour in a completely different continent.
Enslaved
Insomnium
Black Anvil
