Nile/Hypocrisy/Soilent Green/Raging Speedhorn

I arrived to interview Peter from Hypocrisy and just in time to catch part of Raging Speedhorn's set and from what I gather this was their first time playing the States. From England , their sound is a mix of hardcore and metal, what they call metalcore today which is characterized by harsh aggressive vocals and mid paced groove based riffs. The band has two singers which trade off yelling verses at each other basically and I say yelling because they both sounded like they were trying to squeeze out a mean shit. If this is your bag then you will dig all the screaming because that's what it is, I know the crowd did not seem to interested.

Soilent Green from New Orleans were next with a style incorporating mostly forceful screaming and some death metal growls. The music ranges from grindcore to doom riffing, usually switching gears many times within a single song. A litter different from Speedhorn in the musical department but again a lot of screaming and barking which made it feel like you were hearing the same band twice. The crowd also did not seem too interested in Soilent Green's semi psychedelic doom sound.

Hypocrisy clearly had an audience awaiting them as I stood in the photo pit fans clamored again the barricade awaiting them to take the stage. Their brand of Swedish style Death/Thrash Metal obviously appeals more than the hardcoreish/metalcore stylings of the openers, and from the looks of it that “metalcore” sound finally appears to be dying out.

Peter's vocals granted are harsh, but fluctuating between nasty and a growl with the melodic guitar leads and tight rhythms gives more bite for your buck. The music also varies from full on thrash like “Warpath” to a mid pace for the extra terrestrial themed “Eraser”. Known for his respected studio work, mainman Peter knows his way around the guitar neck and makes a conscious effort to keep the music heavy but with purpose and direction.

Hypocrisy setlist:

War-Path
Eraser
Fire In The Sky
Scrutinized
Impotent God
Carved Up
Roswell 47
Let The Knife Do The Talking

Nile headlined this package tour of extreme metal, a genre that continues to draw large audiences to my surprise still. Even with 105.5 WDHA's Metal Mania show on Friday nights the format lends towards these Death and Metalcore bands. On the radio? Impressive if you think about it and Nile has been played on the show before. I have seen Nile a few times live and recently last year with King Diamond. I prefer them on disc instead of live as in a live setting it all comes across as a wall of sound. Extreme barked vocals, heavy doses of bass and drums, very technical guitar playing. I think their epic compositions and shear forceful music translates better on disc. You have to really like Death Metal to listen to this style for over an hour.