Moonshade, Destroyers Of All, Survive The Wasteland
Metalpoint, Porto
29th November 2014
Moonshade’s EP “Dream | Oblivion” has been available digitally on Bandcamp since May, but now they’ve released it in physical format. So a release party was mandatory. Playing melodic death metal, they invited two bands of different death flavors – straightforward death metal and a more thrash-oriented one – bands that “tore down the stage”, as Moonshade singer Ricardo said later on, adding that it was just what they had expected, hence the invitation.
The first was Survive The Wasteland, formerly known as Suffochate. Already under the new name, they’ve released a 2-track EP (3-track if you count the intro) last year, “Devour”, “Sculpting The End” suitably wrapping up the show. All the other five songs – including “Stolen Ceremony”, to which the band recorded a “live in studio” video – are still a work-in-progress to a future release. A promising one, by the sound of it! Despite the crowd standing a couple of steps back – singer Cláudio and bassist Miguel taking the clearing for themselves here and there – and the moshers kicking their circle just for the last song, one could tell Survive The Wasteland were making an impression, given the constant headbanging and the growing enthusiasm in the applauses. I believe these kids from Matosinhos have a good thing going on here. (5 / 5)
www.facebook.com/survivethewasteland
Next came Destroyers Of All. Warmed up… no, heated up by Survive The Wasteland, 
the crowd started moshing earlier. The fact that they had a bunch of hardcore fans there also helped, screaming along the lyrics and everything. After all, if you make it to the finals of Wacken Metal Battle (losing to a more veteran act, Revolution Within), you must be good enough to earn followers along the way and get a lively crowd every time you go on stage. “Into The Fire” it’s the only recording so far, an EP with four shredding tracks (plus intro & outro) and its title track seems to be the most popular. Among those songs they played also a new one, “Death Healer”, and a couple of covers, Death’s “The Philosopher” and Pantera’s “Cowboys From Hell”. Singer João introduced the first one as a song from a band that “you might have heard of before”, and the trick to make the crowd scream louder came from drummer Filipe, who said “what, am I the only one who knows them?”. And yup, the trick worked. “Astral Projection” finished another great set. (5 / 5)
www.facebook.com/DestroyersofAll
Despite their more melodic approach, Moonshade weren’t less intense. They even had a guest keyboard player, Nuno Barbosa, to produce that authentic sound that samplers never achieve.
“Dream | Oblivion” is already their second EP, the first released four years ago with the title “The Path Of Redemption”, so this gig was a mix of them both – quality melodeath made in Portugal. And while the rest of the band keeps a bit to themselves, frontman Ricardo is otherwise very expressive. And amusing. For instance, when introducing “Genesis 3.5”, he warned us they would bore us with those almost eight minutes of a song. Or, close to the end, when a fan picked him up and carried him through the front rows, holding him between his legs, Ricardo would thank him, claiming it had been real fun, although he probably wouldn’t be able to have kids in the future.
When the show was over, the crowd wanted more, but the singer said they didn’t have more songs. Someone asked for them to repeat one song (he was specific about the song, but I honestly can’t remember, sorry) but Ricardo replied they didn’t have any more songs of their own but there were “the songs of others”. And the night ended with a brilliant cover of Amon Amarth’s “Guardians Of Asgaard”. (5 / 5)
www.facebook.com/moonshadeofficial
Metalpoint celebrated its 7th anniversary the following day and these three bands put up quite a pre-party.
Text & photos by Renata “Pieni” Lino
Valkyrian Music 