Korgonthurus, Inquisition
Klubi, Tampere, Finland
19th November 2016
It’s been a while since I’ve been to a black metal gig. The last two were in the summer when I saw Baptism and Barathrum live at a festival. I’ve seen a fair few of black metal shows in the past; only a handful of which were memorable in any way. Lately it’s been mostly the local black metal acts such as Horna and Barathrum that tour here, most of whom I’ve seen live before. So a foreign black metal band such as Inquisition is a rare treat since they do not tour Finland very often.
The venue was still filling up when the support act Korgonthurus started their set. I was actually pleasantly surprised as to how melodic they sounded as I was expecting some ultra harsh and raw black metal. Instead, this sounded more like old Horna. Only later did I discover that two of the band members including the singer used to play in Horna for several years. It was a good start to the night and it was definitely much better than I expected. 3.5/5
Inquisition drew in a sizable crowd. Unlike the previous band they started off rather slow, picking up the pace as the show went on. I’m not familiar with their latest albums but I did recognize one of the older songs ‘Dark Mutilation Rites’. It was good to see that they haven’t changed their style over the years. The new material has the same thrash metal tones in the guitar riffs mixed with a dark atmosphere and Dagon’s ghastly-sounding croaky vocals. The drumming was so accurate and perfectly timed that there was no need for any bass. Very impressive performance from this black metal duo. 4/5
Overall this was a good night and I’m glad that I got to see Inquisition live. Korgonthurus turned out to be better than I expected. This was one of the better black metal gigs that I’ve been to and it would be great to watch more shows like this in the future.
Iza Raittila