Slim’s club in San Francisco played host to the mighty Amon Amarth on their Twilight of the Thundergods tour. 3 other bands, each in the vein of death metal/folk metal accompanied them: Ensiferum, Belphegor and The Absence. Amazingly, we had not seen any of these bands live yet, but we heard plenty of good things. Even though it was raining outside, this show was hot and sweaty – and packed. I watched some young lady pass out next to me and get carried out the front door (this seems to happen near me a lot), probably from too many jager shots. Aside from that mini-drama, the people at the show were cool and most everyone rocked their balls off. I also left the show with a new found appreciation of the light operator, who is completely out of control and must be borderline spastic. Next time I’m going to video it.

The Absence started off the concert with a solid set. Their version of Testament’s Into the Pit was solid and got the crowd pumped, people didn’t seem to notice the giant “NO MOSHING” sign posted next to the stage. I couldn’t stop staring at their guitar player’s gigantic dreads, I mean, if he wind-milled any faster he would start to generate lift and possibly decapitate his bandmates.

Belphegor was up next, and I was excited because I heard some of their stuff before and I thought it was going to be the “heaviest” set of the 4 bands. I was let down though. Their vocalist came off as incredibly cheesy, almost like some parody of himself, but not in the Devin Townsend or Dethklok kind of way. Their songs, albeit somewhat technical, didn’t have a lot of dynamics and it was mostly blast-blast-hail-satan-blast-double-bass-hail-satan-blast. Anyways, I won’t talk too much shit, but this was about the time I went outside for a smoke break.

Ensiferum, as someone at the show described, was like good “old-fashioned” beer-drinking folk metal. Folk metal is not my expertise, but for what it’s worth, these guys were alright. Well, at least I enjoyed them more than Belphegor. The only band of the night with a lady in the band (keyboards), you could hear elements of Trollhammeren in the tempo and electric accordion/keyboard. Still though, I was somewhat skewed on my views because I just wanted to hear some damn Amon Amarth.

Amon Amarth, as I suspected, totally ruled. I would’ve been happy with a 2-hour Amon Amarth set for the night and then called it quits. They opened up with “Twilight of the Thundergod” and didn’t look back. I can’t wait to see these guys again. The atmosphere reminded me of a voyage not unlike that of an old viking aboard his ship: drunk and sweaty, but a ton of fun.