28-09-2012 Fear of Domination

Supports: Saint of Disgrace, Mass Murder Agenda; Venue: Bar Bäkkäri, Helsinki (Finland)
By: Sabine van Gameren

A heavy night in Bäkkäri was scheduled, three bands to break it all apart.

Opening the evening is the band Saint of Disgrace. The band makes Melodic Death metal and has been around since 2009. With just some small releases on their name it may have been tough to form an expectation at first, but they are quite straightforward while bringing their set. Guitars are standing out at first, while the rest steps up right away to bring the whole balance into it. During their performance the band brings up Saku Solin, singer of Fear of Domination, to the stage to sing a song with them. With many fans around a smart move because it certainly brought the people closer to the stage. A good show, shows that the band could bring you quite some in future, here and there taking it all an extra step further to highlight some elements and create that contrast which grabs people’s attention right from the start will do them well.

The Swedish formation Mass Murder Agenda is up next. With the familiar face of Martin Sundberg (Remember Sexydeath?! ) on stage the band must bring some confidence for Tempelores readers. The guys bring Industrial Metal, hard and confronting as you can think of. The band seems close to their audience, directing it straight at them, you cannot avoid feeling addressed, which makes the whole performance even more intense. While it only took shortly to have a little mosh pit starting, the band brings in a little break into the set for a more intimate song. It makes people wonder, stop the chaos that was going on at first but they never lost their attention and the party was back right away after that. The band also has visuals on stage, quite nice to see but unfortunately fell a bit back because the rest of the show is taking up the spotlights. Perhaps if it had been a larger stage it could have added more. Nevertheless the combination of the strong, present bass and the charismatic front man Tristan Agdler are a winner factor here tonight.

At the end of last year the Finnish band Fear of Domination released their second full length release “Create.Control.Exterminate.”. Many shows followed and so they are headlining here tonight in bar Bäkkäri. The guys are up for an intense show and the audience has gathered at the front rows not to miss a spot of it. While their set list contains the bands strongest songs the guys seem to win the hearts of their audience easily. Even though it is deep in the night everyone still sticks around. As a little surprise the band brought Jaakko on stage to join for some vocals. A full stage, where Melodics are not giving on any heaviness. Jaakko was the band’s previous drummer so for the longtime fans, nice to see him back here. After that a couple of more songs were played. As the party ends always too soon, so did this one, a little encore and that was it already.