Gig

Watain - Gig Review & Photo Gallery Feb 22nd @ Max Watts, Melborune VIC

Walladmin

Heavy Metal Wordsmith

/10

Feb 23, 2019

7 min read

Watain
Max Watts, Melbourne VIC
February 22, 2019
Supports: Nocturnal Graves and Eskhaton

Swedish black metal royalty Watain returned down under on Friday night and kicked off their Australian/New Zealand tour with a deafeningly powerful first show. Melbourne locals, Eskhaton kicked off the night with some good old fashioned brutal death metal. While the crowd (as is typical) was just starting to make their way in during the set, Eskhaton certainly got them nice and warmed up for what was about to unfold. This was my first introduction to the band outside of their Bandcamp account, but I’ll definitely be following them a lot more closely from now on.

Nocturnal Graves are the support for Watain’s Southern Hell Siege tour and it’s easy to see why they’ve been given that spot. I’m going to make the call and say that these guys are in the top 5 extreme metal bands in the country. Nocturnal Graves bought their demonic brand of Aussie blackened thrash metal to a quickly filling up venue and judging by the amount of horns being thrown up by hands in the floor, everyone was as happy as I was with their performance.

Finally, the reason everyone was there f*cking Watain! The Swedish black metal veterans did not disappoint. Coming out onto a stage adorned with iron (I think) inverted crucifixes flaming from the top the five-piece got straight into some absolutely crushing metal and did not stop until the encore had finished. After the gig had finished and I was outside trying to talk to my brother who had accompanied me to the show, I realized I had about half of my hearing capabilities (guess who forgot earplugs). The hearing loss, however, was a small price to pay to see such an epic band up close, loud, sweaty, covered in corpse paint and demonic. The way gigs should be.

Watain, put on one hell of a show, as they should, having toured extensively for close to two decades. If you live in or anywhere near a city on that’s on their tour, do yourself a favour and get to one of their shows. If you live in Melbourne and you missed it, check out the gallery and think about what you’ve done.

Gig Review and Photo Gallery by Sean Fabre-Simmonds. Insta: @gravy_havock
Please credit Wall of Sound and Sean Fabre-Simmonds if you use published photos

Nocturnal Graves

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Watain