Just five months ago, Ne Obliviscaris did their first North American tour, opening for Cradle of Filth [photos]. As they promised (if we supported them), they would come back soon. I don’t think anybody really expected it to be this soon though.

In less than six months the band have launched a successful Patreon, all while amping up the quality and intensity of their live performance. The sound quality was so good that I took out my ear protection halfway through the first song. As we mentioned in our last NeO show review, the pieces that make up this band and their performance are worth more than the sum of their parts. Their music lends itself perfectly to opera hall venues and I can’t wait to see where the future takes them, as the crowd size and energy proved that they show no signs of becoming stagnant.

Opening for NeO was Pennsylvania’s Black Crown Initiate. They hit hard song after song with melancholic riffing, quite chilling acoustic breaks, and a perfect blend of harsh and clean vocals. Melting your face off from the opening of “Great Mistake” to the bass wizardry in “Stench of the Iron Age,” BCI delivered extremely clean musicianship, an ominous and looming stage presence, and blasting riffs. All reasons to show that BCI is one of today’s better bands in the growing genre of progressive death metal.

Starkill joined the bill with a limited amount of stage time but made use of every second. Throwing themselves, their instruments, and their energy around the stage as fast as possible. It was a miracle there were no major flaws in their playing when they basically go from spinning in circles to a guitar solo in less than two seconds. Merging the best of melodic death metal, thrash, and power metal, Starkill packed just as much musicianship as anybody else and easily doubled the other bands stage presence all in a short 30 minutes.

The shortest set of the night belonged to Vancouver’s AngelMaker. Their selling point was the layering of their two vocalists who would go between screaming and growls seamlessly on top of guitars that could equally switch between moments of brutal deathcore and melodic death metal. For the short set it was, it was pretty good!

It was a huge show! Be sure to check out the photos below.

AngelMaker

Starkill

Black Crown Initiate

Ne Obliviscaris

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