“The Unholy Trinity” lands on Buenos Aires: Behemoth, Deicide, and Nidhogg filled the night with growls, blast beats, and… “Satan”!

A really aggressive gig took place last September 30th in Teatro Flores. “The Unholy Trinity” tour brought to South America 3 brutal bands: Behemoth, Deicide, and Nidhogg.
A date to save on your calendar if you’re an Extreme Metal fan. 

The local band that opened the gig was Matan S.A., one of the Death Metal bands from Argentina with the longest uninterrupted career. At 6 pm, their show started. With a crusher and raw sound, they filled their setlist with songs from their “trilogy” albums (“El Silencio Es Salud”, “La Matanza Está por Comenzar”, and “El Orfanato”). The frontman, Wata, was wearing a black hood as he always does, making him look like a mystical shaman. With the display of brutality given by them, the ground was prepared to receive the international bands.

At 19 pm, the second band hit the stage, it was the Polish Black Metal band Nidhogg, a young band that includes 2 members from Batushka. 
The singer was totally painted in black, and I mean full body, with a loincloth, and white makeup on his face. Like he was part of some ancient tribe and prepared for a ritual. 

The first part of their set was pure Extreme Black Metal, but as the songs were passing by, they had a strange evolution in their sound, playing songs with a more traditional Black Metal sound (more like early Mayhem, Darkthrone, Bathory, Burzum) with more groovy and ambient riffs.
Their setlist was: “Narcissus”, “Mental Lycanthropy and the Calling of Shadows” (after this song the band left the stage as a tape played background and the singer got back wearing a crown of thorns and drinking a cup of blood, so you always remembered this was the “Unholy Trinity” tour and not a friendly one), “Transylvania”, “Sic Luceat Lux”, “Wilczyca”, “Horda”, “Jezcze Zemsci Sie Ziemia”, “Wyrocznia” and ended with a cover of “Territory” by Sepultura!

At 8 pm, things started to get warm when Deicide got onstage. The legendary Death Metal band from the USA brought a lot of fans to the circle pit with their set.
Glen Benton has always been an extraordinary frontman, making scary faces while singing and playing bass. The kind of faces that wouldn’t make you want to be on his path.
Their set started with “When Satan Rules His World”, “Carnage in the Temple of the Damned”, and “Bury the Cross… with Your Christ”. The intensity in the venue was huge; a lot of people showed up to the gig, especially to see Deicide. 
The setlist continued with “Behead the Prophet (No Lord Shall Live)”, “Once Upon the Cross”, and “From Unknown Heights You Shall Fall”. The beast behind the drums, Steve Asheim, carried the songs with his powerful blast beats that felt like an earthquake in your body!
“It’s good to be back in Buenos Aires,” said Benton before introducing us to the next song: “Sacrificial Suicide”, followed by “Satan Spawn, the Caco-Daemon” and “Sever the Tongue”.
With every song, the savageness in the circle pits just kept getting bigger, as if metalheads received amounts of energy from every guitar riff and couldn’t get tired at all.
“In Hell I Burn”, “They Are the Children of the Underworld” and “Scars of the Crucifix” approached us to the end of the incredible set. Two more songs were played before shutting the instruments once for good: “Dead by Dawn” and “Homage for Satan” (where the people even sang along to the guitar solo).
The Deicide show sounded so good and was so intense that Behemoth would have to make a really good one to stay on the race.

At 21.30, the Polish guys appeared onstage after a blackout and the intro tape, the first song was “The Shadow Elite”, from their latest record “The Shit ov God”. As always, the four-member band was totally on corpse paint. Orion had his armour that made him seem even scarier than he always does. Nergal had lots of ornaments and clothes that he changed between songs. 
“Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer”, “Demigod”, and “The Shit ov God” were the next songs. Inferno kept on demonstrating the drum monster that he is, and the lights followed every hit of his double strokes. It was kinda hypnotizing.
With “Conquer All,” the crowd sang along with the catchy main riff, and the same happened at the “Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel” intro. Those songs were followed by “Ov Fire and the Void” and “Lvciferaeon”. The tone on the lead parts of Seth’s guitar was amazing. They’re really on another level.
The band played “Bartzabel” next, and then a tape was played. After that, they came back with “Wolves of Siberia”, “Once Upon a Pale Horse”, and “Christians to the Lions”. 
It was easy to see how much rehearsal was behind it; in some parts, they had kind of a choreography, where they lifted their instruments on a long note or threw them down. 
Nergal introduced us to the next song by asking a question: “how many of you were born after 1991?”, and after seeing lots of people raising hands, he responded “ok, so this next song is actually older than you”, and played “Cursed Angel of Doom”, the first song he composed for Behemoth, in his words. The setlist continued with “Chant for Eschaton 2000”, where Orion jumped into the crowd. After that, the band left the stage, waiting for the encore. Which came sooner than later, and had them playing the last song of the night: “O Father O Satan O Sun!”, there was an incredible part in the middle of the song where the tape was still playing when they left the stage, so they came back wearing 4 same masks. And they just stood there playing the long instrumental outro of the song. Without moving a single step, just standing there watching ahead, as if they were in a trance.
That was the last couple of notes that we heard on a night filled with growls and blast beats and a lot of “Satan” in the lyrics, haha!
The concept of the “Unholy Trinity” worked really well; every band gave their 110% and the crowd proudly did too.

Review by Agustin Lopez

Photos by Juan Bertuggia

Produced by Icarus Music

Press Marcela Scorca