Incantation & Mortician, but not Fatalist & Funerus, played Europa (pics)

photos by Suren Karapetyan, words by BBG

Incantation

“When I arrived at the venue, California’s Fatalist had set up their guitars and banner, but there wasn’t a single amplifier on the stage. Not a good sign… Just when it appeared all was lost and the show would be canceled, Incantation showed up with the gear. Mortician set up directly, meaning Fatalist and Funerus wouldn’t get to go on… Knowing their time was short, Mortician ripped open a casket of gore with “Zombie Apocalypse.” The crowd, who had been standing around for several hours making liberal use of the bar, erupted into an immediate pit… Unfortunately, the set couldn’t have lasted more than 15 minutes.

Incantation took agonizingly long to set up, perhaps disbelieving the strict curfew. When they ripped into the succulent opening riff of “Golgotha,” all else was forgotten. The decently sized crowd seemed cowed into passivity for a moment, but erupted into mayhem at the first lumbering groove…I was quite interested to see who would be on stage for this show. No band seems to have had more line-up changes in their history than Incantation. John McEntee handled the vocals ably. He dispensed serpentine riffage while growling out gobs of incomprehensible lyrics. The crowd reacted with rapture to each track, hair flying and pit raging. Several erudite fans yelled along, displaying the improbable knowledge of all the album’s lyrics…

I know I should be upset that only seven out of the ten original Onward to Golgotha tracks were performed… But it was still a good time, and an experience I won’t soon forget. -[MetalInjection]

Unfortunately, due to Incantation arriving at the venue four hours after their scheduled arrival time, the fact that they were supplying equipment for all four bands on the bill, and that Europa had a strict curfew in place, Fatalist and Funerus were unable to perform on 11/20, and Mortician‘s set was cut to 15 minutes in order to make sure Incantation had time to play (though as it says above, they didn’t actually get to finish playing all of Onward to Golgotha). More pictures from Europa are below…

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Mortician

Incantation