On October 8th, 2014, In the Minds of Evil North American tour featuring Carach Angren, Abysmal Dawn, Inquisition, Septic Flesh, and headliners, Deicide, took The Webster in Hartford, CT by storm. It is not often that a tour package truly puts together from to opener to headliner a bill where every band brings out excitement in the audience. This tour, however, defied those odds and had every fan in attendance wanting more after the final note ended.

First up is symphonic black metal three-piece, Carach Angren. Coming into this show, I had not heard a single peep about this band or what they were all about. Sure, some of you may think that is ignorant and I should listen to the band’s work first. I, however, love the element of surprise and this band surely had the upper hand on my ignorant ears. Most of the set was dedicated to the latest album, Where the Corpses Sink Forever, with half of the songs being from said album. Personally, my favorite track played, entitled ‘Bloodstains on the Captain’s Log’, is off of the previous album that is entirely about The Flying Dutchmen legend. Upon doing some research, I found that Carach Angren albums are all concept albums, each about a different folklore/legend. This band will certainly be making their way onto my iTunes library in no time.

Another new band to me was up next on the bill, Abysmal Dawn. Awkwardly enough, I confused this band for Amberian Dawn which is a vastly different band. In my opinion, I think I made off a lot better with Abysmal over Amberian. I unfortunately do not have any of the song titles that played, but I am certain we got one song off the yet to be released album entitled Obsolescence (Relapse). If that song was just a taste of things to come, I will be sure to pick up the next release without a doubt. Abysmal Dawn rocked The Webster hard throughout the whole set with their aggressive yet groovy death metal which certainly left me wanting to hear more of what the LA foursome had to offer.

The celestial black metal two piece known as Inquisition had the middle of the card to play (which I was extremely excited for as they have become one of my favorite black metal bands out today). I figured with a new album out last year and minimal North American tour exposure we would get a good chunk of new material and we did. The set opened up with ‘Force of the Floating Tomb’ (yes I chanted “raise the chalice” with Dagon) and saw other new favorites ‘Master of the Cosmological Black Cauldron’ as well as the closing song, ‘Infinite Interstellar Genocide’. The Hartford crowd also got older tracks such as ‘Those of the Night’, ‘Nefarious Dismal Orations’, and ‘Command of the Dark Crown’. Overall, Inquisition got to play 8 songs in total over a 40 minute span which actually seems like a lot, but of course I could really go for a headline tour at some point by the next album’s release. If you have not checked this band out yet, the new album, Obscure Verses for the Multiverse (Season of Mist), was one of the best albums to come out in 2013 and I highly recommend it.

What better way to follow up the band that released my favorite album in 2013 then to have the next band playing be the creators of my favorite album of 2011! Septicflesh, who may be the greatest extreme metal band out there today, brought their A game as per expected with the creepy sounds of the Prague Philharmonic playing over the PA. I may have mentioned how good The Great Mass (Season of Mist/Prosthetic) was in 2011, but Septicflesh’s newest release that came out this year, Titan, is also a larger than life release from these Greek geniuses. Ironically, only two new songs made the cut for the set. Even so, the two choices were excellent choices with ‘Order of Dracul’ and ‘Burn’. Staple songs such as opener ‘Vampire From Nazareth’, ‘Communion’, and ‘A Great Mass of Death’ kept the fans head’s banging and bodies colliding in the pit. Typically, I have seen Septicflesh close their sets with ‘Five Pointed Star’. This time around, I actually got to see one of my favorite SF tracks as the closer, ‘Anubis’. I am happy to report that I sang along with the Sotiris vocal recordings over the PA while others just started at me like I had six heads.

To close out the night, The Webster attendees were greeted to a lengthy set list from the death metal icons themselves, Deicide. The set list contained a couple of select tracks from the newest release (‘Beyond Salvation’, ‘End the Wrath of God’, ‘Thou Begone’, and the title track, ‘In the Minds of Evil’). However, most of the remainder of the set list brought a ton of classic Deicide for fans ranging from as young as 17 to as old as 48! Some of the classics played were: ‘Once Upon the Cross’, ‘They Are the Children of the Underworld’, ‘Dead by Dawn’, ‘Dead but Dreaming’, ‘Trifixion’, and the set closer, ‘Kill the Christian’. The moment that I got the most excited (along with a lot of other fans around me) is when album track ‘Scars of the Crucifix’ was played. Something about that song live just brings out the crazy side in people which I absolutely loved. Front man/bassist Glenn Benton was in his usual form. He even got a good laugh out of the audience when he flicked a bass pick over to a fan, the fan missed it, and he exclaimed “Nice catch, Fuck Face!” Overall, this showing by Deicide was the best I have seen them yet and I am looking forward to the next time they come around.

Even though I was coming right from my day job almost two hours away, had a hard time finding parking with no cash on hand, and was a little nervous for my interview with Christos from Septicflesh (coming soon) this journey was very much worth it! This was also my first show at The Webster in Hartford and I have to say I certainly enjoyed the venue. I will definitely be making a return to Connecticut for the next big tour that does not make it to Massachusetts for sure. For now, I am going to catch up on my Deicide and Inquisition while growing my music library with albums from Abysmal Dawn and Carach Angren.

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Septicflesh on Facebook

Inquisition on Facebook

Abysmal Dawn on Facebook

Carach Angren on Facebook

TIM LEDIN