Dunkelheit

Emperor and Winterfylleth in Glasgow

It’s not everyday you get to see two of your favourite bands live together, this was an incredible oppurtunity for me and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.

There was no opening act, just the two headliners. Perfect for the sets played and the time allocated for them. The venue choice was perfect for the number of attendees too, not too busy but still crowded enough to have high energy and a great atmosphere.

The night started with Winterfylleth, who are one of my most favoured bands: Anglo-Saxon Black Metal! With this show being the first of the tour we were treated to a preview of not one but two new tracks from the upcoming album! The first being ‘To The Edge’ and the second being named ‘Dishonour Enthroned’. Both were incredible tracks of course, my favourite of the two has to be Dishonour Enthroned however. The rest of the set list was great picks as well, although there were some tracks I had hoped to hear the choices made were all fantastic and great fits for the evening. Two other highlights of the set was ‘The Reckoning Dawn’ and ‘Green Cathedral’ both of which are among my favourites from Winterfylleth, although admittedly my list of favourites from this band is almost their entire output.

After Winterfylleth was of course Emperor, the Symphonic Black Metal titans themselves. The entire set was perfectly lined up with each track being succeeded by an appropriate follow up. The tour is a celebration of the ‘Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk’ and as such the entire album was played with an exception for the intro and outro tracks which were played from recordings. In addition to this album the set also included greats from other albums including the mandatory ‘I Am The Black Wizards’ which had the crowd going wild and ‘Inno A Satana’ immediately following which was perfectly timed as the wild energy of the crowd exploded into a furious cheer. From start to finish the set was excellent with the band interacting with the crowd throughout. Speaking of timing, the decision to follow ‘Thus Spake the Nightspirit’ with ‘Ensorcelled by Khaos’ was a master plan in crowd pleasing, well done to whoever planned that.

With no sound issues (as far as I could tell from the front row), everything running on schedule and the venue itself having the perfect acoustics, spacing and size for a gig like this I can only praise the event. I had an incredible time seeing two bands I love, including one I doubted I would ever have a chance to see! Being able to hear two tracks at their debut was awesome too. I didn’t expect to be treated to such a joy, especially mid set when I had already came to wild conclusions about what song must be next based on which one was currently being performed. I expected that I would have a great time, I was not disappointed. In fact I had a such a good time that my expectations were thoroughly exceeded.