Neaera
Screaminal, Eternal Hated, Descending
Texas Necropolis, Athens
15/02/2009


It’s been a week since excellent War From A Harlots Mouth live and another German band was ready to hit Athens for the first time to show their musicianship skills and talent on Texas Necropolis stage. These dudes teamed up back in 2003 in Münster to play death metal spiced up with some power metal and extra dose of hardcore. And with a Greek originated band name coming from famous prostitute of antiquity they could deliver nothing less than an incendiary show. Three Greek bands were supporting them, heating things up and wilding the crowd out.

Screaminal -death metal/metalcore project from Athens- was the opening act. Neat tunes inspired by Swedish and American death bands like At The Gates and The Black Dahlia Murder were bursting out along with intensed riffs and brutal singing. Songs from the upcoming EP and a brand new track called “Cancer” completed the performance. A friend of the band got on stage to sing with George D for couple of minutes, sweet action.

Eternal Hated continued the warm up. They were replacing the original support band Die Without, which unfortunately was unable to perform due to some personal band issues. These guys from Volos are well

known here in Athens, and they have shared the stage with many local artists last year. Once again they were bombing the audience with metalcore sound braided with experimental insets from their EP “The Rise Of The Hated”, while enjoying the sing along and obviously having much fun.

Last but not least Descending were ready to get down to business. This time it was all about death metal combined with strong thrash influences. These lads already got themselves a strong fan base, European and Japanese releases and a decent number of played gigs. Crazy metal riffs married with melodic hook lines and good old thrash sounds generated some serious headbanging and hair waving ending up with people getting on stage being totally exhilarated.

First riffs of “Let The Tempest Come” and Benny’s screams immediately set the crowd on fire. Sing along, crowd surfing, stage diving, moshing, headbanging – everything was there to complete a truly fantastic performance. Old favs like “Anthem Of Despair”, “Walls Instead Of Bridges” and “Paradigm Lost” along with new kicks like “Armamentarium”, “Synergy” and “Spearheading The Spawn” delivered the needed portion of brutality, madness, energy and definitely true talent, charisma, focused passion and professionalism – characteristics that Neaera gained worldwide.

After 12-tracks-set Benny was up in the air, surfing around the stage, and the rest of the band waved hands with the audience having huge smile upon their faces. Sweaty, tired, beaten up, voiceless but mostly damn hyper and satisfied we fare welled them. But they made a promise to come back again, considering us a great crowd. Well we couldn’t be more happy about it.

Marga Rarity.