Live at The Grove

Anaheim, CA 4/16/2008

Review by Travis Baumann

Keep of Kalessin were the opening act for the Behemoth and Dimmu Borgir joint North American tour. I was actually not familiar with them so did not know what to expect except that they were Scandanavian Black Metal.

They had landed themselves a pretty sweet gig with those two mighty performers as headliners so they were about to introduce themselves to a huge number of potential fans. They had a huge backdrop from their newest album "Armada" which had an image of hundreds of armour clad warriors.

They themselves came out in black leather attire and a very light dusting of facial makeup compared to the other bands this evening. As they took the stage they immediately broke into a really heavy, fast song and the anxious crowd burst into the first mosh-pit of the evening.

There had been some small children with corpse-paint makeup in the first row who had to be immediately lifted over the barrier by security and rushed to safety as their parents got pummeled into the barrier itself.

I can appreciate not wanting to give up your music or your lifestyle when you have children but lets face it, front row at a Black Metal show of this magnitude is not where they belonged and if not for the quick thinking of the security, those kids would have been pulp on the floor.

Keep of Kalessin were masters of the syncronized hair whipping where the guitarist, bassist and singer would get their heads spinning in perfect timing making spiralling pin-wheels in time with the music.

The singer would usually have his hair in his face making it extremely hard to actually see him much less get a descent photo that wasn't a mic jutting out from a mass of hair.

The guitarist and bassist would sing back up on the chorus which added power to the songs.

In actuallity they were pretty damn good and were a great opener for the other two better known bands. After their set I ended up talking to quite a few people and everybody reiterated the same sentiment and were all pleasantly surprised with them. Good job Keep of Kalessin!