The first two support slots for Death Angel's show at Wolverhampton's Little Civic were filled by local bands Forlorn and Dementia. Now the Little Civic is not the biggest venue but even given that the room was not exactly packed, which all added up to the feeling that, as Forlorn thrashed it out with growls and interesting bass effects aplenty, they were playing in their own garage, a fact only emphasized by the fact that they played through their relatively short set mainly looking at the floor. Dementia on the other hand could obviously play their instruments, highlighted when they were messing around tuning their guitars. Despite these musical talents their songs felt somewhat disjointed and drawn out, varying between styles without much of any obvious link and their singular ballad orientated number certainly felt out of place at a Death Angel show. 

Mercenary sorted out the problem of having too many band members for the size of the stage by having keyboardist Morten Sandager set up on the floor and, with things running late, their set was sadly limited to only a few songs. At first they didn't appearing to be getting beyond first gear but, as the set progressed, things certainly improved and with the crowd getting more into them the band seemed to grow in stature and enjoy their short time on stage, gratefully acknowledging those in the crowd making an effort. Whilst new songs, ‘Bloodsong’ and ‘The Endless Fall’, sounded great it was really the closer ‘11 Dreams’ that showed what the band are capable of, hopefully next time they come to the UK they'll get a longer set to show off their skills. 

Having relatively recently reformed, it was good to see Death Angel jumping around the stage serving up both  recent material and a batch of older songs with the exuberance of a new band.  It didn't seem to matter whether they were playing newer songs like ‘Lord of Hate’, ‘Dethroned’ and ‘Sonic Beatdown’, or  older tracks like ‘Mistress Of Pain’ and ‘Kill As One’ the crowd were into everything the band could throw at them.  

At times the stage appeared like a curtain of hair as singer Mark Osegueda swirled his locks all over the place but he was the man in control all night. When he wanted hands in the air there was a sea of them and, along with having to dodge the feet of energized crowd surfers, he managed to build a good rapport with the Wolverhampton crowd. It is as if Death Angel never disappeared on hiatus, they were on form and on this evidence they deserve to be at the vanguard of the current thrash resurgence.

Darren Brushneen