Oldschool deathmetal is here to stay – LIK livereview, House of Metal 1/3-19

9/10

I have made the House of metal festival my annual trip back “home” to Umeå as I used to live there. During my eleven years in Umeå I visited House of metal many times and wheter or not you live there or not you always run into old friends and people you know at the festival and the most frequently asked question is “which bands are you here to see?”. Usually there is a big span on the answers ranging from “I think it´s to much black metal this year” to
“Fuck! This is the best year on this festival” to “I am just here to drink beer” but this year everybody I ran into all mentioned one band they were going to see and that band was Lik. During the last ten minutes before the show the room starts to fill up and by the time the guys in Lik come on stage the room is literally packed from front to back. The singer walks up to the microphone and with the question “House of Metal are you drunk yet?” the show starts. They rip into the openingtrackfrom their latest album “Carnage” and right from the start the whole room is on fire. All I see in the first five frontrows is a wall of hair, raised fists and devilhorn signs.

The band is tight and fast and delivers a solid performance of oldschool deathmetal. About ten minutes into the set the small moshpit that started earlier now has grown into a big circlepit that seems to suck the audience into it and you can tell that the band is enjoying every minute on stage and the connection with the audience is strong throughout the whole show. The band doesn´t talk much between the songs other than “Damn you guys are great” and “We don’t want to stand here and talk bullshit. Let’s play!” and there is no need for anything else.

The songs played are mainly from their latest album “Carnage”, in fact the whole album short of one song is played, and also a couple of songs from their first album “Mass funeral evocation”. The show lasts for one hour and during that time there is no sign of either the bands or the audiece energy fading.

If you are a fan of fast, heavy, oldschool deathmetal in the style of the swedish, and in perticular the Stockholm, deathmetal sound then this is definetly for you. Lik is a great liveband and with “Carnage” they show that oldschool deathmetal is here to stay.

Who: Lik

Where: House of metal, Studion

When: 1/3 -19

Rating: 9/10

Best songs: To kill, Only death is left alive, Dr Duschanka