Abbath

Live at The Regent Theatre

Los Angeles, CA

March 28th, 2016

Review and photos by Travis Baumann

Last year, Abbath, the legendary frontman and chief songwriter for the seminal Black Metal band Immortal, announced his departure from his cohorts.

This at first seemed depressing news but without delay, he further heralded the launch of his own project under his own moniker.

And so it came to be, Abbath put together a band utilizing talent from his Norwegian homeland; first and foremost, King Ov Hell of Gorgorth/Godseed fame, to assist him in continuing his breed of Black Metal assault.

I have been a fan of Immortal for some time and love both Abbath's vocal style as well as his guitar work so I was very excited to see him live on his first solo tour.

Not only did he treat us to a good share of the songs off his debut album, but he also gave us a nice portion of Immortal songs and even a song off his one-off side project "I".

They started off the set with "To War!" which is also the kick off track for the album itself. This lead directly into "Winterbane", their first single and video from the new release.

For the third song we got the awesome "Nebular Ravens Winter" which comes as a bonus track on the new album but was originally released on Immortal's 1997 "Blizzard Beasts" recording.  

I wasn't sure how much Immortal material we were going to get but I was excited for whatever he chose to include.

Another great surprise was the song "Warriors" from the "I" side project, "Between Two Worlds" which was the first time that King Ov Hell worked with Abbath.

Returning to material off the new Abbath record, they played "Ashes of the Damned" followed by the iconic "Fenrir Hunts" track.

The new material sounds exactly like I had hoped in that it stays true to the Immortal sound but are original pieces that contain all the signature musical and lyrical foundations that I love.

Giving us more Immortal material, they played "Tyrants" off of "Sons of Northern Darkness" back to back with "One by One" off the same album.

They spiced it up with "Count The Dead" off the new album, followed by "Solarfall" from the Immortal album, "At The Heart Of Winter" before bouncing back to the new album again with "Root Of The Mountain".

They closed out the set with two of my favorite Immortal songs, "In Thy Kingdom Cold" from "Sons Of Northern Darkness" followed by one of my all time top tracks of theirs, "All Shall Fall" off of the album of the same name.

It was an absolutely awesome show, the set list could have only been improved with maybe a couple of more songs off of "All Shall Fall" like "Unearthly Kingdom" or "The Rise of Darkness" (and hey, I am a sucker for "Damned In Black" as well) but overall I could not be happier with what we got to see.

Whether you are a longtime Immortal fan or have yet to become acquainted with them, I highly recommend seeing these guys live. One of my favorite Black Metal artists and one of the bands that got me into this type of metal in the first place and now the legacy continues as Abbath.

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