Front lady Natacha Geisler from DETHGLOW is a very, very pretty woman.

The sounds that come out of her mouth as she bellows into her black dildophone (!) are, on the other hand, in no way purdy stuff. She lays down a brutal grunt, Jaegermeister bottle in one hand, dildophone (!) in the other and constantly confirming my prejudice that women just can't bang their heads properly.

Although most of the guys, yours truly included, in the barely half-filled venue are automatically in an oddly good mood due to the unusually lovely sight on stage, and the atmosphere therefore is quite good, it doesn't conceal the fact that Dethglow still have a long to go if they want to make it big.

The style is a crossover of thrash/death/hardcore and in my honest opinion, a red thread is lacking in the material and the delivery is at times unfocused.

The bass drum is to die for, by the way - but what can you expect when Tue Madsen is turning knobs?

Rating: 55/100

The last time I saw VIRA was at the Aalborg Metal Festival in November, and wasn't too impressed back then. Back then I complained that the four-piece came off with a good start and then lost momentum. This is not the case tonight. The modern metal/death metal blend is kept at a steady pace and seems so much more refined and focused after Deathglow's slightly messy gig.

And who needs a bassist when you have two seven-string guitars, eh? There is something special about Vira, and if the sympathetic Copenhagen band manages to nurture that and break more free from their inspirational sources, I have a feeling they could go far.

Rating: 70/100

I read a few comments the other day from people who'd seen ILLDISPOSED a few days before this gig. One commented that the death metal veterans looked tired and worn. To be honest, I can see where that comment could come from.

There's not a whole lot going on on stage, but I'm wondering - was there ever? I never went to an Illdisposed concert to see Bo Summer and Batten fly around on stage. In my view, they never were a party (Summer's idiotic jokes aside, naturally) - no, they are all about heavy as shit death fucking metal.

No, there are no flames spurting, no blood, no corpsepaint, no frills, there's just five geeks with a bad hair day that lasted for twenty years now, and there are just arse-tight songs like Purity of Sadness, I Believe, Throw Your Bolts, Submit, Now We're History, Psychic Cyclus, oldie Reversed and three newbies Your Own Best Companion, Heaven Forbid and Rape. I mean...I don't need much more than that!

The spice of this evening and thus the marking of the band's 20th anniversary is the small parade of guests on stage, Natacha joining in with a bit of female vocals, as does another brutal young maiden with long blonde hair whom I've seen before, but got no clue who is - anyway, she also throws in a death grunt on one of the old tunes and finally, Morten Gilsted, the guitarist who wrote the track Submit joins in for that very track as well as the classic death metal piece Purity of Sadness.

Perfect way to spend a Thursday night!

Rating: 85/100