Greek thrash metal: Suicidal Angels in Tokyo
Two nights of excellent thrash metal with Greece’s Suicidal Angels in Tokyo.
Suicidal Angels at Garret Udagawa, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan on 17th and 18th February 2025
I saw Greek thrash metal band Suicidal Angels when they first played in Japan a decade ago when they performed at Japanese Assault Fest. Guitarist Gus Drax had just joined the band then and the live show was great. Now, ten years later, the band still has the same line-up. During their two gigs in Tokyo, it was apparent that this band had gigged a lot since I last saw them. It has a solid, road-tested line-up of thrash metal warriors. Consistency is a word that comes to my mind when I think about Suicidal Angels. They are very even both in a live setting and on the studio recordings. They always deliver. They have that splendid combination of aggression, drive, melodies, commitment and attitude needed to create and perform proper thrash metal.
Founding guitarist and vocalist Nick Melissourgos leads the band and is backed up by drummer Orfeas Tzortzopoulos, bassist Angel Lelikakis and guitarist Gus Drax.
In Tokyo, the Greek thrashers served us two nights of proper old-school thrash metal. The setlist was, as hoped, a mix of early classics – such as “Bloodbath”, “Bloody Ground”, “Born of Hate”, “Years of Aggression” and “Apokathilosis” – and the best songs from the band’s most recent album, 2024’s “Profane Prayer”.
The fact that they performed seven of the latest album’s nine tracks shows us how great the album is. On both nights we got aggressive and sweaty versions of “When the Lions Die”, “Crypts of Madness”, “Purified by Fire”, “The Return of the Reaper”, “Virtues of Destruction”, “Profane Prayer” and “Deathstalker”.
An exquisite version of “Capital of War”, from 2016’s “Division of Blood”, finished these excellent shows.
Hopefully, we won’t have to wait another decade before Suicidal Angels will tour Japan again.
https://www.facebook.com/suicidalangels
