Like something straight out of a 1980s fantasy, the doom metal band Castle Rat came to the MGM Music Hall to expand and defend “The Realm” on April 29th. They set the stage as the opening act for Amon Amarth and Dethklok on “The Amonklok Conquest” co-headlining tour. The tour also celebrated 20 years of Dethklok, which was created in 2006.
Castle Rat’s opening set was only a 5-song affair, but they managed to cram a truly theatrical performance inside a half an hour. Facing their “Rat Reaper” nemesis, Castle Rat were led by their sword-wielding “Rat Queen” Riley Pinkerton. Costumed like an adventuring party out of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, the band shredded in style. They performed songs from their sophomore album The Bestiary to provide the heavy metal soundtrack to the spectacle, and the crowd went along for the ride with enthusiasm. Castle Rat enlisted new fans in their quest to expand their ever-growing dominion, and it seems that Boston has been added to their conquest.
Amon Amarth continued the dramatic display with their co-headlining set amidst a massive Viking-themed stage setup. They leaned hard into the theme, and the number of helmets and drinking horns visible in the crowd indicated that the audience understood the assignment. That fact was drawn sharply into focus when most of the room sat down and collectively mimed the action of rowing a longboat at the band’s command during the performance of “Put Your Back Into The Oar.”
After Amon Amarth’s full 14-song set, Dethklok closed out the evening. Dethklok, technically a fictional cartoon band featured on the satirical Adult Swim TV show Metalocalypse, has nevertheless garnered a very tangible fanbase. Brendon Small, the creator of both the animated and real version of the band was at the center of the stage, but like the other members of the live band, he was mostly cloaked in shadow on the backlit stage. Instead, much of the visual focus fell on the video backdrop displaying some of the fictional Dethklok’s most iconically brutal, over-the-top music videos. Their co-headlining set ran about 90 minutes, and despite a slow start marred by technical difficulties with the video, the crowd was fully ready to mosh and crowd surf to songs celebrating bloody vengeance and death.
The eclectic three-band lineup on the Amonklok tour was a welcome injection of unabashed camp and growling, full-throated, berserker energy on a Wednesday night. There’s little room for half-measures on the path to Valhalla, after all.
Check out the full photoset below:
