October 6th, 2022

Their 3rd North America appearance in 12 years, Polish Death Metal veterans Hate, embark on a main support slot, touring with Batushka (your choice of which Batushka is better, I suppose).  Not only in the rarity of witnessing the band live, as well as the outstanding quality of their shows, this was beyond an honour to see again.

              Using mainly a red lighting backdrop, the setting on-stage felt grim, atmospheric, and delightfully sinister.  Asides the Hate poster hanging on the wall, it was just the four members of the band, delivering fundamentally sound, enriching, detailed Death Metal.  “The Wolf Queen” incorporates the sizzling, crushing strengths Hate possesses:  pummeling, clean sounding drumming, tastefully changing tremolo riffs, soaring and grooving tempo changes.  With most of Hate’s albums clocking around the 40-minute range, the songs leave a lasting impact, differing between short bursts, and rare longer tracks.  “Sovereign Sanctity” describes the latter, evolving from their earlier years to now a Death Metal approach with Blackened Metal influences.  That tremolo riff introduction, morphing into an agony-filled speed picked chord, enabling the listener to feel this sudden, darkened dread.  Nar-Sil’s vicious, pounding double-bass, was a furious-sounding menace the entire set, to the point where it hindered the volume of the other instruments, for the first couple of songs.  Sweeping cymbal combinations, numerous counterpoints performed with his arms and legs, and this frenetic, tornado-like destruction of pace, the shocking level of precision and pulverizing power of his play, kept my head shaken in disbelief.

            One of the forgotten aspects of Polish Death Metal, were the insane amount of talent found in their drummers, as well as the unique, subtle changes in the riff arrangements, placements, and the note changes in themselves.  From Vader, Decapitated, Dies Irae, Yattering, Sceptic, Devilyn, etc, certain riffs would be used in the front, center, and end of the song.  The special part about it, are the number of changes in either tempo, palm-muted form, ending the track, bringing back those riffs as climaxes or as an outro, so fluently.  The criminally underrated riff collection, deviating desolate lyrics, and creative songwriting of Adam “The First Sinner”, has span literally 30+ years, and in one of Hate’s 2005 classic, “Hex”, taking those 4 riffs and turning them into 8 differently played riffs, in a matter of 4-minutes, demonstrates the driving, prolific musical vision of Hate.  A glorious growl that doesn’t change much, but bold, memorable, and a bowel of a snarl, all while providing guitar skills from a distance, his effort looks plain, but it’s the technique that he possesses.  A sight to behold, and a wonder sonically to absorb.

            Backed by quality musicianship, Domin covered the majority of the leads and solos, performing “Valley of Darkness” to the letter.  One of Hate’s longer, mid-paced, and epic tracks, the band losing no momentum from a tsunami force of blasting, to experimenting with Arabic, Persian sounding guitar scales, invoking a hypnotic headbanging mood for this surprised and engaging crowd.  A varied setlist, playing from 6 of their LPs, left a lasting, invigorating 55-minute performance, with much of the audience awaiting Batushka, and asides a number in attendance here for Hate mainly, the band won the Brick by Brick over, also making this the longest set I’ve personally seen them play.  

Hate gets compared to Behemoth a lot, especially in the vocal diction, Polish Metal, and how Behemoth’s early 2000s Death Metal sound came to be.  Maybe a song, two at the most you might feel that way, but upon a quality listen, those assumptions should be dissipated immediately.  Ironically to that notion, Hate started a year before Behemoth, and they just are two completely different bands.  I’d argue Hate is the most underrated Metal coming out of Poland, regardless of other names.  They deserve that respect, and their San Diego performance was one to not be forgotten about either.     

1. The Wolf Queen

2. Luminous Horizon

3. Sovereign Sanctity

4. Triskhelion

5. Erebos

6. Valley of Darkness

7. Rugia

8. Omega

9. Resurrection Machine

10. Hex