Thor Almighty! In November there will be a certain Amon Amarth parking his viking longship neatly on the Anspachlaan in order to use battering-ram ‘Deceiver Of The Gods’, their ninth long-player already, to break open the doors direction AB (or the Walhalla). With the mythic stride between the Norwegian god Loki and the faithful Thor as theme and cover of the new album, there will, as of old, be pounding, roaring, trashing and conquering. Winning bleeding death-metal hearts, that's what Amon Amarth has been doing with every new album since ’92. So with ‘Deceiver Of The Gods’ this Swedish collective will again ascend the highest peak of Mount Melodic Metal.

Amon Amarth has never before appeared as headliner in AB (though they were here in ’07 as support to Dimmu Borgir) so you can safely say that this shall be a celebration. And what do we need for a decent sacrificial feast? A Carcass of course! These British grindcore-pioneers evolved in the direction of melodic death metal with their masterpiece ‘Heartwork’ from ’93. The guys gave it all up in ’95, only to return from the dead in ’07. They recently placed their blood-drenched signatures under a Nuclear Blast record deal and are currently working in the tomb on a new album ‘Surgical Steel’, with Colin Richardson (Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death, Sepultura) behind the dials. This, dear lovers of the better metal, is what we call a special guest!

According to De Morgen, Graspop 2010 was a victory march for Amon Amarth. The show was described as The Concert of This Graspop Edition. So don't hesitate, allow yourself to be willingly led into this great battle.

It's raining legendary bands! Hell, along on the ‘New Wave of British Heavy Metal’ together with the likes of Iron Maiden and Raven, roe up out of the earth in ’82 and could already head back into purgatory in ’87 after their Belgian label Mausoleum went out of business and their debut plans took a dive. That blow hit hard for guitarist/frontman Dave Halliday and resulted in an act of desperation. Twenty years later, in ’08, the remaining three original members got back together with a new vocalist and one Andy Sneap on guitar. That Sneap is best known as producer/engineer/mixer of bands like Megadeth, Soulfly, Killswitch Engage, DevilDriver and… Amon Amarth. In ’11, the tormented Hell released that (very) long awaited debut after all: ‘Human Remains’ via Nuclear Blast (Carcass, Dimmu Borgir, Graveyard). That clearly had them itching for more, with successor ‘Curse And Chapter’ now in the making.