Belgians AFTER ALL returned home on their support tour with AGENT STEEL, after two days on the road in Holland. And with plenty more to follow all over Europe … Since the band’s new (fifth!) CD was just released (also on vinyl!), this could be regarded as kind of an unofficial presentation of The Vermin Breed. No less than 7 out of the 9 CD songs were performed tonight, plus three from predecessor Mercury Rising. Quite surprisingly they included Selfdestruct (from 1997’s Transcendent release) as well. The material on The Vermin Breed is once again a step further for this quintet, taking the basis that was formed on Mercury Rising and change it into an even more heavy and thrashy direction. I just hope the next step won’t turn out to be into death or black metal territories! Despite a rather inferior sound system, the band gave it their best shot. They managed to please a certain part of the audience (those already familiar with the new stuff), while the rest remained rather apathic. Although their closing cover version of EXODUS’ Piranha was met with great acclaim!

Well over five years had passed since AGENT STEEL's previous visit to Belgium. That was in January 2000, during their European tour in support of Omega Conspiracy. Albeit with yet another line-up : Bernie Versailles stayed home to support his pregnant wife and was temporarily replaced by NEW EDEN's Tim Thomas. And drummer Chuck Profus has been replaced by Rigo Amezcua of course, but that's old news. Tonight's set started out identically to the previous day; Unstoppable Force, Rager, Illuminati Is Machine, followed by the entire Skeptics Apocalypse opus, plus Avenger and Ten Fists Of Nations. Needless to say the crowd was heavily into all of this. Then it was time for some extra songs, by means of E.U.L., Dead Eyes, Human Bullet and Forever Black. A fine change of pace compared to the previous songs, and only paving the way to the grand finale : Nothing Left, Know Your Master and Mad Locust Rising. Which ended this show on a high note. Although the sound was far from perfect, the band delivered the goods all the way, and the audience most definitely appreciated it. Hopefully we'll see AGENT STEEL return to the European continent once their new CD will be released, later on this year!