Emperor and Agalloch: The Hollywood Palladium - Los Angeles, CA - 5/16/25
Norwegian black metal legends Emperor announced a short run of tour dates with different opening bands after every couple of shows. This tour would celebrate the 31st anniversary of their landmark and debut album, In the Nightside Eclipse. For this tour, they would be playing almost all the album for its celebration. One of the last stops of the tour was at the Hollywood Palladium. The opening band for the night was Agalloch who had finally reformed in 2023 after breaking up in 2016. A Friday night was perfect for a metal show of this caliber and, with a packed venue, was set to be an amazing night.
Agalloch prepared a special set for these two shows as Emperor’s support. For their set, they would be playing their 2006 third album Ashes Against the Grain in its entirety for the first time ever. The venue was nicely packed as the lights went out and the crowd cheered as Agalloch made their way to the stage. For many people, it was their first time seeing Agalloch. They began their show with “Limbs”, the first song from the AotG album. Their music is very soothing, but also heavy enough to where you could still head bang. The first song lasts almost 10 minutes and was perfectly played. Up next was the popular song “Falling Snow” and it was also played beautifully. The third song was “Fire Above, Ice Below” and it was special because, just the week before, this song was played live for the making time making the second time ever that this song had been played live. The next song was “Not Unlike the Waves” and was a fan-favorite song and fans could be seen moshing to the song. Vocalist/guitarist John Haughm did an amazing job as he alternated between haunting clean vocals and harsh black metal vocals. Nearing the end of the album, Agalloch next played "Our Fortress Is Burning... I" and is the first time that the song has been played live since 2013. It was 5 and a half minutes of instrumental goodness. The last two songs played were "Our Fortress Is Burning... II - Bloodbirds" and "Our Fortress Is Burning... III - The Grain" which also has not been played live since 2015. The album came to an end as Agalloch thanked the audience for watching their performance and then left the stage. It was now time for the mighty Emperor to take the stage.
Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse is, without a doubt, one of the greatest black metal albums of all time. It has influenced many black and extreme metal bands. Knowing that they were going to perform almost the whole album on this short tour drew big crowds of metalheads. Hollywood was no exception as the venue was near sold-out capacity. The lights went out once again and the packed venue once again cheered with excitement as the intro track to the album started. The band came out one by one and started their show with “Into the Infinity of Thoughts”. Vocalist/guitarist Ihsahn was on point with traditional black metal high-pitch singing that still sounds just as good as on the albums. Joining him was guitarist Samoth who, along with Ihsahn, formed Emperor in 1991. After a brutal start, Emperor continued the show with "The Burning Shadows of Silence". Fans were moshing and even crowd surfers kept coming and kept security up front busy. After a few more classic black metal tracks, Emperor played their most popular song, "I Am the Black Wizards". It drove the fans just as crazy, and they continued to mosh and crowd surfers just kept showing up. For the album’s finale, Emperor played another one of their most famous tracks, "Inno a Satana" (Italian for "Hymn to Satan"). It was an experience seeing the album played front to back and everyone in the audience had a blast. Emperor finished up the album, and now it was time for some greatest hits. The next song played was "Curse You All Men!", which Rolling Stone magazine ranked it as number 42 on their list of "The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs". After that, Ihsahn let the audience know that they would now be playing some songs from their second album, Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk. Up first was "Thus Spake the Nightspirit" and it’s one of their best songs that’s always welcomed to hear live. A couple of more songs from that album were played which included "The Loss and Curse of Reverence" and "With Strength I Burn". To end the show, Emperor played "Ye Entrancemperium". The fans gave it their all as they were still moshing and were appreciative that Emperor had come back to Los Angeles. A powerful performance from one of Norway’s best bands and the show seemed to end as quickly as it began. Emperor thanked the audience for coming out and then left the stage. Hopefully, it’s not long before Emperor comes back to deliver classic black metal tracks to the masses.
