Concert review: Dethklok, Amon Amarth, & Castle Rat | 04.22.26, The Factory (with photo gallery)

Photo of Dethklok by Laura Jerele

I walked into this show not knowing what to expect. What I got was way more fun than anything I could have honestly imagined! It felt like I was stepping into three totally different metal worlds that somehow made perfect (and over-the-top) sense together.

Castle Rat kicked things off with a four-song set that was straight-up theater kid metal in the best way possible. We’re talking vampires, a sexy Grim Reaper, and yes, an actual GIGANTIC “castle rat” running around like it owned the place! It felt a little doomy, a little throwback to the ’80s, and a whole lot of fun. This Brooklyn-based medieval fantasy doom crew leans all the way into their characters, led by Riley Pinkerton as “The Rat Queen,” alongside Franco Vittore as “The Count,” Charley Ruddell as “The Plague Doctor,” and Joshua Strmic as “The Druid.” And yeah, they commit. Their frontwoman completely ran the show. She was commanding, dramatic, ridiculously charismatic, and leaned all the way into it with sword fights and a full-on death-and-resurrection moment that I absolutely ate up. She was beautiful and talented, and was having a really good time. It wasn’t just music. It was a mini play, and honestly I would have taken four more songs of it without blinking.

Then Amon Amarth rolled in and turned the whole place into a Viking ship. Vocalist Johan Hegg is such a crowd fave, it was game on when he came out with a huge (and I mean huge) reception from the crowd! Their stage setup was massive, with fog pouring everywhere, lights cutting through, and a drum riser that felt like it was trying to touch the ceiling. They had us rowing like Vikings, headbanging like our lives depended on it, and pretty much immersed into their metal Viking world. I think I prefer seeing them indoors now, as I felt it held more ambiance than the last time I covered them when they played our outdoor amphitheater. Loud, theatrical, immersive, and unapologetically over the top. Damn, ya gotta love it! I noticed fans do not just casually watch Amon Amarth. They participated, they “rowed,” they crowd surfed, they headbanged. St. Louis, you definitely got the assignment!

And then there is Dethklok, which is where things got weird in the best possible way. Created by Brendon Small, they do not even pretend to be a traditional live band. They had us shoot from further back in the venue so we would only capture the complete offering as the band seemed to take a backseat to the full production. Completely backlit and barely focused on themselves at all, they let the animated chaos from Metalocalypse take center stage on the massive screen above them. It was heavy, wild, and weirdly hypnotic. It felt like watching a show and a concert at the same time. The fog was unreal (cough, cough), the visuals were nonstop (my eyes! those flashes of bright light!), and the crowd went completely feral all night. For me, it’s not strange to see a backlit and almost “don’t look at me” vibe, and yet even the band was fun to watch in their version of darkened silhouetting.

Hands in the air, nonstop headbanging, crowd surfers flying, all on a school night. Absolutely unhinged behavior and I loved every second of it. I had no idea it would be like that, so I’m super happy I made this show! What made the whole night hit so right is that this easily could have felt disjointed. But it wasn’t at all! Three bands, three totally different vibes. It somehow felt like a perfectly stacked triple bill of super theatrical metal in all its myriad forms. Campy and dramatic, epic and immersive, weird and innovative. Nobody held back and let things get over-the-top, and that is exactly why it worked. I freaking loved every minute of it. | Laura Jerele