Hamburg’s death metal titans play the Markthalle on April 18th – one day after the release of their sixth album. With Hiraes and Morbitory in tow, this is the most compact death metal night Hamburg has to offer in 2026.

Rise of Kronos play the Markthalle Hamburg on April 18th – their only headline show of the year in their hometown. The timing is no coincidence: Slaves of Time, their sixth studio album, drops on April 17th, the day before.

The band – Tom Robinson (vocals, bass), Jhonnie Ritter and Hendrik Schmidt (guitars), Marco Bechreiner (drums) – has built their path independently. Slaves of Time is self-released, recorded in-house, mixed by Nino Helfrich at Skull Tone Studios, artwork by Maciej Kamuda. Twelve songs, including already released singles “Conception Of Humanity”, “Escalate The Rot” and the title track.

“Escalate The Rot” comes with a video – directed by Ronald Matthes, who has shot clips for Sodom, Volbeat and Amon Amarth. Not a bad reference.

What Rise of Kronos claim as their genre sounds like a marketing invention at first: Olympic Death Metal. Anyone who’s heard the singles gets the point quickly – it’s modern death metal with a Swedish backbone, progressive structure and the energy of a hardcore act. Comparisons to Behemoth and Entombed are fair, without the band collapsing into either.

Before moving under this name, Robinson and co. released three albums as Surface before renaming in 2021. Slaves of Time is the third album as Rise of Kronos.

The support billing is no afterthought. Hiraes bring melodic death metal with real weight – two albums on Napalm Records (Solitary, 2021; Dormant, 2024, reaching #36 in the German album charts). Frontwoman Britta Görtz is no stranger to Hamburg’s metal landscape this month: she features on Kreator’s album Krushers of the World, which is also passing through the city in April. Hiraes are currently on their Nightflight Tour 2026 – this show is one of its stops.

Morbitory come from Hamburg itself. Old-school death metal in the tradition of early Grave, a fixture of the local scene. Nils “Angelgrinder” Burow, Myers, Michael and Henning Friedrich made their position clear with their EP Into the Morbitory (2016). The opening slot is well-earned.

Tickets are €28.20 including fees. Doors at 6 pm, show starts at 7 pm. Tickets available via Eventim.