AMONKLOK (Amon Amarth & Dethklok) Tear Up Las Vegas

Article and all photos by Chris Rosalejos

LAS VEGAS, NV - On May 21st, 2026, Las Vegas, Nevada was welcomed by the "Amonklok Conquest Tour" which is basically a fancy word play on Amon Amarth’s and Dethklok’s band names mashed together with special support act Castle Rat.

Vegas was the last stop for this tour and took place at the PH Live inside Planet Hollywood whcih is something I did not take that for granted, because they did not have to stop here at all considering they were in Salt Lake City, Utah the night before. Also, for the first stop of the tour, they were in Phoenix, Arizona which is not too far away as well. Many bands skip Vegas for many reasons, and the fact that this tour came to town was extra special.

CASTLE RAT – Wow!!! If you’re into medieval stuff like The Witcher series, anything viking related or Game of Thrones, this band is right up your alley. 

Castle Rat is a doom metal band from Brooklyn, New York but there is definitely a lot of folklore and fantasy influence in their music and you can hear it from Riley “Rat Queen” Pinkerton’s vocals. 

Each member of the band have their own costume with a specific theme, the guitarist as a vampire, the bassist as a plague doctor and the drummer as a viking, and from what I can tell, vocalist Riley is rocking an Egyptian queen style. 

It is so refreshing to see a band incorporate more than just costumes as they had brought out their own stage performers that is rat grim reaper and rat dragon. Yeah you read that right, a rat grim reaper and a rat dragon. 

AMON AMARTH – Metal's favorite Swedish viking heroes were back in town, after most recently supporting Pantera in 2025 at T-mobile, and I also recall them stopping by here in 2024, 2022 and years prior to that. Even with all the recent stops to Vegas, PH Live was packed out.

While the band does not have costumes, they do have a gigantic viking helmet platform for the drummer. They also have various statues on each side of the stage that changed throughout the set that went from a viking, to a viking ship (I did a quick search and I believe they are called "drekar"), and finally a dragon or serpent of some kind.

Their set was very theatrical, and I am still trying to wrap my head around how they fit all that into their band trailers. Surely they come apart and are put back together piece by piece, right?

DETHKLOK – Have we all watched Metalocalypse from the early 2000s? You know that one brutal animated music show that surrounded itself on a band called Dethklok. It turns out they do live performances but not in a way that you might think.

While there are actual live musicians playing the songs, obviously the characters are fictional and from an animated tv show. I can understand why the performers are hidden by smoke and fog throughout their set as it would break the immersion of the show being played on a big screen, however I am a firm believer that performers no matter the circumstance should get their spotlight and fame.

With that being said, it was absolutely hilarious and core-memory unlocking to see the show being displayed on the big screen as this was a show I had watched growing up. 

The musicians absolutely crushed it song after song. I hope in the future the rule on hiding the musicians changes as I believe fans would love to see more than just a big screen.