The last time I was confronted with Transmission0 was when they opened up for Ephel Duath, a band with whom they have little in common. But a perfect opener for this evening if I do say so myself. They started earlier than scheduled which allowed them to play for about forty minutes, which is a very decent set when opening up I’d say. Their postcore is played on a very high level, something I’m starting to realize more and more every time I see these guys. Good slow riffing, with a lot of melody and the occasional heavy eruption. Very enjoyable like the previous time, and an excellent warm-up for the rest of the bands.

 

On Cult Of Luna’s previous tour Fear Falls Burning was also opening up. Although he played for only twenty minutes or so back then, I was quite impressed with his approach to minimal drone, contrary to most of the audience present at that show. This time proved to be quite overwhelming to me. As he started his set of two songs, I found myself up on the balcony, rolling a joint of course. After about three quarters of his first song I decided to venture down to really feel his drones in my body. When he finished the song I thought it was the end of the show already, but luckily he immediately started the next track, which proved to be utterly amazing. He used three tones from his effects, while echoing and vibrating his guitar, thus creating massive soundscapes. Something like that was also the set up for the first song, only more drone-like. This time he was first joined by one of the guitarists of Cult Of Luna (the one that also handles the screams) and later also by their drummer. It was an improvised performance, but it was stunning nonetheless. Within moments I was absorbed into the gigantic soundscape created by this threesome, floating on those three founding tones with everything around it. I found this threesome to be very worthy of a full blown project, but I can only hope for this to happen. After the show I got acquainted with the man behind Fear Falls Burning, I believe his name is Dirk and I received a promo copy of his I’m One Of Those Monsters Numb With Grace LP, which I will review here soon. And to the man himself, sorry for letting my beer fall into your merchandise bag! My apologies.

 

Cult Of Luna now seems to be really getting popular, judging from the probably sold out Kleine Zaal of 013. Their new direction of postindie or whatever you want to call it seems to be working quite fine, and the material of their latest effort, Somewhere Along The Highway, was overly represented in their set of tonight. I watched most of what I saw (couldn’t stay until the end, had to catch the train) from the balcony, where the sound was quite timid, but as I went down, it appeared to be still quite loud. Just too bad that they kept their set so gentile, because I love their rawer, more exploding stuff. But I was already pointed out in my interview I did on their previous tour that those days are not coming back. I personally prefer the old stuff, but that doesn’t mean I don’t dig the new material though. That stuff is just far less intense, or maybe intense in another way, but it missed the impact the band had on me the first time I saw them. But what am I complaining about, they played in a packed venue with loads of people that love what they do. You go guys!