When we entered the venue, From A Second Story Window was already playing. I was really stunned just after hearing the first song. These guys make pretty amazing mathcore which I didn't expect to be this refreshing. It's very progressive and experimental, with rhythmic changes and melodious riffs. So without knowing their songs it was very nice listening to them. While one song is leaning towards death metal, another one is showing some technical mathcore. "Simply put, we are trying to create music for attention-deficit people" is what they say in their bio. On their latest album Delenda they also use clean and more melodic vocals and a piano. The crowd seemed to enjoy the setlist this evening. Their sound wasn't that bad this evening, but could have been better. I regret not having been able to see their whole show and I think a lot more people should have shown up, because they deserve a bigger crowd. (Lukie)

 

When Fear My Thoughts entered the stage I wasn't sure whether it was them, even after they started playing. I was especially confused by the singer which had a way higher screaming sound than when I saw them with Kataklysm at the beginning of this year. It turned out that I saw one of the last shows with their previous singer Mathias Benedikt von Ockl. It's pretty strange that he is still in the member section on their site while Martin Fischer has taken over his duties since this year. Well it doesn't really matter because both singers couldn't bring the vocal lines well live, especially the clean ones. With this new singer their sound has moved back to standard metalcore instead of the melodic death on the latest record, Vulcanus. They played few songs of this record, probably to fit in more with the entire metalcore package. Too bad, because by doing this they couldn't rise above the average metalcore band. (Sledgehammer)

 

My hopes on some real original metalcore, well actually deathcore, was on All Shall Perish now. On the previous year released record The Price of Existence there is a good balance between metalcore and death metal, which I found pretty original and refreshing. Tonight I kinda missed the brutality and thick, deep sound of death metal; the singer for instance mainly used his high screaming voice and we heard little real good deep grunts. Well, that's just my personal taste, but this for sure takes that special element of their music away. Still I found this musically the coolest show of the night since they offered the best musical technical spectacle; man those guitar players went really crazy! It's amazing to see those two tabbing many notes in aggressive riffs on a high speed. In total a good and impressive show, but I bet that this band is able of doing better, let's see how they grow in the future. (Sledgehammer)

 

The guys from Born From Pain are simply put the examples of metalcore with a pure hardcore mentality. With these guys from Limburg, who brought along Scott Vogel (also vocalist of Terror), this tour really started. And I'm talking about the activity coming from the crowd. I expected some pretty rough hardcore moshing, but after a failing wall of death during Fear My Thoughts with ten people just walking beside each other, Born From Pain were the first ones who really fulfilled the expectation. This mainly got to do with, what a surprise, Scott Vogel's appearance who stimulated the crowdsurfing and also added some pep-talk such as ‘we're staying pure in our music' which the crowd obviously liked. The audience went nuts on especially the older songs. The sound was alright when I compare it with the other bands this evening. After all I can say this was a very convincing show. (Lukie)

 

Singer Candace represented all the women in the venue, and probably the entire worldwide hardcore scene, and did this in a furious manner! Her stage performance comes really close to that of Scott Vogel concerning intensity and activity. Unlike Vogel she didn't allow people coming up the stage, some people didn't like that, but let's just say that a lady's will is to be respected. They gave one hell of a show, and they were the obvious headliner of this night. Too bad that we couldn't see their entire set, and a lot of other people didn't, but we sure enjoyed ourselves with the songs we did witness. (Sledgehammer/ Lukie)