Time for some true metal and sludge in 013! Lots of bearded misfits and metalfans with Manilla Road patches gathered to see the mighty Midnight, and three cool Dutch support acts.
The first band to hit the stage was Villany, a local thrash metal band. In contrary to the recent crossover/party thrash hype, they focus more on the aggressive German approach. The first few songs were a bit mediocre and the band didn’t really seem to feel at ease, but after they started a song with a riff much alike Procreation of the Wicked by the mighty Celtic Frost the crowd got moving and suddenly the band seemed to enjoy themselves. Still the stage performance was a bit timid, but musically these guys know how to write some cool thrash metal.
Acid Deathtrip" title="Search for Acid Deathtrip">Acid Deathtrip followed up with their so called “blasphemous bogie”. This might leave a lot to your imagination, but as soon as they started playing it became clear what they mean by this. Killer sludge/stoner in the vein of Mistress, Eyehategod and Crowbar. Even though I had a hard time getting into their record because the vocals were a bit too clean for my taste, the singer used a more raw voice on stage which fit in way better with the music. Another great plus was that all most of the members are veterans in the doom/sludge/grind scene with a clear view of how music like this should sound, so there were no parts that sounded anything but heavy as tits. They played an Iron Monkey cover as well (Supagorgonizer), and if you can pull that off without totally butchering it, you’re pretty ok in my book!
Herder" title="Search for Herder">Herder is probably one of the most loud mouthed (doom) bands from the Netherlands. If you missed out on their existence over the last couple of years, you should have left from under your rock a few more times. This was my first time seeing them with their new singer, and his voice and stage performance gives it more of an hardcore edge than the previous singer did. Instead of focussing on self hatred and passive aggression towards everything like most bands in the genre, Herder has a more action movie like take on sludge. Pretty good show overall, but nothing really special.
Time for some black rock ‘n’ roll with Midnight! If Lemmy and Venom’s Cronos somehow would have been able to get a child together, the result would have been Athenar, the evil mastermind behind Midnight. He writes and records all of the records by himself, and he has live musicians to perform his blend of 80’s speed metal with punk influences. The gig was just how it was supposed to be: three men with executioner hoods playing sloppy and raw metal punk like the 90’s never happened. Rows of denim clad headbangers were raising their fist and singing along to all the songs and Midnight delivered a really kick ass set. The guitarist stepped on his guitar cable three times so there were a few moments without guitar, but this all contributed to the raw punk vibe that was going on. They played a full set, but in my opinion it finished way to early. All hail hell!
