A rainy cold day in the south of Holland. With a hang-over that would make your kid-brother more envious then any american pedophile of the Neverland-ranch, metalragers Siem and Lex were invited to visit a gig in the wonderful concert hall that is the W2 venue in Den Bosch. After getting in on Siem's name (causing some confusion on his behalf) I was pleased to find out the W2 serves coffee. Caffeine and metal. A fine combination!

The afternoon metal-matinee started off with the Dutch death/metalcore formation DarkDayRising. Loud thumping music filled the hall and it proved to be quite an entertaining bunch of noise. Nice brutal grunts stirred my coffee without ever touching my stirr stick, although I suspect some massive effects going on here, for it sounded more than a little unhumanly low and brutal. Anyhow the music was a nice blend of Sepultura-ish slampit metal, with some fat greasy grooving death metal side-orders. Too bad the band has split up by now, it was one of their last gigs ever, something that could be seen off some of their faces by the way. The stage presence was crap due to some more-than-grumpy face expressions.

(Erectie-fication: Jasper from DarkDayRising e-mailed me to say his vocals contain no effects what so-ever. 100% natural grunt. )
(Napalm Lex)

Next up on the bill was German metalcore band Deadsoil. One out of a million, but still some nice thumping low-in-the-belly-punching-metal-riffs going on, so no worries. Good stuff to enjoy one's coffee. But very far from special. The singer's various failed attempts to get the sleepy (mostly Caliban fanatic) crowd going were entertaining though. Let's see what Caliban can bring on this day of hangover and rain..
(Napalm Lex)

And so it was time for the main act: the German hardcore/metalcore-band Caliban.
I really looked forward towards this performance, because of the extremely heavy and brutal music, but it disappointed a little bit.
Most of the songs were coming from the latest album ‘The Opposite from Within’, and because I had never seen those songs live, I was curious. The band started with ‘The Beloved and the Hatred’ and asked the crowd to go insane. The guys also managed to create a ‘wall of death’, where the crowd is split up, waiting for the sign from the front man to crash into each other, and a circle pit. With this, Caliban proves to be a good band on stage. And the breakdowns, man, how I love those…
But the thing that bothered me is the fact that Caliban is way more brutal on a disk than live. Especially the vocals are a little bit annoying, not containing the energy and brutality that characterises the band on cd.

So, the Caliban gig was interesting, because the band proved to be a good live-band. Songs like ‘My little secret’ and ‘Roots of Pain’ prove that the guys have made some good songs, but as a fan I’d rather pump up my stereo.
(Siem)