The first band up was Another Messiah, which is totally not my kind of music. Not low-tuned, not heavy, and certainly not slow. I cannot appreciate the vocal approach, and a clarinet is definitely not an instrument I was willing to hear after two days of metal. Original though, but not my thing. Anyways, I didn’t like it but I know from the responses to our album review of this band that there definitely are some people that are into this stuff.

 

Heavy Lord recently got a positive album review, by me of course, and is in my opinion still the best stoner doom band this country has to offer. It had been quite some time since I had seen them, so I was looking forward to this performance. Right in the first song, disaster struck. An amplifier failure took care of guitarist Wesley, who then quickly had to get a spare one. They managed to keep the song going, which still sounded all right with one guitar in it. But when we continued with full power I was very happy. Thick phat stoner riffs combined with some very heavy doom that gets the THC flowing right towards your brain were blasted out at a nice volume. I heard some very nice songs that I hadn’t heard before and some of the songs that are on the album I reviewed. The drummer delivered a brutal assault on his kit like usual, but the bassist’s vocals were again something to question about. Fortunately they were a tad lost in all the distorted noise so I didn’t really care. Again a nice show by these Dutch doomers.

 

The first time I saw Gojira was in the Little Devil, which is like one of the smallest stages in The Netherlands. Nevertheless they managed to deliver a show that made my jaw drop to the floor, so my expectations were very high for this, slightly bigger, show in 013’s Batcave. If this appeared to be as good as last time, I promised that I would never speak a bad word about this band ever. And goddamn Jezus armpit-fucking Christ, they did. TIGHT! Tighter than a racoon’s anus would be a good bandname for these guys. I just cannot believe that you can deliver your tracks with the same expertise live as they sound on the albums. It was my jaw versus floor, which quickly turned into a headbanging frenzy. I now worship.

They started out with the first track of ‘From Mars To Sirius’, their last album to let the people gently get used to what is yet to come. I think I’ve narrowed down some influences of this band, and I think they lie somewhere between Morbid Angel, Strapping Young Lad, Fear Factory and Opeth. Sounds interesting doesn’t it? So that stands for a lot of fast riffs, phat grooves, killer breakdowns and some highly experimental rhythms. There even is this one song where they play a riff in the end of which I just can’t get a grip on what the rhythm is at all.

I’m not gonna continue talking about this anymore, not even about the magnificent sound this afternoon, the perfect vocal lines or the interesting drum solo. This is gonna go places. If not, I’ll do something disgusting. Like watch Grease part one and two and Saturday Night Fever all in a row, and I’ve sworn never to watch those movies, ever!