Autumn, Sylver Myst - A severe lack of audience
Gothic metal music is on the rise everywhere. Within Temptation just signed a contract with Roadrunner America, Epica played on a highly regarded national radio program, After Forever toured Latin America. Obviously there is a big market for this type of music. So how is it possible that just a few people went to see Dutch Goth acts Sylver Myst and Autumn this past cold and Friday night at Perron 55 in Venlo? This is definitely a case of bad promotion from the venue itself. A couple of years ago After Forever played this joint and the house was fully packed. It is not impossible to attract more people.
With barely an audience in front of them Autumn kicks off their show with ‘The Green Angel’ from their Summer’s End album. It is immediately clear that their bombastic music is more than the local P.A. system can handle. In the first few minutes the vocals hardly come through. And that is really a shame, because vocalist Nienke de Jong is blessed with a good voice. At certain moments keyboard parts are completely inaudible. This is of course not to blame on the band. The sound might be bad, but they play very tight and know how to provide an audience with a good show.
Autumn also provided the audience a taster from their forthcoming album in spring of 2007. The new song ‘Angel of Desire’ is nice but it is quite predictable. And that is the main critic I have: the lack of variation. After a while the songs tend to sound alike. But I guess that has also to do with the style of music. Variation isn’t exactly used as the main ingredient for cooking their meal.
Autumn’s pre-show is provided by fellow band Sylver Myst. These guys also have to deal with a bad sound. The enormous feedback during the first few songs is extremely annoying to both the audience and the band. I wonder why this didn’t show up during sound check.
Perhaps the bad sound is also the reason why singer Marjolein Hüsken occasionally sings out of tune. Then again the band plays very tightly. Musically speaking they are quite OK, but variation isn't exactly something they are about. One or two songs escape the standard mid-tempo structures. Besides that they don't have really exciting material.
Now if these guys and one lady want to create a mystical dark atmosphere on stage that is fine by me. Just don’t try to do stand-up comedy as well. Making stupid remarks about some parakeet right after you played a song isn’t exactly to be called entertaining. It really doesn’t fit what you’re trying to present on stage.
Now if these guys and one lady want to create a mystical dark atmosphere on stage that is fine by me. Just don’t try to do stand-up comedy as well. Making stupid remarks about some parakeet right after you played a song isn’t exactly to be called entertaining. It really doesn’t fit what you’re trying to present on stage.