Eindhoven and metal go way back. Especially our German readers might recall barbequing on our Dutch freeway during one of the biggest traffic jams in the country’s history: the one where tens of thousands of our Eastern neighbours were on a pilgrimage to Dynamo Open Air. When the festival moved away from Eindhoven, it kind of died throughout the years. Sad it may be, but hell, times have changed and moving on can be a healthy thing. Last weekend a new metal festival called Loud From the South had it's premiere in the same city that D.O.A. had it’s roots. With a decent line-up, a relaxed and ‘gezellig’ atmosphere and above all: amazing sunny weather. Oh wait. The whole thing was held indoors. Damn. But then there was a bigger issue: the sound quality was pretty crappy overall. Thankfully,  it didn't spoil the fun.

The opening spot on the first edition of Loud From The South was reserved for The Lucifer Principle. The band hails from Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, and has been together since the end of 2004. With two demos and one full length, released last year, the band is mentioned as one of the promising death metal bands hailing from The Netherlands. Unfortunately there weren’t that many people on the festival grounds and due to the great weather not many people witnessed the show. Quickly after the band started playing, people noticed the sound wasn’t that good which caused the crowd to get even slimmer. Lucky enough for the band, the people who stayed in the venue actually enjoyed the show including songs like Burn and Into Decay. Their live performance is amazing and actually it is a pleasure to see a Dutch act delivering quality death metal like The Lucifer Priciple does. (Buzzin Hornet)

Evile (right picture) are a bunch o' thrashers from the U.K., that have no shame in sounding very 'every day' Thrash. Mostly eighties stuff like Exodus, Testament and above all: Slayer. Not that this is a band in denial, judging from songs like ‘Bathe in Blood’ (no, really). Kerrang! wrote that “Evile is carrying the genre's whole revival on their shoulders” but that would be pushing it. Like thrash needs to be saved. And if it did, it would have to come from a band sounding a lot more original than this. Conclusion for this second band to perform today: a bit more personality and this might really be something. For now it’s just ‘nice.’ (Lex)


Motorjesus (left picture) might seem like a ‘new’ band, but in fact these Germans have been playing their metallic hardcore (or hardcoric metal, for that matter) for ages. Hailing back to 1992 – then operating under the silly name Shitheadz – these guys have been around. A true breakthrough hasn’t come yet, and if it’s happening any time soon, I doubt Loud from the South will have had any part in it. Most of the folks at the festival were outside eating eggrolls and drinking beer. And Motorjesus? They were playing to somewhere around fifty people, like it was a stadium crowd. You gotta admire that kind of attitute. I did. However, after twenty minutes, I did from so outside. With an eggroll. (Lex)

When the sun was at its highest point and all the metalheads attending Loud from the South were outside the building enjoying it, Pilgrimz (left picture) had to play inside on the small stage. These Danish guys play a mix between modern metal, rock & roll and some hardcore - which should be highly entertaining live. Unfortunately not this time, ‘cause with only one row of public against the fences there was no atmosphere for a metal party. Frontman Max did his best with funny comments and jokes (“yeah, we always play this bad”, “everybody go check our website, www.myspace.com/nirvana”) and he even went off stage to step into the audience, but it all just didn’t help. Too bad, but I give them better chances as supporting act in a small club. (Mindsaver)

Of course no one’s happy if the sound is no good, but bands with keyboards have to suffer even more. Norther’s performance today wasn’t really one to remember, as the band probably will agree. Their repertoire, a set combining old and new songs, was probably only recognizable when you either knew the songs, or when you were wearing earplugs. The keys were completely lost in the mix and seemed by far not as impressive as those of Warman, that guy from the band they are always compared with: Children of Bodom. A pity, Norther dragged down the level of Scandinavian metal on Loud from the South. (Mindsaver)

One of the bands that got greatly hampered by the bad sound was Only Living Witness (right picture). The band, playing their final show 'ever' in Eindhoven, and it was almost a pity that they had to do it in this setting. It took a good 20 minutes before the whole band was actually hearable through the PA system. The set list consisted of tracks from both 'Prone Mortal Form' and 'Innocents', and the band did a great job playing these songs for what might be the last time ever. Too bad there were only a handful of fans in attendance to witness this, a band like this deserves a small club show with more people showing up! Keep checking Metalrage for an interview with OLW's Greg & Jonah! (Carn)

From a historic point of view it’s always great to see a band that originated a genre. Especially when that band stood at the very beginning of two genres. An honourable title which Carcass shares with very little others, can you name a few?! With their records released at the end of the 80s Carcass created the rotten sound which was to be called goregrind. This slowly evolved into melodic deathmetal which was also their demise. Wacken was the first to book the reunion tour of this legendary band, but reunions are often criticised because of course everything was better in the past. Well, fuck that, Carcass still sounded as gruesome and beautiful as on their records and they put up a great, satisfying show. Of course, everything in the past is always more ‘true’, but especially for those who had not seen them before, this show was an excellent chance to get a taste of these goregrind and melodic death-godfathers. (Sledgehammer Messiah)




Headliners Soulfly were the first band to have somewhat of a good sound today, which was a major relief. Max Cavalera and his friend and family treated the audience to some hardcore Brazilian tribal metal, with of course some occasional Sepultura hits mixed in with his Soulfly material. It has become quite obvious that this line-up is the one in which this band feels most right to its founder, which has lead to a tight and convincing act. Material from all albums was played as usual, and again even some riffs from Slayer and Metallica. Soulfly proved today that they’re well capable of headlining a festival, leaving a satisfied crowd behind at one of Holland’s youngest metal festivals. Next time with a better sound please. (Demondust)

In the end this first edition of Loud From the South was a very ‘gezellig dagje uit’ where the poor sound quality of the shows and the fact that it was indoors couldn’t bring down the positive and guh-zaal-lig-uh atmosphere. Besides, name another festival where a beer will cost you 2 Euro? Metalrage and LFTS will meet again, I’m sure.