Houten Deathfest - Sinister, Sanatorium, Begging For Incest a.o.
With its third edition, Houten Deathfest is already becoming a renowned and stable event in the death metal scene. This time, the line-up was expanded and even more underground than the last edition, and so Sledgehammer Messiah and I went to the Chipolata for some slamming brutality! Unfortunately we missed the first band of today, Cote d’Aver, so our first act was Putrid Inbred from Belgium. For me personally a perfect start, because this unknown act to me already played some quality brutal death metal. Funny was that both vocalists had a very soft voice while they made comments between the songs, but their grunts were alright. Despite the early moment and the good weather that tempted a lot of people outside, there were still enough kids to do some moshing on the dance floor. Promising! (Mindsaver)
The next band on the bill was Darkall Slaves. Now who said that the French didn’t bring forth any quality bands? They haven’t even got a record out, but already made it to one of my favourites of the festival. Again a twin vocal-attack, but remarkable was the fact that both singers didn’t vary much, but mostly did the same parts together! This caused an extremely brutal presentation, something that was of course necessary to stand out on an event like this. Great to see was that I wasn’t the only one enjoying their show, but that the whole crowd was going nuts, resulting in a brutal moshpit and even some crowdsurfing. As a reward they even got to play an encore, quite an accomplishment for the third band on stage. A freaking cool band that made me really curious for their debut. (Mindsaver)Witnessing Provocation after this brutal start was a little less entertaining. The band remained brutal, but the sound was not as good as with the acts before. Their material also wasn’t outstanding, certainly not compared to the other bands. I also remember them as the band that played the most covers, which is of course fun, but shouldn’t you fill your short set with your own tracks only? Don’t get me wrong here, the band did fine but they weren’t outstanding and thus not a band to remember. A bit average. (Mindsaver)
The band with the most absurdly brutal name you will come across is Begging for Incest. Together with Made out of Babies definitely among my top favourite band names. Begging for Incest from Germany was the youngest band on stage tonight, with their debut EP Awaiting the Fist just released last year which made a really smashing impact. I for one was really curious whether the singer could do the ten seconds long solo grunt in ‘Crushed Testicles Smeared With Excrements’ as well live as on record. Well, it wasn’t the full ten seconds but it definitely didn’t miss its impact. Begging for Incest managed to live up to everyone’s expectation and with multiple people from the audience grunting along on stage with the Devourment cover ‘Babykiller’ they ended a show which could have been the headliner! (Sledgehammer Messiah)With Corpsefucking Art from Italy it was time for a more experienced and older band. The number one thing that struck me was their awful guitars. Now, I do not criticize these things normally, but when both guitar players are playing a headless guitar with a body which was the size of my penis I do make an exception. It just looked extremely funny and far from brutal. Well, apart from that Corpsefucking Art did a fairly good job and it was cool to see these brutal death metal acquaintances once, but after Begging for Incest this just missed a real massive impact. (Sledgehammer Messiah)
The band that hereafter really blew my mind was Sanatorium from Slovakia. Just as Corpsefucking Art a band with a history from around 1995, but these guys did still possess the holy fire. Damn, I was really astonished how fucking brutal and overwhelming these guys were. For me Sanatorium was thé discovery on Houten Deathfest. Cool breaks and twists, with a bass player who came somewhat near the playing style of Origin’s bass player, slapping and fucking up his bass really good. The other star was the singer whose constant pig squeal-styled grunts sounded as if his guts actually came out through his mouth and he also looked as if this was happening. A perfect band in total, which I found out is way better than on record. (Sledgehammer Messiah)
The headliner of tonight was supposed to be Human Mincer, but was on the very last moment cancelled and replaced by Sinister. One of Holland’s death metal bands with the greatest history, releasing records on Nuclear Blast from 1992 till 2006. But 2008 AD Sinister has been outclassed by younger bands and they can’t live on their classics anymore. Some of the newer songs contain such ridiculously ugly, high and boring guitar riffs, it makes me cry. Sinister is a band that a lot of people already saw multiple times before and were not eager to check out their show or really go wild once more. They might be a bigger name than Human Mincer, but that is not what Houten Deathfest is about. It is about finally seeing a worthy show of those underground brutal death metal bands which you always wanted to see, with a good sound and a decent playing time. Once again, Houten Deathfest managed to provide us that opportunity, although the replacing headliner was not that great. Stay tuned for more info on an open air edition next summer, with planned headliner Devourment! (Sledgehammer Messiah) Photos by Richard Treurmars - www.lucid-dreams.org
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