Hell On Earth Tour 2008 - Walls Of Jericho, The Red Chord, Animosity a.o.
The Hell On Earth Tour is organized by Mad Tourbooking, an agency from Germany. Every year, a line-up with different -core related bands are touring Europe. And just like the last two years, there were some bands I didn’t want to miss, and so I took DemonDust with me to De Kade in Zaandam, where even an afterparty was scheduled on this Sunday evening.The band to kick off this afternoon/evening of hardcore and metalcore was the fairly young Stick To Your Guns. This five piece gave away an energetic performance filled with melodic hard- and metalcore with some rock ‘n’ roll influences here and there, yet they never managed to really impress me. The riffs never really grabbed me and the emo vocals failed to convince. Yet the performance was nice to watch and it was a good band to get in the mood for this long day of heavy music. (DemonDust)
Early on, I was already confronted with my favourite band on the bill: Animosity. These Californian youngsters delivered a kick-ass deathcore record entitled Animal last year, and lucky as I was, they played it almost in its entirety! That the singer didn’t reach his heavy screams live very well and that one of the guitarists was mixed louder than the other didn’t really bother me much. More important was that the same vocalist had a good stage presentation, and that their drummer - of whom I later found out that he’s also in Sleep Terror and The Faceless - was in top condition. Too bad that Animosity’s fan base isn’t that big to create a party. The sound was all right, but with today’s big empty circle in front of the stage there wasn’t any atmosphere. Maybe next time. (Mindsaver)
The reason I came to see this tour was the deathcore band The Red Chord. With these guys you can always count on a funny and quality live show, and today was no exception. They opened the show with the first two tracks of the Clients album that set the tone perfectly. These days the band plays with only one guitarist but this never really annoyed me in any way compared to the shows I’ve seen before. The only problem with this show was that the vocalist was hard to hear from time to time. They played a good strong set with tracks from all three albums, including one of my favourites ‘Dreaming In Dog Years’ from the first record. The funny stage presentation got some laughs from the crowd, which also slam-danced during the show, once even in slow motion which is very funny to see. A great show again and I regret that I can’t see them again next Sunday. (DemonDust)
After two of tonight’s most brutal bands, things of course had to slow down. Swiss act Cataract was also part of the Hell On Earth Tour in 2006, and considering their constant level of appreciation in the scene, they were invited again. Also, this time I didn’t have much to reprimand. Cataract is - their slight change in style from plain hardcore/metalcore to more metal with thrash influences aside - not a band that experiments and therefore obviously not original. They delivered a decent show without any fireworks, so to say. (Mindsaver)
Evergreen Terrace must have been the reason why there were so many chicks in the venue! Their melodic hardcore/metalcore with clean vocal choruses was a bit too mawkish for my colleague and me, and so we searched for a spot in the back. But this band doesn't have a large fan base for nothing, of course. A lot of people were enjoying their show, singing a long and doing a little dance. Our apologies, but we just didn’t like it. (Mindsaver)
The female fronted metalcore band Walls Of Jericho was chosen to headline this great tour, just like they did previous year. This band really got the venue upside down, with big moshpits and a lot of people jumping on and off the stage. I, personally, am not a big fan of this band, but I definitely enjoyed the performance more than I did the last time I saw them. They played a tight and aggressive show, which left the crowd satisfied and content after six bands of hardcore. But the evening wasn’t over yet! (DemonDust)
The evening indeed wasn’t over yet! The venue organized a true afterparty in the small hall, were the Germans from Excrementory Grindfuckers made their appearance. We only saw half an hour of the show, but we really laughed our pants off! The band covers all kinds of classic songs, but then with a grind touch to it. That might sound a bit dreadful, but it was absolutely top class entertainment. False high vocals and silly tunes on guitars were suddenly taken over by blastbeats and deep grunts. Songs that passed by were for example “I’ve Been Looking For Grindcore”, “Grindcore Out Of Hell” and “The Final Grinddown”, which was of course accompanied by trumpet. Absolute highlight was the 2 Unlimited cover “No Limit”, which we, Dutchmen, brought to Germany in the 90’s, and that they now ‘brought back’. Wanna book a band for your birthday? Call these guys! (Mindsaver)