Thursday February 5th 2009 was the day of new Dutch metal formation Cilice. They then released their debut album in front of a filled venue in Amsterdam. Support came from Amsterdam-based bands Demia and Seita.

Seita
Seita’s debut Imprint Forever has been reviewed a month ago by my esteemed colleague Boek. He wasn’t that enthusiastic about their debut, but predicted that maybe their music suited a live performance better. Well, I have to say that he nailed it! Still it wasn’t extremely spectacular, but way better than I expected it to be. The double bass filled metalcore was a nice opener for the two, more talented bands. They brought a lot of energy on stage, which was a definite plus. Though I must say that the Phil Anselmo like facial expressions of the frontman were a bit cheesy. Their music isn’t original in one way or the other, but live it was okay. (Neurotic)

Demia
As I had only seen a couple of songs live the first time I saw Demia, I was quite curious to this show. Honestly, I had forgotten about their new drummer, so when the band entered the stage I was a little surprised at first to see a new face in the line-up. Well, first things first here; that guy rocks! I mean, his drum work is as tight as a 12-year old. And he’s seemingly not having any trouble at all playing. Very nice surprise and definitely a welcome addition to the band’s ranks. But on to the music then. The band played quite some songs from their album Insidious, as well as an oldie from their Cancelled-era. It sounded quite strong and although the sound wasn’t optimal for vocalist Yoav, I think he still did a nice job, especially on the clean vocals, which I feared the most before they started their show. Musically this band plays a modern style of metal which is a bit in the vein of Machine Head sometimes, so it kind of surprised me the audience seemed hardly satisfied. The hell with it, I liked their show and the new song they presented the audience tonight definitely makes me look forward to their next release. (Boek)

CiLiCe
The band CiLiCe was formed by members of Smogus, Neuk! and Orphanage after these bands split up. The musical direction of this new band is way different than their previous ones, for it lies in the polyrhythmic metal region where bands like Meshuggah and Textures reside. Tonight it was time for them to present onto the world their first full length record, entitled Deranged Headtrip. It was the first time I saw this band play live, and I must say it was quite a pleasant experience. Their music reminds of the two bands mentioned above here, for all the songs are a rhythmic adventure with difficult breaks and twists. The band does miss a lot of power because they have no bassist though, which is just too bad. It is stated on their website that Mike Patton is one of their major influences as well, which is also very much represented in the music. Especially vocally you can hear this when singer Daniël de Jongh gets to the clean passages. He really tries to get that Faith No More kind of sound, but he doesn’t shun from trying out the more freaky stuff that can be traced back to Mr. Bungle and Fantômas. To me this is dangerous, because Mike Patton is a guy that is very hard to conform to. But nice to see someone try it though. The show was performed nice and tight, especially the drummer was a treat to see. His footwork is quite amazing. And besides a few small problems (like for instance a broken guitar string), the band played a good show that proved they can compete musically with the polyrhythmic math metal bands out there. If only they had a bass player… (DemonDust)