Incubate, long a mammoth 10-day bonanza, cut up this year’s fest into four smaller, weekend snippets, after deep reorganizations and troubles last year. Because of the bus time of year, and the sheer volume and spread of bands and venues Incubate offer, Ghost Cult decided to focus mainly on its metal program. Here is how we wound down day two!
Kicking off this section of Incubate is Sariola, a Dark Bombastic Metal band from Germany. Visually, they are very entertaining, with shiny outfits cobbled together from bits of fur, white and silver leather, and bits of metal. Vocalist Loreley von Rhein varies from a deep smooth voice to a high scream, but is obviously quite ill at this point, and apologises profusely. Despite her health and the rather small space that’s left on the stage, she performs with great energy. And yes, the crown might get somewhat in the way of headbanging, but it’s definitely a cool visual. The guitar licks are pretty neat, and the bass, while not being virtuoso by any means, is very solid. They are somewhat out of luck with the crowd too, because despite the delayed start, it’s only just approaching 5pm and there aren’t that many people in yet.
Second to light up the stage, or darken it significantly, as the case may be, is From Hell. This group plays horror metal songs with titles as ‘Nun with a Gun’ and ‘Bring your Corpse Before Me.’ The stage is once again far too small, but they nonetheless perform with abandon and a great deal of power. The drums are really tight, with excellent timing, and in fact the entire band has a good rhythm going throughout the show. The shredding is excellent, and at times there were even sensitive moments on guitar. Vocally, there were a lot of high and piercing screams, but occasionally vocalist Alisteir Sinn employed clean vocals, which were somewhat reminiscent of Ozzy Osbourne. The audience interaction was pretty good, with the occasional plot exposition, leading to an entertaining performance.
After and atmospheric intro, the third act, Absu takes the stage and let rip. This band really doesn’t stick within genre boundaries, and a variety of Metal influences pop up, varying from Slayer-esque riffs to peppy Classic Heavy Metal sounds to even a heavy dose of Southern Hard Rock. While musically this mixes well, the first songs are unfortunately slightly incoherent when it comes to breaks and changes. However, as the show progresses this improves vastly, as does the overall showmanship and audience interaction. After what initially seems like an outro, drummer and lead vocalist Proscriptor takes a front-man position, while drumming is taken over by Drekovac. This heralds yet more improvement in both sound and show, where Proscriptor unleashes his gremlin-like voice and enthusiasm, while Drekovac shows off superb drumming skills that add a great deal of flow and direction to the music. This Texas band is energetic, and definitely entertaining.
The fourth band is Possessed, a group that broke new ground for Death Metal, and the audience held a number of fans from the first hour. They explained that when that first album dropped in 1985, it was the loudest thing they had ever heard, and truth be told, this was one loud show. The band was tight and energetic and had great stage presence, leading to a crowd filled with enthusiastically banging heads. While vocalist Jeff Beccera is the only original member still in the band, they seem to be working on some new music, and played a new song. There was a greater variety in texture, a sweet break, and overall a somewhat darker sound. Exciting stuff!
The final act for this evening is Belphegor, and right from the get-go, they have great stage presence, style, and attitude. The stage is decorated with skulls and bones, and the band’s face-paint is on point. There seems to have been somewhat of a divide in the audience, with a section showing up primarily for Possessed’s, and another purely for this Blackened Death Metal extravaganza. As with the previous band, this audience has nothing to complain about, for the atmosphere and intensity on stage are infectious, and the audience interaction is excellent. Part of the onlookers are totally entranced, while others look like they are just having a lot of fun.
As we write this the future of the festival, that depends on public funding, and has seen much of it dropped, is uncertain, but we certainly know they can still do what they do best, present the music fan with a wide platter of bands you may not even have heard about, not promising they’ll be good, but they will at least be interesting, and for that we thank them.
WORDS BY SUSANNE A. MAATHUIS AND LORRAINE LYSEN
PHOTOS BY SUSANNE A. MAATHUIS