Weedeater – King Parrot – Tombstones: Sound Control, Manchester

Posted on March 10, 2015 by News Team

Nothing like a sunny day to visit the bowels of the basement of Sound Control for some grimy sludge and hardcore from a bunch of miscreants. First up today at the ungodly early hour of 4:30 PM are Bury’s own Pist who impress early on with their mixture of Eyehategod swagger and Mancunian grit. Guitarist John Nicholson churns out slabs of metallic blues while David Lee Rowlands shrieks manage to shake up the early goers.

Unfortunately Siege Mentality completely fail to capitalise on Pist’s momentum. The ex-Iron Witch mob trade in generic hardcore punk with plenty of spit but no polish. The quintet’s interchangeable throwaway compositions all follow the well-worn post Discharge hardcore punk template and are forgotten straight after they are aired.

Thankfully Tombstones get us back on track. Sticking to the tune low and play slow ethos the Norwegians win the audience back with their primordial slabs of noise ‘King Of Daze’ and a storming cover of Melvins classic ‘The Bit’ which have the audience eating out of their hands.

King Parrot are aptly named because they have plenty of squawk but so little of substance. Their performance ignites a decent size pit but the irritating screeching of vocalist Youngy is greatly off putting, as is his moronic stage banter and insistence on soaking the first couple of rows with water. Their warp speed racket sounds allows some to get their mosh on but the band come across as sexually repressed Neanderthals’ with no memorable songs to speak of.

Weedeater do not fuck around. These deranged Louisiana rednecks slam into their set with a frightening vigour. Dave “Dixie” Collins is a cross-eyed lunatic screeching out his lyrics while drummer Travis Owen slams his kit tossing his sticks around and kicks his high hat all while continuing to play without missing a beat. Numbers like ‘Weed Monkeys’ are impossible to resist such is their reckless delivery and visceral delivery. These trailer park titans came to throw down and impress with a watertight set of potent sonic hits which leaves the audience deliriously happy and hungry for another fix.

WORDS BY ROSS BAKER

PHOTOS BY SUSANNE A. MAATHUIS

Dragged Into Sunlight – Hemelbestormer – Galg: Live At DB’s Utrecht NL

Posted on December 12, 2014 by News Team

I definitely got dragged into some Light….

It was a cold november night, I think this was one of the first days of freezing cold in the Netherlands. And on this they we ventured to the DB’s in Utrecht to see some blackish, sludgy, post, doom, droney.. well do I have to continue?

First up was Galg (eng. Gallow) , this pretty young band is ready to be accepted by a bigger audience. This band definitely has this awesome vibe, they are going in the right direction with the music. They are good with giving you this squishy, nagging feeling in your stomach. So how does this involve the audience , you might ask? Galg got into the heads of a lot of people standing there. I have to say it was pretty crowded already when they began to play, which is a great measure for the way this genre has grown in the Netherlands. The young crowd was ready to get the party going and listen to something with more depth and something to start a conversation about. Galg is a great step toward exploring more in the genre. I have the feeling they could get more experimental musically, it wasn’t as diverse from the bands we already know. They can take this to the next level. Though, this is a pure band that knows how to set a mood with a sublime use of light or show. With a very subtile and smooth use of drums and a wall of sound, they created; they proved to be a very good band!

The second band up there was a very catchy and impressive act that definitely brought something new to my ears. Hemelbestormer (eng. Heavenstormer) is a band that brings a slightly progressive feeling into the post-doom, drone-ish sound that we already know. This band is hard, aggressive and really really catchy! It got me right at the beginning and didn’t let me go. They know we don’t need those boundless screams that seem to go nowhere at all. They just don’t do vocals, and it’s perfectly fine. The guitar lines are sublime, the drums fit perfectly, and the visuals were completely in sync with the music this band was producing. It was even pretty melodious! It was notable that the band could keep my attention during the whole show because they weren’t sticking in the endless guitarmastrubating, no instead they mixed it up and surprised the listener often. This band is a keeper, and really bringing something new. I loved it. I hope they had the same effect on more people over there.

Last but not least, off course, Dragged into Sunlight. This just is a fine piece of hypnotizing chaos. It was such a great atmosphere, people were so sucked into this show. And it was so dark, I was even afraid to write on my phone, I didn’t want to get people out of their vibe. But let’s get back to Dragged into Sunlight. This definitely one of the best shows I have seen yet. During the show the band plays with their backs to the audience in total darkness, except for a strobe light that is completely in sync with the drums. This works perfectly for their mesmerizing vibe. This is the kind of band that takes their music very seriously. It is not about the ego’s of the band members; no it is about the music. And they do everything to keep it this way. They never release their real names. Their vocalist, simply named T, he is not the standard extreme metal vocalist, it is not the screamer you normally see, it is more like it is a lone howling wolf that is amped on speed. Dragged Into Sunlight brings you the complete package, their music is executed perfectly, and it sets a psychoticly energetic mood!

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Dragged Into Sunlight on Facebook

Hemelbestormer on Facebook

Galg on Facebook

WORDS: KAAT VAN DORMALEN

PHOTOS: SUSANNE A. MAATHUIS PHOTOGRAPHY

Loss, Death, and Life: Vincent Cavanagh of Anathema

Posted on June 9, 2014 by News Team

With their latest work, Distant Satellites (Kscope), being released this June, and their star rising all over the globe as a pay-off to their hard work of the last 20 years, Liverpudlian band Anathema with their ground breaking melancholy prog rock piqued our interest. We had a lovely chat with their vocalist, Vincent Cavanagh, one of three brothers that make up the band with friends from their youth, and spoke at length about music, the industry, emotions, love, death and the important things in life, America and the dynamics of a band scattered all over Europe and their creative process.

We started off by chatting about Distant Satellites and its masterful use of beats. When we mentioned a theory about Aphex Twin being an influence on us. At the mention of this and the song ‘Come to Daddy’, Vincent’s ears perked up:

“Yeah me too, I’m into all that. I think I was about seventeen years-old and I was working at a studio in Liverpool and the guys who had the studio had this electronic band I used to help them out with their beats and things and they introduced me to Aphex Twin. So that’s going back a bit. And eh, it fucking blew my head off, you know. One of the most intense things I’d ever heard in my life.”

A band like that is an obvious influence to many, and we mentioned the impact we felt when we first heard them. Vincent agreed: “Oh Jesus Christ! Is it the “Black Long” remix of that? It’s on an album called The Fire This Times came out round 2003 I think. It was kind of a protest album about the story in Iraq. It was load of music put together as a soundtrack to this narrative about the first Gulf War, the aftermath and the build op to the second gulf war. And it was actually taken off the shelves in the UK when Mr. B-liar (red. Blair) *laughs* went to start his war. You know you couldn’t find it in the shops anywhere and you couldn’t order it, I tried my best to order it from everywhere. You could not order it for about 9 months. You bastards, you know, something is going on with that, don’t know what it is. But eventually I got it. Cause I heard a Radio 1 jockey, he played this “Black Long” remix of ‘Come to Daddy’. I thought “what the fuckin’ hell is that?” It’s this really, really dark drum and bass version, it’s brilliant. No-one does it like him as well, the way he programs beats is really unique, no-one does it like him.

Vincent appeased our sense of curiosity about how this music could come to influence the new Anathema EP

“Yeah well our stuff, well I don’t know all that kind of thing. It was me who basically breached the area, I mean. Over Christmas I bought this drum machine so I was experimenting with that, but I couldn’t figure out how to use the thing, you know. I didn’t really know. So when John approached it like that, and then we came up with this beat and then it came from there. So it’s fairly new for me. I think that song, it’s a song. It’s got a verse, it’s got a pre-chorus even and a chorus, it’s got a hook, so most of this stuff we do, even though we do experiment a bit, there’s some kind of anchored in a song, kind of.

Danny Cavanagh has settled in comfortably as the creative fulcrum of the band, leading the charge in the writing process, then bringing in Vincent and John:

“Yeah he did most of that on this one as well. He comes up with a lot of the initial stuff, and it gets filtered through me and I finish it off with everybody. Sometimes it needs more work than other times, and sometimes it’s almost done as it is. And of course I always add my own touches here and there. John’s stuff, I work very closely with John, probably more closely, well definitely more closely than with Danny. I kind of put together his music. John has got great ideas, but they’re quite nebulous, you know. Like trying to get an idea out of John is like “alright what do you think? something needs to come in here.” And he goes “yeah I want a synth that goes “dedoofdedoof dodedoofdedoof” and he’ll just do that. And I’ve got to figure out what synths to use, how to program the sound and how am I going to manipulate this, how am I going to use the pitch bend to get this “dedoof dedoof” you know. Because he doesn’t really know how to technically do that. So that’s where I come in. I dunno, John’s like a psychedelic sort of disc guy, more of a classic songwriter. I’m more of a sort of organizer and producer, and I sort it all out at the end.”

After the foundations are laid, arranging the songs and completing them comes next: “Well it came together really quickly ‘cause we tried about five different ways of doing that song, ‘Distant Satellites’. And we just weren’t happy with it. We were already like three weeks into the process. And I said to John one day, we were having the break over at Christmas, and I said to John could you fly over, I live in Paris you see, so he had to fly from Liverpool, come to mine. And we said “okay what the fuck is wrong with this? Let’s sort it out. And we said we’ve just got the scrap it and start again. We found out what was wrong with it, was that the original way it was written was the chords were played in sort of this plucked rhythm and it was making it sound dated. It was making it sound old, so we just kind of scrapped the rhythm. So I said ok, I’ve got this here, this is a kind of sideways sound, how about we just play the same chords with this sound, but really slow? Ok that sounds good. Now how about a beat? We don’t want an obvious 4/4 beat, we want something different. Okay so I’ve got this drum machine, let’s fuck around with that for a while. And about an hour later or so, we kind of had the bare bones of it. It was getting developed as well over the course of the next couple of weeks until we had it into a certain shape with the vocals and everything that we were ready to play it to the rest of the band. At that pint it was completely different to how the guys had heard it last. Three weeks earlier it sounded totally different. So it was “okay this is the song” “okay, fuckin hell what happened to that?” well it took a while but we eventually figured out was it was supposed to be in the first place.

We next wondered aloud whether the brooding sound of the new music was intentionally made to be ominous:

“It’s not intentional, it’s just the way it just happens. The chords come out naturally with us; we usually start with the first chord and see where it goes form there. I don’t think we ever set out to write a song in the same way, it just happens. We made the album and we didn’t even realize after it was done, we send it to someone and said “here it is have a listen to that” and he goes “fuckin’ hell, it’s dark innit?” and we go “eh… is it?” (laughs) yeah okay, it probably is, init?” We hadn’t thought of that, but that’s cool, because I quite like dark music. That’ll do me, you know, I’m up for that. I’d like the next one to be dark as well you know, but you can’t force it, whatever comes out comes out.

Some of that darkness musically seems to seep down from the lyrics, drenched in themes of loss and heartbreak: “It is yeah, there was a lot of more optimistic stuff on the last two records for sure. I think there’s hardly any of that this time around. That was what it was, that was of it’s time. This is now. I don’t know personally I don’t like happy songs. I don’t know what to do on a happy song. Just trying to imagine myself doing that kind of music. People want you to do that, why? So yeah I’d say it’s always honest you have to go through whatever is there. The people in the songs are all real, the situations the experiences are real, but what I’ll say is we don’t give it away a lot, because it’s too personal. At the same time we like people to make their own life, their own people and their own experiences in it. The only thing that I can say to give them a clue is when you hear the word you in one of our songs; it’s not about a relationship. We don’t write love songs or relationship songs. There’s none of that. So when you think a song is about a breakup, it’s not. People thought that about ‘One Last Goodbye’, that I could have written that about me and my girlfriend breaking up. Alright well fair enough, that’s cool for you, but that’s not what it’s about.”

In truth that song is about a relationship, but not a romantic one. It was made for their mother after she passed away.

“Yeah you know loss and death and ultimately life for us, is about people. You know the people in our lives are the most important thing, everything else is all decoration. I’ve said this before and I don’t want to repeat myself, but at the end of it all I think that what I’d like to have around me is people. Achievement would be all great, leaving a legacy would be superb, but it’s not going to matter until you have good people. Spend your time with good people and having fun and having good people in your life, having love in your life, that kinda thing is the most important thing to me.

Despite being a tight knit unit creatively, the brothers themselves today live quite far apart. How does a the band then come together to make music, and more importantly relate with that distance?

“Yeah Danny is in London now, he’s settled over there. He’s got himself into like a shared house where he’s like renting a couple of rooms and I think he has a good deal there. He’s always loved London, maybe he’ll stay in one place for more than six months this time who knows. He’s lived a very nomadic life for almost 10 years now he’s just been all over the place. It’s difficult to write yeah, but we write as individuals anyway, we don’t need each other around to write music. Of course we do when the others are around, but it’s not absolutely necessary. So when we come together we’ll play “ok what have you got, what have you been up to?” and we’ll play everything we’ve got. We might get together and do a deliberate writing session now and again, and we’ve got one booked for the end of July, just to see what we’ve been up to since the last record. So I think the guys are gonna come to my house and just gonna we’re just gonna jam through some new ideas and see what we’ve got. Talk about the last record, see what we felt about it and what we learned from it and see what new things we’ve got and see where that seems to be going. And then we’ll get cracking on with touring. Obviously you spend a lot of time together on tour, there will be new stuff floating around on tour. And then after the tour we’ll do another session somewhere. It’s okay if you just concentrate your efforts. You say okay let’s just do five days we’ll just live in a studio and do as much as we can in five days, and we’ll get Christer down, you know the producer, and we’ll do it properly.”

Christer-André Cederberg has been working with really closely with Anathema as the producer for the last few albums. By now he almost seems part of their little family:

“Yeah and for this one as well, we had two session of preproduction. One for about a week in Portugal with Cardosso, he set up a studio for us there. And then one for about few days as well in Oslo, about a month before the recording, in Christer’s studio. He put everything down on a board, so we probably had about sixty-ish ideas, so we had to whittle that down to about say… twenty. And then in the final pre-production session another song that had been written in the mean time, ‘Ariel’. So in the final preproduction session we decided, ok this is the record it’s those songs, so we go to recording. Starting right at the beginning in Christer’s place and finishing the final mix in Christer’s’ place makes it a much more concentrated and controlled process. Christer is very, very organized and he’s extremely dedicated. He works very long hours. He’s a great guy to work with, he’s a positive guy. Whenever you speak to him, even the tone of his voice… do you know what I mean? He has a little lilt in his voice that just puts you at ease… it’s like he’s always upbeat, but despite that, right at the end he was mixing and recording through the pain,. He had some problems with his back and he was taking a bunch of painkillers. In the end it was too much and he had to go to hospital and they operated on him that day. That was the last day of recording. After that the doctors said “OK Christer, you’ve been doing too much, you need to stop working for about three months.” The operation was good but you need to stop now, and he goes “OK well, I can’t. I’m gonna take a week off and I’m gonna mix this record that I’m doing and after that I’m gonna take some time off, I promise.” He is so dedicated it’s beyond the call of duty. We were happy to say just take three months, we’ll put the album on September, don’t worry about it. But he said no, no I’m going to do it, don’t worry. Which is why in the end he just didn’t have time to mix two songs on the record. So Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, Storm Corrosion ) was out first call. We got in touch with Steven and he was available, lucky for us, so that was good. To add to it all, we were in America, so there was nothing we could have done to go out and meet people to see if maybe this guy might be OK for the record. At least we knew Steven and we knew that we trusted him with our baby.”

Anathema on Facebook

SUSANNE A. MAATHUIS

Neurotic Deathfest: Day 1 & 2 – Live At 013, Tilburg NL

Posted on May 22, 2014 by News Team

Neurotic Deathfest is held in the south of the Netherlands in the city of Tilburg, for the people who don’t know; it brings you the loudest, goriest and most brutal shit in a whole weekend drowned in beer, piss and puke. A few days before on Wednesday you already saw some long haired blokes with the most gory t-shirts walking around in the city, scattered around the many bars, benches, hotels and coffee shops found here. The amount of metalheads in Tilburg rose significantly every day towards the Festival. Everyone knows they will be shitfaced and totally smashed during this festival, people were preparing by eating the local (Kebaps) food and a wide variety of special beers found in different kinds of bars. It does set the atmosphere for the rest of the weekend, where this festival is known for. Everyone is relaxed and willing to socialize with people all around the world. We were looking very much forward to this festival, and finally it was there! Travel with us to Tilburg, close your eyes, imagine a light stench of old beer and man sweat as we go trough some of the highlights of this festival.

After a delightful dinner to set the mood the first band we saw was Deceased, normally an opener should be giving you a shot of major energy, but this band failed to deliver a good start. We were stoked for the festival to start, the first beers were already drank and was a bit of a downer to see this happen. It was a little bit too straight ahead and moreover, they didn’t really have the balls to get you in the flow. It was one of the bands I would really wanted to see, and musically this is a no nonsense band that usually would deliver you some harsh neck cramps after. Some props for the lyrics I found majorly interesting (I did my research before), reliving tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Maybe the fact that the audience wasn’t that overly energetic while this band was playing might have affected the overall mood of this band what directly affected me and a bunch of other people. Maybe this band should have opened the smaller stage, it might have worked there.

More than an hour later Aborted, one of the bands I really had to see, started on the main stage having seen them live before and owning some of their albums. I was totally stoked to see this band play again. It was the second band starting on the main stage and the third band playing on this festival. The venue was packed with people, what surprised me because it was still pretty early, but then I got it, this band played way too early! The whole venue was in for a neck-breaking party with Aborted and was pumped for the first pit to start. The energy was radiating all over the place. Even some barmaids (that definitely weren’t into metal) seemed to like this vibe and were nodding their head on a uncomfortable but soothing way. Aborted definitely was one of the best live bands on this festival, and though I had seen them better than this (they were a bit flaky and not as tight as I was used to seeing them), it slapped in my face with killing death metal madness. Awesome riffery and blasting drums were flying all over the place. I felt like I was standing on a ship that was attacked by cannonballs, that was slightly off beat. But hey Aborted was in their natural habitat, and they were ready for blood.

I only have to laugh when I look back at the performance of Spasm. Yep, the band with that singer with the man-kini and a dildo on his head. I think I have said enough.

I was asking myself why this next band was called Shirenc Plays Pungent Stench, it confused me. But then it became totally clear: band-drama. Yeah, lets call it that. Martin Shirenc, the singer/guitarist of this band did choose a pretty good rhythm section around him, and I didn’t notice that there were some different members than before. It sounded exactly the same and the classics of this band were pushed through like they would normally had. They are with only three band members, but still, they bring forth a wall of sound that blasts you out of your socks. The interesting part of this band, leaning on the edge of thrash and death metal and bringing it in such a specific way that it isn’t like the other modern death metal. The nice groove and a bit of a garish sound they got me by my throat, and lets make clear that is in a good way.

I almost started to feel pretty young with the old-timers that stood on the stage, and Terrorizer didn’t make this any better. This band is coarse and pretty tight and made me enjoy them. I almost forgot about this band until I saw them on the bill a few weeks before Neurotic Deathfest. And I got what I expected, a full show that sounds exactly like a wood-chopping device. Which is kind of fun for half an hour, not really for a full hour if you ask me. These guys really have a heroic status amongst the death metal fans and that my friends, is a thing I totally understand. It feels real and steady, the grooving riffing fits completely with the overall rhythm (that is exactly the same, all the time). If I would have lived my teen years in the 80s I think I would have endured the whole show and probably would have stand in front of the stage.

Saturday started with the band formed by Incantation’s frontman John McEntee named Funerus. That I knew, but the fact that the grunts and bass guitar came from his wife came as a total surprise for me. I was enjoying this concert behind some 2 meter tall blokes and didn’t see the stage at all, some good old death metal riffery flew forwards. The next song got announced, and I heard a woman’s voice. I couldn’t believe it that these guterral sounds came from this woman and raced towards the stage to see this with my own eyes. I am so happy that Jill is one of those female singers that isn’t a gimmick, the sound was mature and straight to the point and swept you away while the well placed doom parts fell in. After the show, I was totally in for some more Funerus, they left me wanting more.

The intro of the following band already was pretty omnious, and when the band started I knew that Cytotoxin is one of the most promising young death metal bands out there. Their singer Grimo was ready to kill, and with his monstrous expressions he knows how to get the whole audience to their knees (most of them because of falling in the moshpit). What an excellent stage performance, and guterral sounds perfectly exchanged with pigsqueals at the right moments. The only thing that bothered me is that the band around him wasn’t that overly tight and had troubles to keep up with the energy that radiated from Grimo.

Then it was time for some other veterans named Brutal Truth. Unfortunately this is their very last show in the Netherlands and I was happy that I could experience this band before it was too late. But I have to say this too is one of the bands that would be better painted in a smaller venue, they even looked a bit uncomfortable on the main stage. This entwined in the following reactions of the audience, one part was overly fond to see this band and were already drenched in sweat after the first song, and the other part were looking like how the fuck they ended up here. But still everyone seemed to sort of like it. The band their obvious death sound mixed with some punk vibes create a chaotic sphere of noise and unwieldy violence.

Hour of Penace is one of the bands I have always liked but haven’t had the chance to see them live, this was my que to finally see them. As a big fan of Fleshgod Apocalypse I found this band a version of them, but without the orchestra. They pull the throttle as far as it can get without losing grip, you can find their bombastic sound in a melodramatic sound. I liked this, but halftime I got a bit bored because it didn’t gave me as much variety as I had expected to see in a live show.

Skinless started throwing onions(?) into the audience with the ultimate hillbilly intro. Which made me want to get beer immediately and as soon as I turned away from the bar they throw in some no nonsense bashing ass kicking noise that gets you, but doesn’t shock you. This band is about smashing your skull in with heavy riffery and drums that make your eardrums pop, and they mean this shit! Their singer Sherwood Webber bounces hyperactively over the stage what makes this band fun to watch and listen to. I was left with a good feeling in my stomach after this show or was it the beer?

And of course, between the New York bands represented on the stages this day only, one can be the winner and that is Suffocation. Their front man Frank Mullen was found on the stage with his one and only priority, the death metal jazz hand while the blastbeats were knocking your head off. I would love to spend hours to the one-way conversations of Mullen, but I was here for some good old Suffocation, and that is something I definitely got. Their playing live and on album are astonishingly good and always seem to get me. They really showed the other bands some real whoopass as they combine really technical riffery with being absolutely brutal, and for that we thank them.

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Neurotic Deathfest on Facebook

WORDS: KAAT VAN DORMALEN

PHOTOS: SUSANNE A. MAATHUIS

Roadburn Festival Part I: Live at 013 & Het Patronaat, Tilburg NL

Posted on May 5, 2014 by News Team

Roadburn festival is special, as many who have gone know. It’s one of those festivals where it’s impossible to see everything you wanted to and you end up missing things that were awesome, but you didn’t even know about or seeing things you’d never heard of before but are now suddenly completely addicted to. It debuted bands into the world at large like Goat and Ghost, and manages to pull reform bands that quit ages ago, or pull bands that never perform out of the woodworks. Doing a “proper” festival review of Roadburn is utterly and completely useless. Instead I’m writing an impression. An impression of a magical special place where everyone, except a few bad eggs, is so nice and friendly no-one wants to leave and you’re instantly addicted. A hidden place where the bands stick around to see others play and get just as excited about seeing things as the visitors. A place where all is awesome, so really nothing can be said.

I have the difficult task of squeezing four intense days of not only music, but people and party into a readable format that won’t be too long. I can go on about this festival forever, but I’ll restrict myself.

Day One as always starts a little uneasy. Excited as I was for the past weeks to go back to Roadburn (year four and counting…) I’m mostly reconnecting with friends and bands I’ve not had around for a year. This year I didn’t have the time to properly prepare and listen to all the billing before going, but I had a fair idea of what I wanted and needed to see. I wander into the 013 venue, which has three rooms available for this festival. There’s the main stage (capacity 2100), the greenroom (around 400-500 capacity I believe) and the stage 01 (about 150-200 capacity) across the street, in an old parish building there’s Het Patronaat (capacity around 800) and on the edge of the perfect “beer street”of Tilburg, around the corner of the 013 venue, there is the Cul de Sac (capacity 100-150). All in all the Roadburn crowd take over a major part of the city with their happy blackened hippie vibe. So in we get and hang around the foyer of the completely stuffed Greenroom (the small rooms always get full up) to listen to a bit of Brutus’s set. It’s incredible they’re even here, as just before their tour their studio burned down and they lost all their equipment. The band is hard to YouTube, because of their (rather generic) name, but definitely worth the effort. What I pick up from their set sounds incredible, nice retro stoner blues rock. Their vocalist really reminds of Ozzy in his better days and a few more of the older vocalists. After about 15 minutes I go to catch some of Sourvein in the Mainstage. The sludgey doom these Americans give us just doesn’t quite catch me the way other doom and sludge greats do. Maybe it’s not slow enough for me or maybe it’s the vocals that feel a little forced. So off we merrily wander again to check out the merch street and then catch some 40 Watt Sun. Damn these guys can play. Heavy, slow and oppressive, even though it’s an acoustic set with out the normal bass volumes. Het Patronaat, which has heavy carpeting on the balcony and always gets notoriously hot, adding to the atmosphere. The sound was impeccable. Sadly it’s impossible to finish watching their set if I still wanna see Beastmilk. They’re one of my “need to see” bands this year. While I’ve heard plenty of people be incredibly impressed by them live or even like them better than on record, I was a little disappointed. The music was good and solid, but the second vocals were gone, as was the echo that you get on the record, drowning the vocals. On record they’ve got the more new-wave feel while live they’re more punky. I also expected more show of these guys. The stage looked incredibly empty and while Kvhost played the crowd like the professional he is, it lacked something. The backdrop was just a still of their album cover and the strength from the album just wasn’t there even with songs such as ‘Death Reflects Us’. Good, but not as mind-blowing as I had expected. Then again expectations were very high

Next I try to catch some of Samothrace, but walk in just when their last lengthy notes and ringing through Het Patronaat shaking the rafters. I hear it was good but I really cannot judge on half a minute and two notes. After a brief chat with some friendly people I go on to see some Napalm Death, one of the few Deathmetal bands I almost always enjoy seeing live. Their insane hysterical party energy is just wonderful, and though this time they chose to t a special, slower, doomier Roadburn set, the hysterics were still their in their vocalist who just cannot stay in one spot for more than five seconds. I did miss the exuberant party energy though, but still an incredible set. I caught a little of Goatess, from the back of the room (well outside the doors towards the stage 01 so…) and I remember thinking they rocked, but the wall of people made it hard to really enjoy, so I went to see some of Corrections House. Many people didn’t like them since they’re more in the industrial corner of things, but their dark bleak pounding sound did catch my attention for sometime, and while they were the definite odd duck of the day they were good at what they do. By now I’m in a serious dilemma. I wanted to see Anciients and True Widow, and The great old ones, all playing the same time slot. I also wanted to catch a bit of Crowbar. I ended up mostly shooting and watching a bit of Crowbar, realizing they weren’t getting to me and popping off to True Widow, watching them from the side of the stage. True Widow are amazing live, and I’m kicking myself I forgot to pick some of their stuff up. The interplay between the vocals of both bassist and guitarist, the difference in their voices and the sheer thunder of their music is wonderful. They’re tight and minimal but not simple. The room was packed and everyone loved it. Sadly Anciients was packed so the wait began for Bong to start. How shall I describe the transcendent experience Bong is when you’re already tired yet excited of a day of running from band to band and making room to chat with people and make new friends? After the photo-pit time I snuck upstairs to the relatively calm balcony and just sat there eyes closed letting their atmospheric heavy jam carry me away. Afterwards I did attempt a look at the Heavy Metal Disco in the main foyer, intending not to stay to long. It was 3:30 by the time the lights came on and music turned off and I snapped out of my conversation with a new friend, and sheepishly started the trek home with my bunkee.

After a night of far too little sleep and a heady breakfast, the track back to the festival arrived. For me this isn’t too massive an affair: about 10 minutes in the buss or 20-30 walking, but there are people staying all over the south of the Netherlands and the camping itself is a good 30 minutes cycling away.

When I get to the venue the restaurants and bars are filled with the flock off bearded black-shirted Roadburners settled on the city. Today Opeth’s Mikaël Åkerfeldt got to plan in the main stage. Roadburn always has a fair amount of proggy bands on her billing, but with Åkerfeldt curating and his band playing, the spread of them is even more. Today starts with the phenomenal Magma, French prog ancients with a jazzy 60’s psychedelic style that confuses the masses. Some people flee after about half a song, the rest stays, entranced but confused, trying to figure out what is going on while really liking what they hear. While it’s sort of like listening to five songs at the same time, the music itself is impeccable and the unique operetta vocal style (no not the high waily kind but the proper male low sound) wielded by the male baritone of the group is refreshing and highly impressive.

While others run to see the heavy duo The Body, I decided to have a peek at the vintage Caravan, new kids on the block playing the stage 01, but definitely buzzing. Sadly it’s impossible to get into the room, it even took the ban 5 minutes to get to the stage through the throng. People are latterly packed against the wall opposing the stage 01 doors. And all of this is justified. These kids can play. They play a delightful retro 70s style rock, very listenable and done so well you ‘d swear they lived through the period. They play again on Saturday but after this thunderous set they’ll be more impossible to see. Up on the mainstage Comus is getting set up. This is proper 60’s feeling, acoustic, gentle more formal prog, impeccable harmonies and very quiet. The show is a little static as everyone is either sitting or has a steady place on stage surrounded by monitors but all in all the music is impeccable. The static feeling of the show doesn’t mater, it’s not a band you watch it’s a band you dream away to.

In the greenroom Änglagärd are setting up to play their set. You cannot avoid the massive, huge sound starting up in the main room as Goblin starts to play. While not where near as abrasive and “loud’ as some Roadburn bands their sound is so massive and so well layered that it envelopes you and take you with them on a journey through the musical movie themes they composed. The level of balance is incredibly, while the bass notes are heavy and deep, earth shatteringly so, you can literally hear any sounds in the lighter higher registers, and their bassist sound is at times more funky than doom. Incredible set and so engaging it will drag you back for more time and time again. For a while I try to go see the jam sessions Åkerfeldt set up in the stage 01, which were almost deserted while very good musically, the Goblin set kept dragging me back again and again.

Candlemass know how to get a party going. I think this may be the best and biggest response and interplay between band and crowd I’ve ever seen at the usually quite mellow and movement reserved Roadburn crowd. And they were good, exceptional, with vocalist Máts Leven shaking his wild curls around with fever. As Candlemas have been playing switcharoo with their vocalists so often I had a bit of a pickle finding out who the wild-haired curlyman playing the crowd so well was. His voice was impeccable too, and combined with the excellence of the music surrounding him, he took it upon himself to entertain besides singing.

Opeth, what can be said about them that hasn’t been showered on them already/ praise for their immaculate sound? Criticism for not being rough enough? Reverence for their musicality? I’d like to talk about Åkerfeldt’s sense of humor. The set begins with a heartfelt tale about how impressed he is with Roadburn and it’s welcome not only of his band, but also of the strange bands he programmed instead of the more traditional Roadburny taste. Their set was surprisingly heavy, much to the joy of the crowd, as they switched lighter, proggy songs off with heavy grunting old stuff. Eventually of course people start yelling requests, to which Åkerfeldt had a great solution, he asked if the one guy yelling ‘Freebird’ would yell so now, and after a chorus of replies, they did play ‘Freebird’, ignoring all other requests. At the end, instead of leaving and making the audience shout for them to come back and play one more song, they stayed on stage and made the crowd ask for their encore as if hey wren;t there, and then launched into the massive song everyone had been waiting for since forever: ‘Black Water Park’. I’ve never seen so many people pleased, even mentioning it was their best show in ages for playing the heavier stuff. The intense and amazing day of proggy rollercoaster tired me out to such a point I didn’t even go to the afterparty and went straight home to sleep, longing for something heavier and more traditional Roadburn fare.

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Words and Photos by Susanne A. Maathuis

Uncharted Waters- Anneke van Giersbergen

Posted on April 29, 2014 by News Team

We were thrilled to interview Anneke van Giersbergen, a lady with a voice like a bell and a personality that matches the smile that seems to permanently inhabit her face. Known from The Gathering and collaborations with Anathema and Devin Townsend among others, she went solo in 2007. Chatting with us just before her show in 013, and a few days before she set off to the USA to be on the Progressive Nation at Sea cruise. We spoke with her of the cruise, audiences, how metal never lets you go and of being a mother and a performing artist.

You’ve been invited to go along with prog nation at sea, a cruise, with pretty much the biggest talents in the Prog genre. How excited are you?

Totally excited, there are some really big names, and also some huge heroes of mine, who I’ve been listening to since I was little. For instance Adrian Belew and I’ve followed him since I know him, he worked with Zappa and King Crimson and I listen to all that stuff. I think he’s one of the best singers in the genre and of course best guitar players. So yeah, I’m just looking forward to watch all the shows. And I get to play myself, And it’s on a cruise and it’s good weather. So all these cool facts make me not sure what to expect. I have no idea how this is going to go, or how much fun it will be. It’s a whole different thing so I’m looking very much forward to it.

I know you’ve worked with Devin Townsend who is on the billing and you’ve worked with anathema in the past, who are also going. Are there going to be any collaboration on the boat?

Well, officially I’m playing with Devin Townsend and I’m playing my own solo set two times. If Anathema ask me do anything of course I will, and I think Danny is going sing a few songs with me in my solo set. Cause it’s you know, old friends. It should be a logical thing to do. It’s going to be good.

Pretty much abroad, Europe and us, you’ve got pretty high esteem, while here in the Netherlands we’re pretty much just peeking a round the corner with some thing you’ve done. Do you notice the difference?

There’s a difference in all territories I’d say. And it comes with waves. With The Gathering in certain places they were bigger than I am now and in certain places they were smaller than I am now. And also I notice differences in the audience, like in Europe I have a much younger crowd, new kids discovering the alternative genre and myself. And in the Netherlands when I’m on the television like at de Wereld draait door, there are people who discover me there. People who never listened to metal or rock before but they do like this. They’re people who listen to mainstream music but they do like alternative rock, so they like this. So you have the old gathering fans, the new fans and the very new fans, who I call office ladies, the spunky office ladies with the red hair and who have kids.

With The Gathering you were catering to an alternative metal crowd, while with your new things it’s not really metal anymore. Is The Gathering still looming over you or has it grown into its own thing with a separate existence?

It has grown into its own thing, but my past is always with me, because it’s part of me. I actually like that very much. I like people who listened to The Gathering in the old days and they come check me out now as well and they like the new stuff as well. I really really like that, because everyone is always in transition anyway all the time, in terms of what they listen to and what they feel like. So I am always evolving but the audience is as well. And I love The Gathering music and I love to play the songs. And sometimes I still make dark music and sometimes I make a pop album. And that’s the cool thing about being solo, I can make whatever. Whatever comes to me I can actually make happen, and that’s nice.

We’re more metal than rock oriented at Ghost Cult Magazine and there are probably plenty other metal oriented magazines that keep an eye on you from when you were in The Gathering. Metalheads don’t really let you go ever do they?

No. I made one album, In Your Room, that was quite a dry pop album, although if I listen back to it, it’s quite alternative and has quite a few dark moments. But lots people said this was quite light to their taste, yet they still come out and see my show and they still buy the album, because actually they are just curious about everything. And what greater audience can you wish for than that they are curious? And then they have their favorite album. Some people really like the pop album, or the ballad album or a bit darker. And now this one, drive, is very up tempo pop-rock. But it’s very heavy in production. I noticed people in prog think this album is so much fun. It is well played it is good quality, it has good vocals, they all love that. But it’s all three minutes songs, so it’s not necessarily what they always listen to with the Pink Floyd stuff and the long songs. But they say it gives them high spirits and energy, so they take along the three minute songs as it gives them energy. And I have no idea when I write songs and record, which group of people will like it and who will not like it. For some reason the prog world has embraced this album. It’s great!

Was it Drive or the one before that was nominated for the award in the Netherlands?

No it was the one before, Everything is Changing, and I got quite far. I actually got into the top three. Of all the albums of hugely famous artists in Holland, so I was totally surprised by it.

That’s great! You also did the title track for a Dutch movie, was that on the last album or before it?

It was actually a separate track, a cover of john legend – please baby don’t fall in love with me it is called. The director actually wanted me to sing particularly that song so I recorded it for him. It was great, to be in a movie right? Like you have the last scene and then the song starts, it’s fantastic.

So would you like to do more things like that?

I would love to! Because it’s tailor made music, this is the movie, this is how it’s supposed to be and supposed to sound and you kind of tailor make your version of in this case a cover, for this movie. And I kind of like to think like that. “OK how can we get this effect, what instruments do we need, how should I sing it? Should I sing it loud and intense or softly.” It all has to do with this particular last scene of the movie. Musicians never work like that when they make an album, it’s kind of the other way around. We just do what we feel like. Unless you make a concept album.

Apart from a musician you’re also a mother, and a touring musician as well. We’ve seen with a number of other big female fronted bands and solo artists as well that this becomes a problem. You however seem to be combining the two rather well, how do you do this?

I often wonder. I think actually every working mother has the same challenge. Because you have to divide family time and work time. As we own our own business, we can work 24 hours a day. There is always work. So we have to make a conscious choice every day. Now I’ll stop working, or start working. Now I’ll take care of the kids. On Sunday we usually make this mathematical schedule of the rest of the week, and each week we say “how the hell are we going to do this?”. But we make it work every week, and I love the two worlds. I love being at home, but when I’m home a long time I get anxious. Then I play a lot I love to be outside and play a lot and I love to be on the move. And after a tour I go home and I love the balance between the two world. Because I know people who only tour, and don’t have a family or kids. And they get a little estranged and detached from the world. They don’t have many real friends anymore. There are bands who can totally do that, but a lot of people I see sort of become stranger, and being a mother it really grounds me. Because you have to be up at 7 and you have to make dinner. So you can’t be a diva or anything. It’s two worlds that are great together. It’s a challenge physically, because I never sleep.

Especially when you’re on tour for a longer time, because your husband, Rob, is in you band as well, how do you do this, do you take your son with you?

Sometimes, when we tour in nightliner buses in Europe. We have a buss with a bed, you you have your little habitat outside the venue. Then we take Fin, our son, with us. He gets homework from school, so he studies every day. Usually tours are not very long, maybe three weeks or so, and he comes with us. So I have Rob and Fin my son, and then I don’t really have to go home, because I have home with me. And then I’m totally happy playing and being with them it’s all I need. But there are a lot of times I’m away on my own or when I’m on the road with rob but with out fin. We have good people who take care of him then, but we always try to combine it. He is quite used to it as well.

The only thing I can ask for is any last things you’d like to share?

I am writing new stuff, and I have no idea where it’s going. I’m always inspired right after I finish an album. I always think okay, now I’m going to go here, or there and I’m writing stuff. We’ll be touring in Europe and South America, maybe North America until the end of the year. Not everything is set in stone yet but we’re working on some tours that will be playing around the year. That’s the round we make, writing and touring.

Anneke on Facebook

Words and live photos by Susanne A. Maathuis

Anneke van Giersbergen : Live At 013, Tilburg NL

Posted on March 25, 2014 by News Team

Establishing her beautiful voice with The Gathering in the nineties and noughties, Anneke van Giersbergen went solo to be able to spend more time with her family. She has collaborated with Devin Townsend and Anathema, among others. Having seen the lady with the crystal clear voice before last year in a solo acoustic set, I’m looking forward to seeing her perform with her full band this time. The gig is sold out to capacity and a decent local and very loyal following arrives so early there is a significant line outside the greenroom of the 013 venue.

Before Anneke takes the stage Kinkobra are to warm up the anticipating crowd. This dutch rockband had been working on it’s career with two albums under their belt and a “working your ass off” mentality. The first things we notice is the heavy sauce of 90s rock. Flashes of Skunk Anansie, the dutch Kane and U2 all change and mix in the sound. Personally I find the vocalists vocal style somewhat grating after a while, as he skips between registers a little much, but since he drowns in the mix, especially in his higher registers, or the louder parts of the music, it doesn’t bother to much. The most enjoyable parts to me are definitely the general show, though it suffers a little as they’re all 5 cramped on the front of the stage. It’s obvious they wish to move more than they can. Also the bass and drums are nicely done, which really moves the whole show along. It’s an opener that makes me feel like a teenager again, but I’m not sure how many of the older crowd in tonight can appreciate these youngsters making the music of their youth.

And then after a brief changeover it’s time for Anneke herself to take the stage. First the band emerges and an intro is played. From the corner of the room I’m standing I can see the door to the side of the stage and see Anneke herself compose herself before she gets on stage. The butterflies and joy are visible on her face, and as she walks out on stage she is just a complete natural. The show moves fluently from big rock songs, active and happy power anthems to eventually a darker tone and even a few acoustic solo songs. The set is speckled with some older work from the Gathering, in a new coat of varnish. That Anneke’s voice is impeccable is something I don’t need to express more, and tonight is no exception. Her charming and disarming banter between songs is well timed and never too long. The chemistry of the band as a whole is itself wonderful, especially the harmonies with their key player.

The crowd this evening is mixed in ages and backgrounds, some are clearly previous Gathering fans, some are younger people taking their first steps into alternative rock and others are more of a spunky middle aged variety. The crowd clearly enjoy the show, and even the occasional wanderer who came to see the show if thoroughly convinced. The only pity is that a small clique of young people who clearly came with the first band end up in the back of the room goofing with the member of Kinkobra. But this minor nuisance cannot kill the pleasure that is hearing Anneke sing, with her deep timbre in her lower registers and the crystal clear bell sound of her high registers. The music itself is touching and very emotional, the only thing missing was some songs of Anneke’s children’s project De Beer die Geen Beer was (The Bear Who Wasn’t a Bear), but it’s a minor thing I only noticed because the songs touched me at her 2013 acoustic show.

If you can catch Anneke on her tours the rest of the year, it’s sincerely recommended.

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Anneke van Giersbergen on Facebook