Gavin Spearhead

Ulcerate are one of the most interesting newer bands in the death metal scene, whom I only discovered last year. They went on a short European tour with only a single date in the Netherlands, so Nijmegen it had to be. And considering they are from New Zealand, I didn't expect to have a second chance shortly. So regardless of all the snow and temperatures well below -15, I left for the Merleyn. Luckily it started late so the heavy traffic was not really a big issue, it took me over 2 hours to get there instead of 75 minutes it would take normally.

But when I got there, it was starting time exactly, but the first band was still sound checking; but after a short delay, it was Serotonin - a local band - that kicked off. This two man outfit plays some sort of industrial death metal with some black metal elements where the drums and bass guitar come from a drum computer and a single guitar is played manually accompanied by vocals. I never did like drum computers much, especially with blast beats and this time it was a bit so-so as well. Not really interesting, but not too bad either. The tour support slot came from the French Svart Crown who play a kind of fast death metal with some black metal influences. Technically a very apt band, and not all that bad, although they didn't seem to be able to warm up the crowd (which would have been nice, as it was _cold_ inside as well). I just might check them out on CD some times as well.

Then finally there was Ulcerate that got to play, over half an hour later than planned. Man that band is _brutal_ and _fast_. The vaguely remind me of Gorguts at the time of Obscura, with music that is full of dissonant chords with a very high pace, but slows down to keep it interesting. Even though the music quite hard to digest and rather complex it was performed excellently, but the needed concentration probably limits their ability to have a strong stage presence. A varied set covered all three albums with a little focus on their latest album. So an excellent gig albeit a little short and definitely it was worth driving through the bad conditions. Hopefully they'll return to Europe again soon.

Even though I have been living in the area, I had never visited the once legendary club 't Paard van Troje (Trojan Horse) in The Hague - just one of those clubs that had all the cool metal gigs in the 80s and early 90s along with venues Nooderligt, Atak, Dynamo and Scum. But ever since it reopened after a long time refurbishing, metal gigs have been quite scarce really. But this night there was a small festival with only four Dutch death metal bands. So that was where I went.

The first band is Victimizer and the only one I didn't know in advance. They play a rather generic form of brutal death metal with lots of blast beats. In the end it all sounded a bit too similar but aside from the rather untight faster double bass drum parts it was played quite skillfully.

Next up was a band from around here, called Carceri I had seen them live years ago when they hadn't released anything yet but they sounded quite good then. So finally last year they released their debut album and they are doing some gigs again as well. Stylistically though not all that different from the previous band, but much more variation in tempos and riffs. Apparently one of the guitarist couldn't make it (or quit?) so during some of the leads the sound seemed a bit empty despite the solid bass. Probably one of the better death metal bands in the Dutch underground scene at the moment.

Okay, so after that there was Izegrim. A band I had seen a few times before and always completely bore me. And they didn't fail at that this time. The highly distorted, rather sluggish thrash/death metal with bland semi-grunted vocals lead to completely uninteresting music, vaguely similar to Arch Enemy.

Then the headliner of this evening was Toxocara who also have a new album under their belt which they wanted to promote. They amazed my first time I saw them some years ago by playing a very fast brutal death metal full of varied, interesting and original riffs. Yet their new album is slightly different bearing some industrial influences, but still sounds pretty good though. Nevertheless they opened up with an old song - T34 - and it was fast, tight and brutal. And as a matter of fact most of the - too short set - was filled with songs off their first two albums with just 2 of the new one. So a great performance again.

Unfortunately I can see why there are few metal gigs in The Hague area, as there were just about 50-60 people all together and I must say probably one of the lamest I have ever seen. Scarcely any headbanging at all, and nothing even close to moshing. And at 23.00 the venue had to cleared out, as apparently there was gonna be some dance fest later on. So probably the last gig in the once legendary 't Paard for me :(

Chilean progressive doom/death metal band Mar de Grises were doing some festival gigs in Europe, and were doing some gigs in between. This Wednesday evening they played a headlining gig in the cafe Little Devil in Tilburg (without an entrance fee) - a place I had never been before really. I guess it won't be that often that a band like this would play a headlining gig in Europe all too soon. So a great opportunity to see them play a 75 minute set in stead of a 40 minute set. Two support slots were added.

The first band of the evening was the local, but reasonably well-established band Faal with one album under their belt. They were about to start when I entered the venue. Faal (Dutch for fail) plays a modernised version of doom/death with some funeral touches as well as some black metal influences. The sound was remarkably good - which continued to be so for the entire evening. They played a two songs of their album (00:00 and Perpetual Solitude) as well as a two new songs (The Tempest and one which title I forgot). The only thing that really bothered me were the really untight double bass parts even though there were few. Other than that a fine performance and a very interesting gig.

From Belgium came the band Thurisaz who seem to play a mixture of various styles, including death, power, thrash and half a dozen or so more styles of metal. I had never heard of them before but they already released 3 albums. The music was basically okay - varied, tight - but the added keyboards were annoying and added little to the music. The clean vocals at times were terrible and often didn't fit the musical style too well.

Then there was Mar De Grises whose last tour I missed. Their keyboardist and singer could apparently not make the trip so the old singer returned. The keyboards were left behind - which actually is an improvement imo. The quite complex music was played very tightly by five guys that really seemed to enjoy playing. Naturally they played a couple of songs of their latest album, such as opening track Starmaker but they frequently returned to their debut album as well which I think is still their best album. And they concluded their set with the very epic To See Saturn Fall with the classic break in the middle where they just let all the instruments wander into chaos for a while, then stop and they continue with an awesome melodic guitar line. Definitely one of the best gigs I went to this year.

• Starmaker
• El Otro
• Shining Human Skin
• The Bell And The Solar Gust
• One Possessed
• A Sea of Dead Comets
• Sleep Just One Dawn (was on the set list but they didn't play it)
• Recklessness
• To See Saturn Fall

Cynic had just released a new EP and so there was an excuse to do a European tour. Supposedly with the French band Hypno5e, but for some reason they were dropped of the tour. Instead the Baroeg arranged a local support band to open the evening.

Eden To Ashes were the lucky few. A young, Dutch progressive death metal band. They employ no less than three guitars and three singers. Stylistically they vaguely remind me of early Obscura, playing some modern sounding death metal inspired by bands like Death, Atheist, Pestilence with an original touch. Not a bad opener really.

Next was an instrumental UK progressive metal band called Chimp Spanner of whom I had never heard really. The mix various metal styles of old and new to relatively short songs with a focus on the lead guitar. One of the guitars having no less than 8 strings. Somehow instrumental bands always seem to bore me quickly and that happened with this band as well. The drummer tried to spice up his playing by doing all kinds of fancy movements with his stick and doing weird facial expression. Like the former band very proficient but not as interesting tho

Then there was Cynic who had set up the stage differently than is usual, with the drums in the back corner, the bass all to the side, Paul on the other side of the stage and the second guitarist at the centre back. Despite the early Wednesday evening, the venue was quite full, but certainly not sold out. They kicked off with a new song. Paul rarely spoke in between the songs and seemed to be kept busy with his effect pedals instead - quite unlike the last time I saw them a few years back. They played songs off all their albums very tightly despite the complexity of the songs. Even though the drums always seem to be a bit more hyperactive than suits the music. The focus songs had real grunts this time by the second guitar player instead of taped ones. So a pretty solid gig.

A World-War II-themed, old school death metal band town with veteran musicians playing in their sort of home. Can you wrong with that? Probably, but Hail of Bullets are way above average. And doing a one-off club gig aside all the festival gigs they do is a good chance to sort them out.

But first the Autopsy cover-band Cadaverine (formerly Modellbau) was set to play a bunch of classic Autopsy covers. The good thing was I knew all the song pretty well. The bad thing was that it wasn't Autopsy playing them. A couple of big mistakes were annoying, but overall it was enjoyable. And it is not all that often one sees a girl drumming in a death metal band. So a nice warm-up for the head liner.

Then, after changing the stage, it was time for Hail of Bullets. The venue was reasonably full when the intro (The Eve of Battle) started after which the band kicked off with the opener of the latest album - Operation Z. It was going back and forth between the Russian front and the Pacific with the crowd going wild. The band played very tight but with many of them having more than 20 years experience, who'd expect anything different (Theo Van Eekelen- Bass, Ed Warby - Drums, Paul Baayens - Guitars, Stephan Gebédi - Guitars, Martin van Drunen - Vocals). Yea so they bring nothing new, but what they do, they do quite well. And after an hour or so the air raid siren sounded over the PA to signal the end. But they came back for two more songs.

• Operation Z
• Advancing Once More
• Red Wolves Of Stalin
• Kamikaze
• Nachthexen
• Full Scale War
• Warsaw Rising
• On Coral Shores
• Berlin
• Guadalcanal
• Tokyo Napalm Holocaust
• Ordered Eastwards
• --Encores--
• The Crucial Offensive
• General Winter

The Dutch Doom Day is celebrating its tenth edition with a three day event with in total 15 bands. Like usual the line-up is very varied with some bands not even all that doomy at all.

The Friday opened with a band form the Azores called A Dream Of Poe who play pretty standard doom / death with some gothic touches here and there. I wasn't all that impressed, especially the vocals were rather dull most of the time. Music-wise a bit too generic for me.

The band that made me go that Friday were the reunited Spina Bifida. Excellent doom / death from the early nineties who split up after only one album (like so many bands from that time it seems) and were long forgotten afterwards. Anyway after the intro (the same one as on the album) they opened with Witchfire. Excellent sound, and the band appeared to enjoying their old material. Most of the set was comprised of songs from the album, but apparently they have been writing new songs too as one was played. It seems to sound a bit different, so we'll just have to wait if they will record a new album and see how it turns out. They ended the set with the song called simply "Die". Great gig.

The Friday closed with the band The 11th Hour which is mostly a solo doom metal project by former Gorefest's drummer Ed Warby. I wasn't really all that impressed by their album nor did they impress me live last time. The live band consists among others of another former Gorefest guy and two Pim and Bram from Officium Triste. In total three guitars, which seemed a bit overdone, since as far as I could see at least two guitars always played the same riffs. Besides material off the debut album, they played two new songs as well. Anyway, they couldn't impress me much this time either. Even though the it was brought with lots of dedication I'm sure, I find their music rather dull and the clean vocals sound way too thin for me. And no encores were played.

I skipped the second day as I knew none of the bands and none sounded interesting enough to go. The third day opened with another Dutch band Abyssmal Darkening which turned out to be better than I expected judging from their album. Mostly doom/death but with harsh vocals and some black metal influences. Not bad, except that the rest of the band - two women actually on guitar respectively bass - acted like statues.

That could also be said of the next band which is a Finnish / Dutch collaboration called Night of Suicide. They play funeral doom - a very difficult genre actually as it can very easily become extremely boring. But when well composed it can be a very interesting genre - like Mournful Congregation seems to pull off. However in this case it turns out to be rather boring, not played very tightly, with aweful barking vocals and a rhythm guitarist that can do an excellent Nicholas Cage impression - ie have only one stoic facial expression.

And then there was the excellent Chilean band Procession who play classic doom inspired by bands like Candlemass now just Felipe with a couple of session members as he apparently moved to Sweden. It doesn't matter cause this was an excellent gig with songs off the latest album (The Road to the Gravegarden, Hyperion, Destroyers of the Faith ) as well as off the EP (Raven of Disease, Like a Plague upon the Earth). Maybe this is not all that original but it simply works and they perform it quite well with very solid and powerful - clean vocals.

The fourth band this day is the German band Ophis who specialise in bleak, extremely depressive doom death. They started with "Expired Earth" off Withered Shades. Their songs are long like most doom bands, but they keep them interesting by adding interesting lead sections as well as lots of time changes sometimes reminding me of the legendary Disembowelment. Off the debut they played "Beneath Sardonic Skies" which was followed by a new song to appear on a split with Officium Triste, which appeared a bit shorter and overall faster. They ended the set with the 15 minute long, opening track of the latest album called "The Halls of Sorrow". Excellent band, excellent gig.

Herder was next - promoted as a stoner doom band, but it seemed a bit fast for that to me as well is the screaming vocals didn't seem to fit. I didn't care much about them so I left, skipping the headliner all together - The Devil's Blood - for whom I couldn't care less either. Call me conservative but I don't see what this band has to do at doom festival. So like most of these editions a bit of a so-so festival with a couple of really good performances but also many disappointments and not all that well attended. It always strikes me as odd that there has rarely been a very strong headliner at this festival. but we'll see what next year will bring.

URD has improved the Usenet experience even further with the release of 1.1.0.

In this brand new version, specific searches in newsgroups, rss feeds or spots can be saved and quickly retrieved. The use of spots have further been streamlined. And there is a new stylesheet available (Silver) as well as an overhaul of the Desert style and many minor improvements to the layout. Furthermore the statistics have been updated to show daily information as well. And as a bonus there is improved spam control, by blocking on poster names.

Changelog:

•  Fixed bug in unhiding sets
•  Fixed bug in handling settings
•  Moved unhide/hide sets to quickmenu
•  Moved follow link to NZB to quickmenu
•  Added option to show statistics per day
•  Added hover effect to transfers/uploads, viewfiles and admin pages
•  Edit rss feed now authentication is a checkbox with hiding u/p fields
•  Changing user level in config is now saved into prefs too
•  Added storing of spot searches
•  Fixed bug in rss-feeds and groups with max/minsetsize
•  Fixed issue with NZB file handling in some cases
•  Now unique id for spots - fixes issues with marking sets as downloaded, interesting, etc
•  Added preview download name to document title
•  reset download parameters if all elements are removed from basket, such as dl_dir
•  added spot categories to dl dir formatting
•  added option to automatically clean inactive users
•  Added mapping spots to URD categories
•  Added default group/ feed for browse pages
•  Fixed bug in displaying category names with funny characters
•  Fixed issue not showing type of data in statistics (e.g. GB or kB)
•  Fixed bug in sorting rss feeds
•  Fixed showing correct tab in rss_feeds after applying settings
•  Fixed saving user setting on inactive rss_feeds
•  Fixed small bug with displaying deleting spots commands
•  Uploading an NZB does not refresh the page anymore
•  Fixed a bug in hiding spots
•  Added black list for posters when updating groups for more spam control
•  Fixed small giving harmless database update errors
•  Updated ADODB to 5.14
•  Added silver stylesheet
•  Updated dessert style to "fresher" colours
•  Search spots on poster field

 

Cheerio
URD dev team

We are looking still for people to test it and also for people who want write translations to other languages. Be sure to contact us if you're interested.

URD is a web-based application for downloading usenet binaries. It is written entirely in PHP, yet uses some external tools to do some of the dirty CPU intensive work. It stores all the information it needs in a generic database (like MySQL or PostGreSQL). Articles that belong together are aggregated into sets. Downloading files requires only a few mouse clicks, and when the download is finished it can automatically be verified and extracted. Downloading from usenet is as easy as using p2p software!

A strong point of URD is that no external websites are required, as URD generates its own download information. It is possible to create and download an NZB file from specified articles as well.

URD is a backronym of Usenet Resource Downloader. The term URD is derived from Nordic cultures referring to the Well of URD, which is the holy well, the Well Spring, the source of water for the world tree Yggdrasil. The old English term for it is Wyrd. Conceptually the meaning of URD is closest to Fate.

Website: www.urdland.com

A co-headlining tour from two US heavy/power/thrash metal bands that have existed for some 30 years. I wasn't all that familiar with either band really but since they seem to be classic I checked them out nonetheless. And the mp3s I heard didn't sound bad either. Turned out, the average age on stage and in the audience was way above 30. I guess the bands alternate on the tour to play last, as they switched the order here shortly before the gig.

The first band though was another really old band, Dutch, and had reformed a while back: Martyr. I wasn't familiar with them and I can't say they left a very lasting impression. The music is okay, but generally lacks punch and the vocals so-so - the tough vocals aren't all that tough and the high vocals aren't all that high and off-key. At the end of the gig the imbecile bassplayer through his bass guitar into the audience, scraping my head.

Next was Helstar - presumably with some session players (drums and bass) as they didn't look like the photo's I saw and they seemed quite young. Anyway, this is mostly mid-paced thrashy metal with some speed/power influences. Not at all bad with a lot interesting lead guitar work and the somewhat odd vocals of James Rivera. They got about 75 minutes to fill and a huge catalogue to chose from, so there is a bit from everything, not in the least from their latest album.

Vicious Rumors has a very similar style to Helstar, maybe less thrash there and very different - high-pitched vocals which were quite good. The drums aren't all that impressive, mostly rather basic really. But the same can be said about Helstar. The music contains a lot of great lead guitar work - some of which is played by 2 guitars simultaneously. And the set here too was comprised of old and new material, where they omitted any of their groove metal era. At the end the singer of Martyr pushed half the audience on stage and all (much like what happened during Martyr too). So all in all an evening well spent. Maybe I ought to check both bands out a little more on CD.

I've seen Primordial a few times over the years, but never headlining. And they don't do many club shows unfortunately, but only appear on festivals. And now with a new album under their belts, this is a one off chance probably to see them headlining in a club on this short tour with a rather peculiar package. And the weather was extremely hot that day, so the club was most like a sauna.

Starting 45 minutes later than announced, were the French Alcest. I never heard them but heard lots of them. So I didn't really know what to expect. It turned out to be some rather slow, dreamy music thin clean vocals and occasional harsh black metal vocals. Not bad, but it all sounds a bit too light for me. Primordial singer seemed to enjoy this a lot as he stood near the stage sound board.

Then there was While Heaven Wept who I did hear before, but I can't remember much of that gig. It must have been in 2004 tho. Anyway, this is classic doom metal with keyboards from the USA. Like Alcest, this band was okay, but not all that interesting. Mostly mid-paced doom with some interesting guitar work here and there. The vocals on the other hand sounded way too thin for me and lacking power.

Then finally Primordial appears as the intro tune is played. Singer Alan had his face war-painted again and carried his enthusiasm over to the crowd from the first moment to the last. The rest of the band concentrate more on their instruments. I can't say that Primordial have any bad songs, so they can't really go wrong with any set list really. Naturally there is a lot from the new album and a mixture of older songs. The opener is "No Grave Deep Enough". Even the amazing song The Coffin Ships gets played, as well as the good-old Gods to the Godless. The overall sound is reasonably good after the vocals are turned after a minute or so. No encore is played so the set is closed with the more than excellent Empire Falls. This is really an excellent performance by an excellent band. The only downsides are that there is no song off Storm before Calm, and the continues asking to show hands or horns or whatever gets pretty old. But anyway, this band should do lots more club tours.

Set list:

• No Grave Deep Enough
• Gallows Hymn
• As Rome Burns
• Lain with the Wolf
• Autumn's Ablaze
• Bloodied Yet Unbound
• The Coffin Ships
• Gods to the Godless
• Death Of The Gods
• Empire Fall

A new doom metal festival in a venue I had never been before - popcentrale in Dordrecht - with some interesting bands on the bill. I skipped the first couple of bands.

When I entered the venue, the Belgian Hooded Priest had just started playing. I had seen them play before (2008), but apparently it didn't make a very lasting impression as I couldn't remember it. Anyway, a bit of an odd band with an double bass (yea the upright bass - not the drums) and a singer who looks different - long grey hair, ditto beard and a blood-smeared face, dressed in a priests-habit. Oh and a scythe for a mic stand. So much for the looks. Music is mostly mid-paced classic doom metal. The double bass isn't all that prominent in the sound. Not really my thing.

The second band was actually the primary reason to go: Spina Bifida. A doom/death band from the early 90s that was long forgotten but after nearly 20 years they have resurfaced nearly in the line-up of their sole album. Only the singer is different. They played (I think) the entire album Ziyadah but not in order tho. The slow riffs rolled out through a thick layer of distortion with an odd solo here and there. The new vocalist fits in well with the rest of the band with the low grunts. They ended their set with the kind of odd song called "die". Even though given an hour they only played some 45 minutes, but I guess that's all the songs they got. Splendid gig. And hopefully they do some more gigs.

I have seen Officium Triste a dozen times before, and they never have let down but seem to fare on the automatic pilot on many occasions. Well surprisingly not this time. Opening with the set with "On the Crossroads of Souls" off their latest album showcased the band with eagerness and dedication and tight playing. The set consist of a variety of songs from their oeuvre, but half-way through there was a little surprise. Pim announced the recording of a new album and they played one song of it. It sounded a bit different but - slow, no keys and lots of melodies. So that promises a great new album. Like always they ended with the song off the Pathway, called "Goodbye".

Headlining is the UK act 40 Watt Sun (formerly Warning). It wasn't long ago I saw them in the Baroeg (with no more than 50 others). Like then they started playing all the songs of their debut album in order but it all sounded a bit better now. Or perhaps because I know the songs better. Well that is up until the fourth song "Carry Me Home". They played a cover of a song I didn't know of a band I hadn't heard of. Apparently they recorded this for an EP to be released soon. Then back to the album, with the final song "This Alone". But as a twist it was played slower, with clean guitars and little drums and bass. As an encore they played the awesome Warning song "Footprints".

Set list Officium Triste:

• On the Crossroads of Souls
• The pathway
• This Inner Twist
• Burning all boats and bridges
• The sun doesn't shine anymore
• my charcoal heart
• Goodbye

URD 1.0.8 is in the works. There are two major enhancements to this version of this web-based Usenet Download application. It will support Spots and it has a new and improved look. A preview can be found here. For the dare-devils, it can already be tried from the SVN repository See URDLand.com for more information

Five bands toured through Europe under the moniker Power of Metal - all more or less power metal, hence the name. I'm normally not much interested in power metal, oh some early Helloween would be fine. But other than that, no thanx. But this toured featured no less than the recently re-united Psychotic Waltz. A progressive metal band from California who I had missed when they were active mostly in the nineties. So it was time to catch up and drive to Tilburg on this sunny Sunday afternoon.

The opening band was already playing for a while when I came in. This was the Finnish band Thaurorod and pretty much straight-up power metal. They were okay but not really my interested.

After a short time to change the stage around, the Danish lads from Mercenary came on stage. I had seen them before so I know more or less what to expect. But they had a couple line-up changes. This was more thrashy or death metalish power metal with some grunts and some clean vocals. I didn't like them before and I still don't like them.

Then it was time for Psychotic Waltz in their original line-up. This includes of course Brian McAlpin who is stuck to a wheelchair. It looks a bit strange on stage but nevertheless it never hurt his playing or so it seems. They opened with the amazing intro of their second album "Into the Everflow" called "Ashes". Soundwise it was pretty much okay, a bit bass-heavy. Their complex, technical music was executed splendidly. They treated us with a 45 minute set covering all four albums. They included "Into the Everflow" which is one of my all time favourite songs and a whole deal of songs from their debut album. Buddy (now called Devon) missed a few notes here and there, I guess the long tour had taken some effect on his vocals, but nothing too bad. They promised us a new album and a return to the stage, hopefully as a headlining club tour that time so they can play longer. But this was already quite excellent.

Set list:

• Ashes
• Spiral Tower
• Haze One
• Into the Everflow
• Morbid
• Halo of Thorns
• Nothing
• I of the Storm

Then we got the US band Nevermore. A bit of a so-so band who I had seen more than 10 years ago. They didn't impress me much then, as I can barely remember anything from that gig, except the drummer ruined a couple of drumsticks during the set and went to take a piss half way through one song. He didn't do that this time. I didn't care for their thrashy / groovy power metal which sounded quite flat and dull. Neither do I understand why people seem so impressed by the vocalist as he is quite generic.

Last band was Symphony X probably the most true power metal band on the tour, and they co-headlined. I had never heard them before - live or on album - so I didn't really know what to expect. It turned out to include lots of cheesy sounding synths, wanky guitar leads, another not very impressive singer and otherwise rather boring as a whole. So I decided to leave after two songs and drive home.

Patrick Walker is back with a new doom metal band ever since he broke up Warning. And with a new album under their belt, they are doing a few gigs around Europe, including this Sunday afternoon gig in Rotterdam. Not that it was a full house, maybe 50 people came to check them out.

There were two support slots, of which the first was for the Swedish Semlah. I listened to a couple of their songs on youtube and thought they were ok. Turned out that was exactly the way they were live. As with many classic doom metal bands, the problem is usually either they're just boring or the singer in not very capable. In this case a bit of both although not all that awkward.

Mirror of Deception is another classic doom metal band who were without their bass-player due to illness. This band has both problems, boring and a bad singer (or two actually). A few nice lead guitar sections break some of the mediocrity.

I listened to the 40 Watt Sun album a few times, but not too often. They sound not too different from Warning, but their are some changes. The riffs are a bit thinner and simpler, the drums less pounding and the speed has picked up a bit on average too. The band centres clearly around Patrick as the bass player stays way in the back and the drummer doesn't draw any attention. They start off with the opening track of the new album, called Restless and eventually work through every song on the album. Musically it sounded a bit thinner than on the album, probably because they're just a trio. And some the songs sound a bit too similar at times. For the encore they came back to a song I didn't know, so I guess this was the extra song on the double LP version of the album and very minimalistic. I guess that Patrick really wants to leave Warning behind as no Warning song was played. All in all a pretty good gig but somehow I felt a bit let down, maybe because I don't know the songs too well or because I missed Warning's latest tour.

On this Sunday afternoon, the Baroeg in Rotterdam promised us some doom set. Basically this is the tour of the Chilean band Procession with two local bands added to the bill.

Opening is the Dutch Ortega who I had seen playing just a couple of months ago. So I already knew I wouldn't like them much. Not a bad band tho, but I am not into the sludge doom they play. But for the style they play, it's quite light.

How often does a Chilean band play in Europe. The only other band I can think of I have seen playing live here, is Mar de Grises. But now there are also Procession who play classic doom, not unlike big names as Solstice, Candlemass and Reverend Bizarre. They had just released their debut album "Destroyer of the Faith" which cover art reminds me more of a third rate Destroyer 666 clone btw. Anyway, it's good to see a very young band like this picking up this genre and playing high quality too. They opened with the two first songs of the album, the short Hyperion and the title track. Mostly this songs are quite simple with a thick bass sound and lots of great melodies. Off the EP they played Raven of Disease. Followed by some more album tracks including the amazing "The Road to the Gravegarden", Chants of the Nameless. They ended their set with the last album track White Coffin. Only to come back to play an encore of Candlemass' classic Solitude unfortunately without Messiah, unlike their Stockholm gig. Anyway, a very promising new band on the doom horizon. A shame really that Procession didn't headline because they really deserved it.

Actually headlining was Officium Triste, who play in the Baroeg each year and pretty much any other doom gig around here. So I had seen them often before, and all their gigs were pretty good, but on the other hand none of them were really great. They played a solid set this time too, although not faultless. The set consisted of On the Crossroads of Souls, This Inner Twist, Pathway of Broken Glass, The Sun Doesn't Shine Anymore, My Charcoal Heart, the Anathema cover Sleepless, ending the set as usual with Goodbye. Then they came back for one final song, another cover - one I hadn't seen them play, or ever heard before since it is only on some obscure 7", called Headstone of the band Chorus of Ruin. So that made it a bit more interesting. Once again a solid show, but not great.

After their cancellation at Headbanging Enschede, Sodom was back on the road for a short European tour, of which the only Dutch date was in Eindhoven's Dynamo. So after some 17 years I thought it would be time to go and see Sodom live again.

They held a kind of competition to fill the second support slot, which should be a local band. Peculiarly this was a German band here, named Eure Erben who were already playing when I entered the venue and I caught only 2 or 3 songs. I guess I didn't miss much from this rather generic band that is nearly as old as Sodom, but I had never heard of (okay they changed names in 2004 from Darkness but that doesn't ring any bells either).

The other support slot was for the whole tour given to the Swedish band Die Hard who I didn't know either. They play thrash metal with some Black metal (read Venom) elements in it. Anyway I found it rather boring.

Then there was Sodom with a new drummer. After the mandatory intro, they started out with the title track of their latest album. Then followed a set with mostly classic songs selected from nearly all their albums, only to return to the new album with The Art Of Killing Poetry. The usual songs filled the set, like Sodomy and Lust, Outbreak Of Evil, but also a couple of surprises, especially the awesome Nuclear Winter. Soundwise it was a bit so-so. The bass seem to disappear once in a while and the vocals were hard to hear. The band was having a lot of fun after a bit of a slow start. But after 90 minutes with the last notes of the mandatory Bombenhagel it all over without encores. Excellent gig!

Approximate set list:

1. In War And PIeces
2. Sodomy and Lust
3. M 16
4. Proselytism Real
5. Outbreak Of Evil
6. The Saw Is The Law
7. Nuclear Winter
8. Ausgebombt
9. Der Wachturm
10. The Art Of Killing Poetry
11. Eat Me
12. The Vice Of Killing
13. City Of God
14. Agent Orange
15. Blasphemer
16. Remember The Fallen
17. Bombenhagel

Perhaps you know this European directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retention. It basically says that all your web requests needs to be logged for half a year (or longer in some nations). Naturally it is all for your own good. O and for terrorists of course. Naturally, it is completely useless.

Anyway there is nothing against making it all a little more difficult for them spooks. Perhaps you have heard of trackmenot (Website) or perhaps not. A firefox extension that does random searches on google and other search engines. But you need to have firefox running for it. So I decided to write a tool which can simply run in the background at all times and it works in php.

And this is crawler. It works slightly different from trackmenot. It just downloads a website and simply follows all urls from that page (basically like a webcrawler would) but in a random order. It can bootstrap automatically by fetching a random query from google or it can be bootstrapped by giving one or more urls on the command line. At exit it will save all stored urls to urls.txt which it will load on startup and start again from there. You can send a HUP signal to print the current list of URLs it has queued to fetch or send it a USR2 signal to clear the current list and bootstrap again.

Performance impact on the system is minimal. It only downloads 8k per page and tries only one URL per second. Of course these are all configurable settings.

It can be started from the command line running this command

php crawl.php

You need to have php installed and runnable on a command line. It should basically work on all php installation, but the inclusion of curl is strongly adviced. All settings are in the craw.php file.

The latest changes I made are

• can broadcast all crawled websites to a UDP port so you can follow what it is doing
• can send a predefined, random referrer or use the URL itself as a referrer

Some of its other features include

• Tracking whether a host has an IPv6 address

Download this tool here Crawler

As promised, the 1.0.7 release is here! :D

What are the main changes you ask? How about some new themes for the default skin!

• The old skin is now upgraded and is called the 'Classic' stylesheet,
• there's a blue 'Blues' version
• and a sandy 'Desert' one as well (still needs some work though).

Another new feature is the flexible specification of the download folder depending on category of the newsgroup, type of download, etc. Might save you from having to manually move completed downloads!

Lastly, we changed the database layout a little bit which may improve the performance during newsgroup updates / set generation.

Changelog:

    Fixed a small problem in preview
    Huge speed up of generating sets and minor speed up of update
    Fixed a bug in autodownload code
    Fixed annoying issue with white background when background image was not loaded
    Added default download delay option
    Added option to automatically download as an NZB file
    Fixed a bug in saving configuration blanking maintenance times
    Added option to set download directory in browse basket
    Fixed a small bug in getting time in the timepicker
    Added stylesheet chooser in prefs/config
    Added second stylesheet (blues)
    Replaced article count in browse - groupselector by set count
    Added set counter to categories in browse
    Added set counter to categories and feeds in rss feeds
    Fixed a bug in estimating the header count
    Removed standard alert / confirm by custom popup
    Fixed a bug in handling invalid or empty NZB files
    Fixed small bug in selecting next group, not resetting page offset
    Fixed a bug in installer not detecting gd extension
    Fixed a bug in rescheduling tasks that could not connect
    Added third stylesheet (desert)
    Ajaxified newsgroups and rss feeds pages
    Cleanup of control page
    Cleanup search page
    Fixed check for preview size so that 0 means no limit
    Detect selecting text in viewfiles
    Fixed bug in selecting year for statistics
    Option to load colours for statistics from stylesheet
    Fixed bug in viewing files with weird characters in it (like &)
    Added option to only download par2 files when needed
    Added search option to users
    Made checkboxes in admin/users work like buttons
    Fixed bug in preview progress indicator
    Fixed a bug in handling database intesive threads correctly

Perhaps you know this European directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retention. It basically says that all your web requests needs to be logged for half a year (or longer in some nations). Naturally it is all for your own good. O and for terrorists of course. Naturally, it is completely useless.

Anyway there is nothing against making it all a little more difficult for them spooks. Perhaps you have heard of trackmenot (Website) or perhaps not. A firefox extension that does random searches on google and other search engines. But you need to have firefox running for it. So I decided to write a tool which can simply run in the background at all times and it works in php.

And this is crawler. It works slightly different from trackmenot. It just downloads a website and simply follows all urls from that page (basically like a webcrawler would) but in a random order. It can bootstrap automatically by fetching a random query from google or it can be bootstrapped by giving one or more urls on the command line. At exit it will save all stored urls to urls.txt which it will load on startup and start again from there. You can send a HUP signal to print the current list of URLs it has queued to fetch or send it a USR2 signal to clear the current list and bootstrap again.

Performance impact on the system is minimal. It only downloads 8k per page and tries only one URL per second. Of course these are all configurable settings.

It can be started from the command line running this command

php crawl.php

You need to have php installed and runnable on a command line. It should basically work on all php installation, but the inclusion of curl is strongly adviced. All settings are in the craw.php file.

The latest changes I made are

• can broadcast all crawled websites to a UDP port so you can follow what it is doing
• can send a predefined, random referrer or use the URL itself as a referrer

Some of its other features include

• Random user agent
• Random timing to get URL within a specified range
• black listing based on regular expressions - URLs matching won't be fetched

Download this tool here Crawler

This Saturday was the second edition of Headbanging Enschede, taking place in the new Atak. Which had a number interesting bands on the bill, so I drove to my Alma Mater, Enschede. I skipped the first few bands as I wasn't interested in them at all. There weren't even all that much people, I guess about 500 whereas the venue can hold some 800. But then there wasn't any band that attracts big crowds.

The first band I saw albeit only 3 songs was INRI a more or less local band playing death metal. Not bad, but rather generic. They seemed to have a lot of fun though on stage.

In the small hall Prostitute Disfigurement was already playing. Not really my band as they play brutal death metal filled with blast beats.

Back in the large hall, the first band I was curious to see was the German Desaster although I didn't really know them. They play thrash metal with some black metal influences - simple but effective. The sound is a bit thin some times with a distorted bass guitar and only one guitar. But actually a pretty good gig. I'd have to check this band out on album.

Izegrim was already playing in the small hall, but they are a rather dull band, so no big deal. I saw a couple of songs then moved back to the large venue.

Master was about to start there. I don't really follow this band any more but their first 3 albums are solid early death metal. Especially On the Seventh Day God Created Master is a good album. After the introduction "We are Master" they kicked off with their self-titled song off the debut album. One thing I noticed is that Paul's singing has changed a bit, much less enunciated as before, but a more barking style. I don't know if it is intentional or that he can't do his previous style anymore. He isn't getting any younger. And they took long pauses between songs too. Anyway, they mixed their set with some new songs like Slaves of Society and a bunch of old songs, including Judgement of Will, Submerged In Sin, Funeral Bitch and ending it all with Pay to Die. A solid gig as I'm used to with Master, but not really special. It was the first time that I actually saw the stoical guitarist actually smile.

In the small hall it was Disabuse. A old, shitty hardcore thrash band. Completely boring, with a couple of paupers in the audiences that started to thrash around wildly trying to pull every one into a pit.

Asphyx was another local band who got an hour to fill and poured lots of classics into the hall as well as some songs off their latest offering Death the brutal Way and a new song too. Martin was chattering a lot, especially about going out drinking later. Certainly not an entirely flawless gig. Alwin didn't remember his parts in the new song and some breaks in The Rack didn't go to well. But nevertheless a fun gig with a good set including MS Bismarck, Wasteland of Terror, Death the Brutal Way, Scorbutics, Eisenbahnmörser, The Rack and ending it with The Last One on Earth.

Then things had changed a bit in the schedule. The band I wanted to see - Sodom - turned out to be sick and there was no replacement. So Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult was playing in the small hall. I wasn't familiar with this German black metal band. Musically not really my thing, fast with lots of blasts and tremelo picking and high screechy vocals but fun to see live for once. And rather unorthodox has a female lead singer and guitarist. And I thought that spewing blood was a thing from the nineties but this band did it a lot - smelt like real blood too.

The last band was the Belgian Enthroned, another black metal band who I thought was completely boring so I left after a song or four. Not really a worthwhile headliner anyway.

So quite a disappointment that Sodom wasn't there, as it has been 17 years ago I saw them play live. Hopefully Tom gets better soon maybe I can see them in February in Eindhoven.

After some 20 years the Wehrmacht had reformed last year. And they did a gig in their hometown Portland of which some videos can be found on youtube. But those didn't sound too good really, mostly much slower than their album renditions. Nevertheless a European tour got announced for Fall 2010. So I was really interested to see if any more rehearsing they claimed they did had helped.

I had missed the first band , a DRI cover band called Madman (actually just Rompeprop) due to traffic jams in Eindhoven. Who'd expect it that it would take more than half an hour to get across the city centre. No big deal tho as I wasn't really interested in them anyway.

The second band was the tour support act from Austin Texas Blunt Force Trauma. Basically a crossover band with the DRI drummer. The straightforwardness and simplicity of this type of music makes it rather uninteresting. Even though the band did their thing well enough. And the crowd mostly enjoyed it.

Then we got Suicidal Failure. A local cover band that only plays Suicidal Tendencies covers. Now I don't really get the idea of cover bands - who'd want to hear a band trying to play another band's songs as close to the original as possible. But playing only songs of one band is complete bullshit. And rather shameful to let them play after a real band too. Did they do it badly, not really. I'm no fan of Suicidal Tendencies but it sounded all right.

And then finally the stage was set up for the Wehrmacht. The intro from Jaws was played on guitar from the dressing rooms and then the band came on stage and started off the title track of their debut album "Shark Attack". Unfortunately the drum pedal broke down early in the song and they had to stop. Apparently a bit confused they continued the song eventually but rather a bit messy. That all was fixed in the second song "You Broke My Heart So I Broke Your Face" and the rest of the set was played excellently. Pretenceless as this band has ever been - with a huge beer-drinking and partying image all around them - they have always been a pretty good band and FAST. Music-wise somewhat like SOD but more thrash all the way... oh and a lot faster. They seemed to have picked up their speed since 2009 again, as it all sounded excellent only the drums a tad slower perhaps. As expected the set list was filled with classic songs of both their albums plus a cover of Accept (Fast as a Shark) which became the first encore. Night of Pain, arguably their best song followed, concluding the set with the ultrashort E. A really good gig all in all and the crowd seemed to enjoy it a lot too with stagedivers filling the stage all the time.

Setlist:

• Shark Attack
• You Broke My Heart So I Broke Your Face
• Drink Beer Be Free
• Gore flix
• Suck My Dick
• Jabberjaw
• Drink Jack / Sharko
• The Wehrmacht
• Napalm Shower
• Balance of Opinion
• Radical Neck Dissection
• United Shoe Brothers
• Beermacht
• --Encores--
• Fast As A Shark
• Night of Pain
• E

It has been rather quiet on the URD front lately, but that doesn't mean with been sitting on our asses the whole time. Quite on the contrary we got some pretty nifty things coming for you in the 1.0.6 release. First of all we added categories, to ease browsing and better organise downloads. Exchanging the extset info now also can use a newsgroup posting. We got some pretty good speedups (up to 5x as fast!) in the browse page. And thanx to our friend the Tall Man we got some pretty cool new ideas to enhance the menu options such as searching within URD by selecting something in the browse page, and adding the selected text to the highlight list or block list. Lastly we did a pretty large fix up of the user interface, which is now faster, looks better, is more responsive and is more consistent.

You can expect the release shortly. Hopefully some time next week!

The full changelog thus for is

- Fixed bug in setting rights in view_files rename
- Added option to edit files in the webbrowser
- Fixed some stuff with html tags in text files while viewing
- Added possibility to group newsgroups / rss feeds into categories
- Fixed small bug in status screen with rar failing
- Fixed bug in handling posting failure
- Fixed bug in installer check on subdl
- Fixed bug in editing uploads
- Added option to distribute extset info through newsgroups
- Fixed a bug in editing usenet servers
- Fixed a bug in the installer: setting subl path, yencode path in case they aren't found
- Fixed a bug in the installer: creating account _after_ all checks have been performed
- Fixed a bug in the move up/down in the queue
- Added account lockout option after failed login attempts
- Added optional captcha to registration screen
- added calendar to download scheduler
- Fixed small bug in previewing when not a set editor
- Split rss/newsgroups page to use two tabs --> global and user settings
- Fixed bug causing high CPU when scheduler is off and a task should run
- Fixed a bugs when calling some commands without arguments
- Started making URD more modular
- Tabbed settings, transfers
- Fixed a bug in statistics showing all users when a user is non-admin and only current user when user is admin
- Fixed a bug in showing only known users in statistics
- Reworked statistics page with tabs and ajax code
- Ajaxified browse and rss sets page
- Added ability to send an email upon cancelling a pw encrypted download
- Fixed a few bugs in the preview code
- Speedup the browsepage a bit
- Speed up the viewfiles pages
- Added preliminary support for SQLite database backend
- Added preview max filesize option
- Fixed some issues with completion percentage
- Fixed issue with log file. If it cannot be opened for writing we escape to /dev/null - not pretty but at least we can start then
- Fixed a bug in handling failed authentication to a usenet server
- Fixed a bug in newsgroups and rss feeds while URDD is offline and switching online
- Added option to add search terms and blocked terms from a menu in the browse page
- Added possibility to set the download name by selecting text
- Design updated, orb buttons changed
- Quickmenu changed to a text menu
- Searchbuttons removed because of change to text menu
- Setnames that do not fit on page are now automatically cut off so layout is optimal
- added sorting to buttons
- Usenet server page cleaned up
- Remove par2/rar logfiles after successful download        

 

Cheerio
URD dev team

We are looking still for people to test it and also for people who want write translations to other languages. Be sure to contact us if you're interested.

URD is a web-based application for downloading usenet binaries. It is written entirely in PHP, yet uses some external tools to do some of the dirty CPU intensive work. It stores all the information it needs in a generic database (like MySQL or PostGreSQL). Articles that belong together are aggregated into sets. Downloading files requires only a few mouse clicks, and when the download is finished it can automatically be verified and extracted. Downloading from usenet is as easy as using p2p software!

A strong point of URD is that no external websites are required, as URD generates its own download information. It is possible to create and download an NZB file from specified articles as well.

URD is a backronym of Usenet Resource Downloader. The term URD is derived from Nordic cultures referring to the Well of URD, which is the holy well, the Well Spring, the source of water for the world tree Yggdrasil. The old English term for it is Wyrd. Conceptually the meaning of URD is closest to Fate.

Website: www.urdland.com

Napalm Death had a new album out for a while, but hadn't done a decent club tour as far as I know in Europe. So it was time to make that up. The toured got the name "Campaign For Musical Destruction Tour 2010" with two stops in the Netherlands, 7 November being the first gig of the tour in Drachten in a club - Iduna - I had never been before.

I mostly missed the first band, Devious who was the local support act. But I wasn't really interested in them in the first place. Pretty much straight forward death metal.

The second band was Waking The Cadaver. I read a couple of reviews that made them sound like they really suck, so I had little expectations. But I wasn't too disappointed as they really sucked horse shit. Lots of blast beats, wanky breaks and hardcore riffing, plus a gorilla for a singer. Next

I had seen Macabre just a short while ago which was a pretty okay gig. I recall gigs around the release of their Dahmer album which were awesome. But somehow that has worn off and the last 4-5 times I seen them, they were just okay with mostly the same setlist. This time they had really a lot of trouble getting the stage set up. Mostly due to the unprofessional stage hands; stuff like missing wires for microphones and drum mics. They ultimately found a few rotten once somewhere in the attic I guess, but it took a shit load of time. Eventually Macabre just started playing, seemingly agitated. The sound was still bad. The set was basically the same as in August with a few songs missing. And the playing sloppy. Not to mention that the drums(!) were nearly inaudible. Probably the worst Macabre gig of the 10 or so I've seen. But not really their fault I guess.

Immolation

also took a pretty long time to set up, but at least their sound was pretty good. With an excellent new album under their belt, they naturally played a whole lot of them, starting with the album opener The Purge. The band was in excellent condition as they nailed down song after song with only really short breaks in between and full of enthusiasm and aggression. Robert plays his complex parts flawlessly, whilst swinging his guitar. Ross hammers his bass frantically and doing the vocals in the meantime. And Steve is all over his drumkit all the time. I couldn't really the second guitarist. In the approximately 40 minutes they got they mostly the newer albums, but slipped in a few older songs too, including Once Ordained, Father You're Not A Father and Immolation. Awesome gig, but I didn't expect any less from this excellent band. Hopefully they do a headlining tour any time soon, as I'd still like to hear songs like Christ's Cage live some time. And an Immolation gig shouldn't be without the epic Close To A World Below.

After that excellent gig, it would surprise me big time if Napalm Death could outclass that. Shane had promised to put in some older songs they hadn't played for a while. At least they fulfilled that promise with songs like Mentally Murdered, MAD, Pride Assassin, and some cover songs like Conform by Siege and Politicians by Raw Power. Other than that we got a whole bunch of classics like Scum, You Suffer, Suffer the Children, Nazi Punks Fuck Off, Greed Killing, The World Keeps Turning, Lucid Fairytale. And some newer songs such as On The Brink Of Extinction, Continuing War On Stupidity, one track from Enemy of the Music Business, but I don't recall the title. The band played well, Barney was running around like a madman, but it seems his throat has become hoarser over the years, he wasn't sounding all that brutal. And of course we got all the socio-political rants before pretty much all the songs. Pretty solid gig, perhaps they need to warm up a little. No match for Immolation though.

After Breda Doom and Delft Doom, Utrecht now hosted this festival on the rather small stage of the rehearsal studio DB's. Unfortunately there weren't all that many people. Even though there are many doom bands around, there seem to be few fans as I guess about 50-60 people showed up to see the 8 bands.

First band was the Dutch Ortega of whom I had never heard before. Decent doom metal really with a bit too much whawha pedal-work for me. But not bad at all for an opening act.

The second band was a bit out-of-place on a doom metal festival; Terzij de Horde plays more black metal with some doom influences. Not really my thing.

It all became much more interesting with the third band, German death/doom act Ophis. They have just released their second album which is very good. So I was eager to see how it'd work out live. They started with a song of their first album called Beneath Sardonic Skies with a slightly thin sound. That was corrected for the later songs, both off Withered Shades, namely Necrotic Reflections and The Halls of Sorrow. Three songs is way too few for this band despite the length of 10-15 minutes. An excellent performance.

The playing order had changed a bit so next up was the French Funeralium. In the 50 minutes they got, they managed to play 2 whole songs. So those are quite long and drawn out. And the small stage was quite filled with the two bass-players, two guitarist and a drummer. The first song they played was off their debut album, the second one was a new song. The latter actually sounded better than the first, more varied and better written, so that is promising for their forthcoming album.

Then they needed to take everything off the stage for Pombagira which took almost an hour and set up a new drumkit dead centre of the stage and no less than seven amps and speakers for the guitarist. I can't say that the music was very interesting to me. But then again, sludge, drone and stoner have never really appealed to me much.

For Switchblade it took another long time to set up the stage. This duo is an instrumental drone band, that I found extremely boring, was way too loud and caused the whole place to vibrate annoyingly.

Then it was time for Ataraxie who we were promised to play a special set because they exist 10 years. Two guys from Funeralium also play in this band, but their guitarist/singer swapped his guitar for a bass. They opened their set with the first song of "Slow Transcending Agony", which is a kind of intro, followed by the second album track. They only played the title track of their second (even though there was one more song off that album on the set list, which they didn't play). But interestingly enough they also played two demo tracks when they were still more death metal oriented. A pretty solid performance.

I skipped the last band Eagle Twin as I was getting tired, it was late - much later than planned and the band didn't appeal to me much either.

Setlist Ataraxie:

• Step Into The Gloom
• Funeral Hymn
• Anhedonie
• The Isle of the Dead
• Slow Transcending Agony
• Eternal Sufferings
• L'Ataraxie

Like so many bands from the past, Californian Evildead have reformed since a few years. And now they are finally on the European continent for a few gigs. So I went to this Thursday evening gig in the Baroeg.

The opening support slot was for a Belgian band called Powerstroke. I had never even heard of them. This power trio plays what they call groovy metal. I found it rather generic metal with some thrash and death metal influences. Nothing really fancy. So most of the hall was empty after two or three song.

After changing the setup the hall quickly filled up for cult act Sadistic Intent. Yet another band I hadn't heard. The whole band is now also in Possessed though. Mostly old school death metal, mixed few some early black metal elements. Some songs however could just as well be Morbid Angel or Incantation nevertheless. So nothing really new, but generally well executed. They played longer than scheduled, well over an hour.

A lot of people apparently left after Sadistic Intent, with the headliner still to play. Evildead was mostly in the original line-up yet with a different singer who appeared to be somewhat ill. Perhaps that was also why the vocals sounded a bit thin. Anyway, after the short intro, they started The Awakening, tight and fast. Live they sound much more powerful and energetic than on record. The set consisted of most of the Annihilation of Civilization album, with two songs of the Rise Above EP and a new song. Even the kind of weird song BOHICA (bend over here it comes again) was That sounded actually quite good, so perhaps we can expect a new album sometime in the future. After the regular set they reappeared to play one more song - Unauthorized Exploitation. So it was quite an excellent gig. Hopefully they do some more touring in the future.

The Murder Metal band Macabre is currently on a short summer festival tour through Europe while doing some club gigs in between those festivals. One of these gigs took place in the small hall of the 013 venue. As they didn't bring any support acts themselves, two (more or less) local bands were added.

The first band was about to start when I entered the nearly empty hall - even the bass player wasn't there yet, they had to call him to start playing. This was the local band Foretold who play a rather mid-paced type of death metal that I'm usually quite fond of. But somehow this band seem to have little to offer except riffs heard many times before. The rather simple songs were played with apparently little conviction. Half of the band is also in the much more interesting doom metal band Faal, but even the slow sections were rather dull. 30 minutes of this was more than enough.

So next was the band The Lucifer Principle who I also hadn't heard before. The style they play is some kind of modern death metal with some slight industrial tones added. They started out rather aggressive with the first couple of songs. But eventually the become a bit more mellow. They interacted much more with the audience and even a small mosh pit - okay two guys basically - was started. I can't say really that I dig this band a lot.

Then after another half hour it took to change the stage it was time for Macabre. No redneck serial killer outfit this time, but the usual casual wear. I guess this had something to do with the heat in the room as it was terribly hot inside, even though outside it was a mere 22 degrees or so. Nevermind. Macabre are back on the stage in Europe after many years and seven years after their latest album called Murder Metal. They had a new EP out and a new album forthcoming to celebrate their 25 years anniversary. They started off with the classic Zodiac unfortunately the guitar and vocals were a bit soft in the mix, but that got fixed later on. Corporate Death introduced all the songs in his usually manner, digressing on the particular killer the song is about. In between all the classic songs, they managed to include a few new tunes of Grim, Scary tales. The first one about the Roman Emperor Nero, called Nero's Inferno. A typically weird Macabre tune. The other songs title I didn't catch, but it was about William Burke and William Hare - two serial murderers from Scotland (edit: It's called simply Burke And Hare). A solid Macabre song. So the new album is promising in that sense. But there was nothing of the EP they just put out, which I found a bit odd. Anyway. after an hour they concluded the 15 songs long set with Vampire of Düsseldorf. No encores, but a promise to be back in November with Napalm Death and Immolation. A solid gig, but some more variation of songs from the earlier albums would be nice. They always play the same old songs. And no Dr Holmes.

Approximate Setlist:

• Zodiac
• The Trial
• Temple of Bones
• Serial Killer
• Nightstalker
• Nero's Inferno
• The Iceman
• Mary Bell
• The Wüstenfeld Man Eater
• Burke And Hare
• Scrub a dub dub
• Hitchhiker
• You're Dying to Be With Me
• Ed Gein
• The Vampire of Dusseldorf