cassette craze chronicles XXVII feat. CEREMENTED, MONOVOTH, SPIRALIST, TERMINAL and THECODONTION

Ok, these tapes were all supposed to be in the last part of the cassette craze chronicles already, but then a bunch of other stuff became more relevant at the time due to certain festivals they were connected with. But finally here we go with three 2022 and 2023 releases from Trepanation Recordings and one split cassette by Xenoglossy Productions!

MONOVOTH - Monovoth (2022)

This is fucking sad! Seriously. This is so desperately sad, you don't think it can get any sadder. Just listen to "Servants", where the drums at some point lose patience and are like "Come on buddy, that sounds so sad, let's move! Let's blast! Don't be so miserable all the time!", but the guitar just goes "Thanks for trying man, but I'm so depressed, I just keep being slow and sad nonetheless." The brilliant result encapsules the spirit of the whole album.

Both said instruments are played by the same person, since Monovoth is a solo project (yet also including several guest musicians) by Lucas Wyssbrod, who has a very clear vision of what he wants, which is oppressing heaviness and relentless lugubriousness, both achieved by the means of Funeral Doom, Death, Drone and Post Metal. This is stuff which may require some Bell Witch afterwards to cheer you up, so you definitely should be in the right listening mood to handle this life-denying monstrosity of cosmic sorrow. Surely one of last year's Doom highlights!

The cover artwork is accordingly evil, comes with a cryptic OBI strip, yet especially the tape itself looks great.

SPIRALIST - Eternal Recurrence (2022)

Oh, what a coincidence! In a couple of days I'm going to see the Sun Ra Arkestra (hopefully this time with 99 years young band leader Marshall Allan) live again. Which musically has almost zero connections to last year's album by Spiralist. Its first song is just called "Sun Ra", that's it. Or is it? At least there's definitely some small Jazz influence hidden in the wild stylistic trajectory of "Eternal Recurrences". But that Jazz comes alongside brutal Hardcore, Prog Rock, Electronic Ambient, Industrial, Post Metal... Yeah, this reads as if I'm just randomly writing down genres. And maybe Spiralist are working just like that and throw dices each time they approach a new song section. For that however they sound surprisingly consistent.

Back when the Afro-Futuristic Arkestra started revolutionizing Jazz in the 1950's nothing about the sound of this band here would have seemed even imaginable. And even now their particular mash-up of ideas isn't easy to categorize. A good part of the four tracks sound like a much darker incarnation of Haken, but then the album also throws curveballs leading you far away from that comparison. (The twelve-minute instrumental track "The Unknown" is much much too straight for example and also the epic Post Doom title track points to an entirey different direction.)

Spiralist are gritty, creative and never wholly what you'd expect them to be - no matter from which angle you approach them. There's no doubt that they made a pretty great album though. It also has my favorite cover artwork of this bunch.

TERMINAL - R.A.T.S (2023)

The cover artwork which incited this whole Trepanation purchase (also including an epic Post Rock CD by Mountainscape) in the first place interestingly is the one which somehow doesn't translate into the MC format as successfully as the rest. As much as the psychologically dark painting is still one of the best covers of the ongoing year in itself, the presentation just weakens it. Which means the musical content has to save this release, I guess? Well, thankfully it does that with ease.

The Norwegian duo Terminal channels Godflesh through the lens of catchy Gothic / electronic Post Punk tunes and isn't afraid to throw other ingredients from all kinds of unlikely sources into the mix. Especially the chorus of "The Path", one of half of the album's songs featuring guest vocalist Pia Isaksen has been one of the most resilient occupants of my ear for months now.
But even though not all of the eight tracks are bangers like this, the unique atmosphere and sonic palette of "R.A.T.S." as a whole makes up for it. It may be too short to enter the race of becoming a classic some day and I can certainly hear potential for greater things to come in the future, but being what it is it already checks a lot of boxes, making it hard to resist for me. And why would I even want to resist? 

THECODONTION / CEREMENTED - Thecodontion / Ceremented (2023)

Yes, the proto history nerds from Italy are back. Once again Thecodontion make the weird fantasy of Mike Browning giving a school presentation about earlier geological eras to a Black Metal backdrop a reality. Their brand of Black Metal sounds pretty special, since it omits guitars and relies on two raunchy and wiry basses instead.
On this split album they are giving their primal sound a new elevating twist by adding a lot of prominent synths, which probably triggered me thinking of Browning's Nocturnus. The result is a little more "musical" (for lack of a better term), yet still remains a quite singular experience.

And then comes the third track "La Torre", which suddenly features clean Italian vocals and catchy New Wave Pop melodies. It's a cover of Eighties singer/songwriter Franco Battiato and features a line about super dinosaurs returning to Earth or something, so that's probably how they got the idea to include it. Most unexpected turn on any album I've heard for a while. I'm still not sure what to make out of it, but it for sure underlines the weirdness of this group, which seemingly isn't a duo anymore, but officially a quartet now.

The B-side features four tracks by the US Death Metal band Ceremented, who share the desinterest in guitars with Thecodontion, yet express it with a much sludgier bass sound. Musically this sits somewhere between nihilistic Winter Death Doom and the first Death Metal phase of Napalm Death, with a lot of pure filth and Noise vomited on top of it. Grimy stuff.

The packaging of this split tape is excellent. Ok, you wouldn't recognize any of the two bands' members from the photographs, but I applaud those for even being there, alongside readable credits and lyrics. This is how you do it!   

KRAFTWERK - Tour De France

Och nee, scheiß Sammelwut! Dabei empfinde ich mich in der Beziehung ja normalerweise noch als sehr moderat. Ich bin kein Komplettist, der alle Versionen oder Reissues einer Platte haben muss und kaufe generell eigentlich nur Musik, die mich tatsächlich interessiert.

KRAFTWERK - Tour De France (7") (2023)

Uneigentlich konnte ich dann aber doch der neuesten Kraftwerk-Albumjubiläumssingle vom Musikexpress nicht widerstehen. Dabei ist der Song "Tour De France" für mich eigentlich nie der Riesen-Knaller gewesen. Aber wenn man die Ausgaben mit "Autobahn", "Die Roboter" und "Heimcomputer" schon hat, fällt es zugegebenermaßen doch schwer, zu widerstehen. Vor Ort sah ich die Zeitschrift zwar nirgends, aber man kann sie ja auch portofrei bestellen. Also klick boing boom tschak bestellt - und nur wenige Sekunden, nachdem ich dies getan habe, lässt die Mail von PayPal bereits Reue aufkommen: Ihr Zahlung an Axel Springer... fuck, Menschmaschine! Schon wieder ein Imperium des Bösen unterstützt.

Nun hab ich also auch dieses Ding. Der Remix oder was auch immer dieser Single? Keine Ahnung, bin zu wenig mit den vorigen Varianten vertraut, um ihn zu beurteilen. Musik ist schon klar, ist halt Kraftwerk. Zeitlos, Klassiker. Aber auch millionenfach durchgekaut und meines Inputs unbedürftig.

Vielleicht ist's einfach das Sujet, das mich brutal mit den Schultern zucken lässt? Dabei gab es vor Ewigkeiten ja auch mal eins, zwei Sommer, in denen ich mich richtig an der Tour festgekuckt hatte: Ullrich vs. Armstrong vs. der neben Borat einzige international bekannte Kasache, der mit gerade nicht einfällt. Plus zweitweise noch ein, zwei andere Player. Richtig spannend, wenn man erst einmal drin gewesen ist. Im Nachhinein natürlich alles von den Fußnägeln bis zur Haarspitze zugedopter Publikumsbeschiss. Das war dreister Lebenszeitraub, ihr Wurstpellenhackfressen!
Naja, mittlerweile schaue ich ja überhaupt gar keine Sportevents mehr. Klar, Fußball ist in der Beziehung sicher weniger schlimm, weil biochemische Schummelei einfach weniger bringt. Aber dafür bereichern sich Unrechtsregime (zu denen man die Fifa selbst im Grunde bereits zählen sollte) pervers an dem Kackscheiß, ganz zu schweigen, dass für unser Entertainment mal eben das Leben unzähliger Gastarbeitersklaven verheizt wird. Und all dieser Bullshit drumherum. Erwähnte ich Axel Springer schon? Scheißdreck. Ist diese Single es wert, den gefährlichen Pedalhaltern einer potenziell kommenden blaubraunen Naziregierung Geld in den Rachen zu werfen. Nein.

Also sei nicht wie ich! Finde einen Zeitschriftenhändler, wo es die Ausgabe noch gibt und klau dir die Single einfach aus dem Cover! Dann kannst Du zwar das Ralf Hütter-Interview darin nicht lesen, aber... ok, ich aber keine Ahnung. Dafür müsste ich wohl selbst erst einmal nachlesen, ob sich das Interview überhaupt lohnt oder nicht.

Wir sehen uns dann in ein paar Jahren wieder an dieser Stelle, wenn das nächste Kraftwerk-Album rundes Jubiläum feiert. Ein paar sind ja noch übrig, selbst wenn die ersten drei (prä-"Autobahn") ja leider aus der offiziellen Musikgeschichtsschreibung der Band getilgt sind.
Das Peloton ist neu formiert. Schön und gut. Ich schau lieber Parkourvideos auf YouTube. Ja, ich weiß, die sind auch böse.

Meine nächste Musikrezension wird gehaltvoller, versprochen!

VOIVOD - Morgöth Tales

Around their fortieth anniversary Voivod fans get plenty of chances to spend their money of both old and new releases and I guess it depends a lot on personal preference and the intensity of your collecting addiction, how essential they are.

The importance of last year's studio album "Synchro Anarchy", being my album of the year and all is of course out of question.
But then we also have the long-awaited Real Gone Records vinyl reissues of my holy trinity "Nothingface", "Angel Rat" and "The Outer Limits", which I'm thankful for, even though they all could have been presented better in my opinion. Then there has also been another "Outer Limits" reissue, which I probably would have prefered, but there's too much other good stuff out there to buy one album multiple times.

The "Ultraman" EP certainly is too special interest to fall into the must-have category, which also goes for "Chaotic Harmony", a hymn for the Polish Mystic Festival, which is only physically available on a limited and thus now quite pricey seven anyway.

And since metalheads are a nostalgic bunch, the milking of the Noise Records years isn't just limited to the "Nothingface" reissue. In fact there's the huge "Lost In Space" vinyl box, but since it hasn't been that long ago that I bought the extended CD versions of "Rrröööaaarrr", "Killing Technology" and "Dimension Hatröss", I don't really need all that stuff and the bootleg quality bonus and live material of the Eighties once again now, no matter how fancy all those coloured records look.

Into a similar category fall the releases on former bassist Blacky's label. I'm a fan of completing a product and presenting the final result. So given that the final products of "Nothingface" and "Angel Rat" have been imprinted and revered in my brain as they are for such a long time, I don't feel an overwhelming urgency to sell my kidney, so I can afford the price and shipping costs of the demos for those.

Yet now I bought this rather backwards-looking album (or rather compilation?), which naturally begs the question: Do I regret it? 

VOIVOD - Morgöth Tales (LP) (2023)

Answer: Yes, I regret at least that I didn't by the CD version, since that one contains an extra track with the P.I.L. cover "Home". You could of course add that one in the digital download, but sadly Century Media Records still doesn't do those. If you don't own "Nanoman" yet, there's also the Japanese CD release, which has that whole EP as bonus material.

But bonus to what actually? Ok, "Morgöth Tales" is basically a run through Voivod's history, starting from the demo track "Condemned To The Gallows" and ending with one track both from the Eric Forrest and the Jason Newsted era.
So it's a best of  or deep cuts or whatever compilation? Yes and no, because all songs have been re-recorded by the current line-up, except "Rise" and "Rebel Robot", which feature the aforementioned original singer and bassist as guests.

Do we need this? Well, we wouldn't starve without it. But it definitely is a delicious dish.
Of course many of these songs have been played live in recent years, like "Fix My Heart" has celebrated its glorious return to the setlist last year. But it's undoubtly very enjoyable to also hear these songs in studio versions with the sound of the current SnakeChewyRockyAway line-up.

Voivod live 2022

Instrumentally the band is capable of honouring every phase and beyond. You've read my praise in several reviews before, I hope? There are just very few groups of that age operating with that amount of fresh energy. Of course the quality of re-recordings like this above all stand and fall with the vocals. Not every singer can go back decades and capture that spirit again. Even Snake doesn't exactly try to do that either, since he knows that his voice has aged. But damn, it has aged well and he uses it with such an experience and confidence! You just never get the sad wow, the guy's gotten old feeling. No, he nails this shit!
  
If these new renditions of "Thrashing Rage", "Pre-Ignition", "Nuage Fractal" etc. are just great reminders of the band's legacy or even pose improvements to the originals is up to one's individual taste. I'm always happy to hear the ancient stuff with a decent sound, whereas from "Nothingface" forward it's really hard to improve anything. But since those productions differ a lot from the recent "Post Society" / "Synchro Anarchy" sound, it's also a good thing to hear them translated into that language here.

And of course it also underlines my burning question: When will Voivod finally return to Roadburn Festival to play the complete "Angel Rat" album?

But wait, we're not done with "Morgöth Tales" yet! The album ends with the title track, which is the only actual new composition. The very tongue-in-cheek piece is basically made up of old song and album titles and tells the story of the band itself, something which really wouldn't work on any other album than this one. Musically it combines their classic Sci-Fi Thrash Metal with the current very fluent fusion of catchy dissonant Prog Metal and Psychedlic elements. A very fitting conclusion.

The vinyl comes with lyrics and liner notes - and of course a great artwork from the master Away himself.

DEAD NEANDERTHALS - Specters

So what was the last Dead Neanderthals release? The "Click" EP? Wow. That came out before New Year's Eve, already over half a year ago!

DEAD NEANDERTHALS - Specters (citron vinyl LP) (2023)

But seriously, Otto Kokke and René Aquarius are still incredibly prolific. As you can tell by the similar cover artwork, their new album is a succession of "Ghosts", their 2019 cooperation with Scott Hedrick (Skeletonwitch), and it's ridiculous how long I had to browse through my Dead Neanderthals tag to get to the review of that one.

The second album in this trio formation picks up some of the modern Swans vibes of "Ghosts", but mixes it with the Kraut Rock feeling of "IXXO" and the brutal crunch of "Metal", so yes, it continues the trend of Otto playing the certainly not always obvious synthesizers instead of saxophone to form the repetitive backbone of the two longtracks "Necrology" and "Banishment".

Again the edition of  the third member's idea changes the dynamics completely. Since they didn't record in a room together, yet the Dead Neanderthals duo still provided the foundation, the disciplined minimalistic restriction is still intact, but it obviously crashes with an abundance of guitar and keyboard layers Scott Hedrick adds on top of it.

So even if you have only one true change like the switch to a  slower tempo for the last couple of minutes in "Banishment", it feels like both tracks are going through a lot more phases, because there's such a neat subtle increase of always new sounds being added going on.
And these sounds bring so much atmosphere and steadily raise to such huge climaxes! As they evolve from stages of Ambient and hypnotic Psych to Post Rock and sheer hellspawnish Blut Aus Nord worship, they suck you into a vortex and spit you out ito the zero-g void. All while the untiring AquariousKokke machine just keeps on going and going.
It is gloriously crushing and elevating a the same time!

There seems to be a pattern (see "Corporeal Flux" with Aaron Turner or their DNMF project with Machinefabriek), but whenever Dead Neanderthals team up with a third creative party, there's a high likelihood of that work going right to my favorites within their quickly growing discography. (My personal collection is between twenty and thirty releases strong - and that doesn't even count all related bands like Cryptae or Plague Organ.)

Verdict: Fantastic! Especially the last quarter of this album is one of the mightiest things I've heard this year.

STONEHENGE FESTIVAL • Steenwijk, July 29th 2023 • feat. AUTOPSY, HYPOCRISY, POSSESSED, VOMITORY, ASAGRAUM, FLESHLESS, SERIAL BUTCHER, STILLBIRTH and many more

To absolutely noone's surprise the Dutch word Steen means stone. So that's probably the sole reason why the Netherlands' self-proclaimed oldest Metal festival is called Stonehenge. I doubt that there's an alternative foundation myth which includes a small town appearance of Spinal Tap. But let's check their "Stonehenge" lyrics and see if anything applies for the actual event:

"Stonehenge! Where the demons dwell

Where the banshees live and they do live well

Stonehenge! Where a man's a man

And the children dance to the Pipes of Pan"

Ok, I guess that works. Let the demons symbolize Death Metal and the banshees Black Metal! The children are dancing in the mosh pit. And the man being a man? Well, there was exactly one band with female members - also the only banshees on the very demon-centric festival line-up.

I'm not going to lie, this report is going to be a challenge. I never take notes outside my head and there were so many short shows on just one day. Which usually isn't a huge problem. But usually the festivals of my choice aren't as stylistically homogenous as this one.

And that's not me saying that the artists all sounded alike or that even one of the bands I've seen was bad. But it was not only almost exclusively Death Metal, but in most cases also specifically Death Metal from the early Ninetees or even Eighties. Which means that there was just a lot of half-bald dads grunting and squealing about gore and annihilation. Being unfamiliar with most of them a lot of it naturally became kind of a blur. So please forgive me that not every show can receive a proper "real" review here!

the evening before at a body of water nearby

The reason why I drove to the Netherlands again and spent two nights there for a relatively small (yet sold-out) festival on a parking lot? One word: Autopsy.

One of my favorite Metal bands of all time and I had never seen them live. Since they never tour through clubs in Europe me getting to know a new festival in order to see them was bound to occur for years. Them at Roadburn would be a dream, but it's really just a pipe dream, because there's alway the Netherlands Death Fest taking place in the same location in spring, too. And I cannot afford to travel there twice in such a short span of time.

Waiting for Autopsy to come to a nearer festival isn't an option either. In Hamburg or home further north there are just very few fitting events in the shadow of Wacken with a realistic chance of the Death Metal legends stopping by. Of course there may be a chance for Wacken, but I rather wanted to see them now on as headliners than bet on a mega festival, where it would always be a risky lottery, if they would get the appropriate stage, time and sound or not anyway...

But enough explanation! Fast forward to me commuting fifteen minutes from a very nice holiday home in a former garage and arriving just in time for the first band to start already at 10:00 AM:

Hey, it's middle-aged dudes playing Death Metal! KLONT are obviously fans of Macabre, which didn't only show in their murderer outfits, but also in the fun grindcore flavour of their music. Those twenty-five minutes flew by fast.

As soon as the first band had stopped, the announcer could be heard on the other stage of the festival site. No breaks with canned music coming from the speakers at Stonehenge! For the sound of CORRUPT from California Death Metal was an equal ingredient to raging Thrash Metal. They slayed, had Ira Black (Metal Church, Vicious Rumors) joining them as third guitar player for the last two songs and teased to cover Slayer. But of course there was no time for those shenanigans.

NEPHYLIM got the memo: If you have bramble decoration on stage you have to play Scandinavianish Melodic Death Metal. It's a thing I heard. Or was it the other way around? Anyway, not my preferred variant, but these five Dutch dudes knew how to do it right. So yeah, cool.

With the Frisians STOFLIK OMSKOT things got bumpier and dirtier again. I didn't follow their show very close, but their straight-forward Death with some baby Obituary Punk attitude  was a fun throwback for sure. A lot of it actually reminded me of the earlier stuff from a certain local band called Imbecile I saw and shared stages with back in the day quite often. 

Come on! Seriously? Guys, it's the year 2023 and we're still doing this misanthropic shit? That is disgusting! I'm talking about the hamburger I foolishly got from the food truck before SERIAL BUTCHER started their show. That was the worst grossness in a bun I've ever had - at least as far as I can remember.
The band's murderously precise double-bass heavy Death Metal thankfully was of a way better quality. Fitting to the name the vocal performance was the closest to animals being slaughtered so far. I just hope the victims of this butrcher get processed better than the poor beast in my burger.

Before MOUFLON could begin their show a drying commando had to enter the stage, because it was absolutely flooded. A couple of days prior I had even considered buying a rain poncho or something, but that would have been so unnecessary. Luckily I could flee from the only serious cloudburst of the day into a merchandise tent, so when I would get wet, it wasn't because of the rain, but because there are always those guys who cannot make clear choices between drinking their expensive beer or participating in a circle pit (and crashing into the idiots stupid enough to stand in the front row before them).
I can't remember if and how bad they got me at this show though, but the rabid dog bark energy Death Metal of the group certainly provided the fitting soundtrack.

So much Death Metal and all bands at least good... But like I said earlier, some unfortunately got lost in my fractured memory, among them FRACTURED INSANITY, who I couldn't remember much of, probably because I had a tired phase in the early afternoon. Luckily with the internet helping me their mighty ultra-fast double-bass Morbid Angel tradition style came back to me. Also the party pit seriously gathered pace now.

Ouch! If you were standing too close to SKULLHOG's bass player you were in serious danger of being hit by his widely wobbling lowest string. His sound was the filthiest and sludgiest so far, in perfect conjunction with everything else about this trio. Ever been stuck in a swamp while a piglet rubbed its belly on your face? That's SKULLHOG in a nutshell for you.

It almost sounds made up by an AI for the festival  program guide, but the Dutch GUTWRENCH actually were that band who had released only two demo cassettes in the 1990's and now after decades played their one and only live show in the original line-up. Well, they have certainly kept themselves in shape with other projects since then, because if you didn't know that, there would have been no chance to tell how rare this performace was. Solid oldschool quality Death Metal.

There were only two bands on the billing who I had seen live before. One of them was FLESHLESS. That was way back in 2004 at the Kuhle Festival in Northern Germany. What I remember from then is that they deservingly had the wildest crowd of the day. And lo and behold they were also the best of the bands at Stonehenge for me thus far. Brutal Death with slayerish aroma and pinches of Grind. What's not to like?

I took a little break from the festival at my car now, so I missed the shows of Tortharry and Doomas. And while we're waiting for me to return to the ground, here are some digital toy camera pictures from the action up to this point:

Back at the festival area PURGATORY already played. And they played some good Death Metal. Hmm... Sorry, that's really all I got. I'm not even sure if the program guide can help me, because a handful of bands just had completely wrong info texts in the little hand-out, maybe from last year? These dudes certainly didn't look like Indonesians to me. More like a German band founded - of course - in 1993.

And now some weird fun fuckery! Next level naked flayed guy in a tutu and his skinned zombie friends having a blast. And a lot of blast beats. Meet the crazy Frisians CÔTE D'AVER and their bonkers Deathgrind nonsense! Finally a group taking their craft seriously here! High culture.

Ok, so we're all playing dress-up now? It is the easiest way to convey a specific image, I get it. Not sure if the music of the Italians ADE alone would have led me to the Roman Empire though. It certainly combined oppressing power and intimidating chops in a quite mighty way, even with one guitar only joining after several songs due to technical problems.
Yes, somehow it was musically fitting, I guess. But still visually... Maybe it's my personal socialization with Death Metal being the music, where regular dudes just get on stage and play, but the look just felt a bit campy for me.

Ok, you got me there! Of course many people would say the same about the typical Black Metal look, including myself some years ago, so get over it, Stephan! The only Black Metal band - and also the only band with female members on this Dad Metal festival - had to play facing the summer sun, which burned hotter than my unprotected skin had expected.
ASAGRAUM however did exactly what I expected, which didn't come as a surprise, because I had already seen them on their headlining show in Oss last October. Even the fluctuating live line-up was almost the same, only with a different bass player. Their mostly traditional Black Metal sound, including those one or two too cheesy lyrics or melodies underlining the oldschool cvlt approach, provided a very welcome fierce change of pace.
While singer/guitarist Obscura definitely presented herself easy on the eyes, I think that using that fact as an opportunity to ask her for marriage from the crowd goes at least one embarrassing step too far. On the other hand her quick "no" before croaking the next song title was a pretty funny moment, which reminded me of that time when someone yelled "Play some Black Metal!" during an Ulver show.

From ladies in facepaint to dudes in surfing bermudas, Stonehenge appearantly had it all. STILLBIRTH not only mastered the craft of ultra brutal Death Metal, but they also had a lot of fun with it and didn't shy away from a funky "Another One Bites The Dust" interlude, while the singer went down into the audience to personally oversee the Wall of Death proceedings, A killer show with everything you need for a proper excess.


The early evening was only beginning, so there was still a lot of Death to come, but I had to take a break again, since I felt a gastric situation slowly coming up which I didn't want to face on a festival lavatory. A connection to the beforementioned burger can't (and shouldn't) be ruled out. Since it was time to grab something to eat anyway, I decided to look for a place in town to take care of both the ins and outs. Until I find it, missing the shows of Lik and Ingested, here's another bunch of photos:

So as the urgency of my situation grew, I entered the first restaurant I came across and realized a couple of things in the moment I crossed the door: This was a place where you had to reserve a seat and people put on their nice summer clothes. I was not only in full black Metal gear, but I was also sweating on my bald head as soon as I took off my Voivod hat, and I obviously had the unmistakable smell of spilled beer on me, even though I'm not even drinking it ever myself. So yeah, they surely didn't really want me there. But they had one small table free and still wanted my money.

I chose the tortellini menu, because it was the only one on the Dutch card where I was sure there wasn't anything unwanted in it - and damn, it was good! They also had real towels to dry your hands and then throw into a basket instead of paper ones. Kingly.

And before you dare asking what all those details about my metabolism are doing in this festival write-up, look at half of the bands' names and think again!

Speaking of: The cluster of the the four bands you would most likely call headliners was opened by Sweden's VOMITORY. Once again great seasoned Death Metal, because what else, but the main vocalist's mic shtick still remains an enigma to me. Most of the time not quite loud enough, because he was consequently growling above his microphone, I still cannot tell if it was intentional for some acoustic effect or if he was just trolling everybody. The stage sound engineer even adjusted his stand and he pulled it right back below his mouth. Such a weird thing to overshadow any other detail in my memory of this show.

Now we were getting to the legends, the founders. Possessed even gave the whole genre its name in the Eighties. Unfortunately I soon realized that I couldn't immerse myself into their show, because given the towering importance of Autopsy for me and the festical ground being packed now, reserving a spot in the first row just was more important. So I only really followed a couple of songs, while the sound still had some issues to be figured out. To see the respect and admiration for the partly paralysed Jeff Becerra, - being a champion in the wheelchair - was sincerely heart-warming.

Fuuuuuucking AUTOPSY! Fuck yeah! Where do I even start? I'm repeating myself when I say that everything on this day had at least been good. But then the masters and Godfathers of sickness took everything to another level!

Noone else has this balance in the riffs and leads, which are both raw and disgsusting, but also so incredible memorable. And regarding the guitar solos I've always said that Eric Cutler and Danny Coralles are the King / Hannemann of Death Metal. To finally be see it proven live was a blast.
The sludgy note of new bassist Greg Wilkinson was an absolute win, too. And then there's of course the one and only Chris Reifert, whose drumming is filled with individual character like you seldom get to hear in the genre. And his vocal delivery while drumming? Boy, give that man all rancid stinking medals you can find! And yes, even AUTOPSY's stage banter was the best of the day!

This show was a triumph from beginning to end. Not even the very odd occurence of a guy in the festival crew shirt intending to run from the back of the stage and than dive into the audience, but embarrasingly pushing over a whole guitar stack instead, could change anything about that. The band handled the break with humour and all was fine. I was so perplexed by this moment that I didn't think of taking a picture of the accident, even though it happened right in front of me.

The setlist was very heavy on the debut album "Severed Survival" from 1989, and even though I'm more a "Mental Funeral" guy myself, I didn't mind at all. At least I got "Twisted Mass Of Burnt Decay" and the ultimate AUTOPSY cult classic "In The Grip Of Winter" from that one!
A little bit more new stuff ("Maggots In The Mirror" ruled!) would have been welcome, but you only squeeze that much into a seventy minutes festival show I guess. On the other hand they played the first song they had ever written, "Mauled To Death", with Eric on vocals, which was also cool.

Honestly, the band could probably have played anything from their discography and I would have eaten that reeking shit up. After the - completely different! - Roadburn appearance of Ad Nauseam this was already the second Death Metal show this year, which goes straight into my eternal Hall of Fame. Along with classic Morbid Angel Reifert & Co. have always been the definitive Death Metal band for me. Now, after finally seeing them in the rotting flesh and in this phenomenal shape, I know that AUTOPSY are the sole kings on a hill of human remains.

The show ended with the Bloodbath cover "Fuck You" and I just thought Fuck Yeah, I could have another hour of this!

Of course whatever would come afterwards wasn't going to rival Autopsy for me, especially since Peter Tägtren's HYPOCRISY in particular have never stirred my interest before. I don't know, it's just not for me. Additionally their bassist had his flight cancelled and couldn't make it, so the band had been busy recording bass backing tracks before the show. Respect for the effort, but this kind of too clinic Melodic midtempo Death Metal just leaves me cold.

So with the temperature getting colder towards midnight as well I called it a day and was rewarded with getting up before six AM in the morning, crossing the German border before eight and getting home shortly after noon. A much smoother and faster ride than what I'm used to coming from the Netherlands. 

"And where are they now?

The little people of Stonehenge

And what would they say to us?

If we were here, tonight"