Kickstarting the fuck out of our tuesday night, Sweden's Kamchatka (or is it Cumshotka?) rocked hard and pleased my ears in a way not many pre-shows have done in a long time! This three-piece rock 'n' roll machine played for over half an hour, showing some nice skills. They even got the anxious crowd to walk from the back of the venue to the scary front of the stage. Kamchatka flows like bluesrock and bites like metal, topped off with some great Hendrix-esque (I could've said Hendrixlike, but this is waaaaaayyy classier) soloing from their guitar player. When playing Risk, you can use Kamchatka to invade North America...in real life you can use Kamchatka to have a great fuckin' evening. This band is good, go check them out! (LondonCustoms)

 

I actually joined Metalrage with a test review of Kylesa’s latest album Static Tensions. But besides the “nostalgic” bullshit, Kylesa was the band I was looking for the most this evening. I expected the two guitarists, bassist (that all handle vocal duties as well) and two drummers could either turn out into a complete disaster or a smashing show. Well, it was somewhere in between. First of all, for a sludge band with a crusty sound, the big room of WATT is way too big. This is one of the bands you should watch in a small squat or something. The sound was too clear and was missing the dirtiness it contains on record. Perhaps it was the fact they were touring with two (clean) stoner rock bands, but it didn’t sound sludgy enough for me! Besides that, I also said this in my review, why the hell does this band have two drummers if they both play exactly the same drumming parts? Seems completely unnecessary to me. Even though the sound was too clean, I did enjoy the set-list of mostly Static Tension tracks such as ‘Said And Done’, 'Only One', ‘Running Red’ and ‘Scapegoat’ anyway. I feel like this is a quality band, but totally out of place here. (Brent_)

I finally got to see headliners Clutch earlier this year at Hellfest, yet I couldn’t resist the temptation of checking out a club show of these rockers. Personally I think their record From Beale Street To Oblivion (no that’s not the new one, tell me something I don’t know!) is one of the most superb rock records I ever heard. And in this live performance, they proved they are and utterly amazing force that blows you away with ease. The band possesses just one sound, but that sound, grooves, rocks, fuzzes and slides over you so nicely, you can only praise them for it. Topping these nice sounds is one of the nicest vocalists the rock scene has to offer. This bearded man sounds like Tom Jones has hit the bars and re-wrote his catalogue! Excellent to see that he is truly the frontman, with the lights mostly being aimed at him and the rest of the band mostly looking at the either the floor or their instruments. Unfortunately they didn’t play too many songs of their previous record, yet this surely didn’t make the show less enjoyable. Clutch still are one of the leading independent underground rock bands that I love to see many times to come! (DemonDust)