After a long run through Western Europe and three dates before the end of the tour, Buried Inside and Tombs were playing in the harbour city of Rotterdam. In the basement of club Watt they presented us their new albums, but before that, one national support gave act of presence.

In front of literally not more than 20 people, Anaphylactic Shock from Tilburg had the chance to open up the evening. Luckily I had the chance to check out their impressive debut album Two Thousand Years and I was really looking forward to check how they would translate this to a live performance. I must say I was really impressed by this band; their mixture of black metal with doom, sludge, hardcore, Black Sabbath and even post-rock influences might sound a little random, but all pieces of the puzzle fitted into each other perfectly. Their minimalistic sound and convincing frontman (a little scary at some points though) left this reporter with a satisfied feeling. Great show and really looking forward to see them again at some point! (Brent_)

The first Relapse band that hit the stage was Tombs. This New Yorker trio plays music that fits the tide just perfect. But what else to expect when you call your debut record Winter Hours? Too bad that there wasn’t much atmosphere in the venue due to the small amount of visitors, but the music itself was excellent. The band began their set with some tunes I strangely enough didn’t recognized. Probably some new stuff since their album is recorded for more than a year ago, at least it wouldn’t be weird if they wrote some new tunes in the meantime. I enjoyed the sound very well; blackened music in the forms of sludge and doom with black metal parts. Highly original and excellent stuff for a live show too, although the aforementioned atmosphere wasn’t how it should be. Let’s just hope this band comes over more often. I will do anything to bring some more people to the venue with me! (Mindsaver)

After Tombs, we had yet another great Relapse band on the bill for tonight. 5-piece Buried Inside from Canada has released 4 albums already but hasn’t received the recognition they deserve yet. Hopefully their brand new brilliant album Spoils Of Failure will change this! The band opened with ‘Introduction’ and ‘Time As Ideology’ from their second to last album Chronology, which was a bit of a wrong decision as the sound wasn’t very proper yet and the tracks from this album (and the two before) have a chaotic-metal/mathcore feel to it. The result was complete uncontrolled chaos that luckily got fixed the moment the band started playing a few new tracks such as ‘II’ and ‘V’ (very original names by the way). After a few tracks from the older album again, the set was already over after just a little over half an hour. Buried Inside knows how to give an energetic show but it could have been a little longer. I think Tombs have won the competition this night! (Brent_)