The opening act, Boris, came all the way from Japan to do like five shows with their labelmates. The trio makes something that is filed under doom, but what it truly is I can’t say. It sure has doom in it, as well as stoner and drone, but some punkrock too. They started out with an atmospheric song with just two guitars being struck on a beautiful hypnotizing tone every now and then. There was a female guitarist and a guy who sung and played a double necked bass/guitar. He mostly played guitar on it, but the moment he touched the bass I really woke up. A mighty sleazy stoner sound pounded out of the speakers that made me feel sorry that they didn’t have an actual bass player with that sound. Ah well.

After ten minutes or so the drummer appeared to do some jazz like beats with the spacey part. But when the doom kicked in, he did what every doom drummer should do; bash the fucking shit out of your kit! The gigantic gong behind him could even escape that!

The only stupid thing about Boris was that the bassist/guitarist could absolutely not sing, contrary to the drummer who sounded quite well. Nevertheless, good opening act for what was yet to come.

 

After Boris the curtains closed.

 

Some time later a noise started. It was definitely a Sunn 0))) amplifier with a guitar hooked in it tuned down way to much (drop A to be exact). This took about ten to fifteen minutes before the curtains opened up and you could see nothing but smoke. After the Roadburn festival I understood that there was no one playing the guitar by the way. It just lies there, feedbacking like hell…

So, a lot of smoke, blue lights, five guys dressed in monk’s habits and a redoubling of the current volume. That shakes you wide awake quite good. The live band was made of the two guitarists with each a person controlling their effects pedals and Boris’ drummer improvising on the gong and doing some vocals.

The smoke just kept on coming throughout the entire show, there were moments where you couldn’t see anyone on stage at all! After the show the entire venue, including the backstage and the bar attached to it was filled with smoke. Dry noses and sore throats! But I wouldn’t have had it any other way, the blue and purple lights looked really cool shining through the white fog when you’re as stoned as fuck.

 

I can’t say which tracks they played except for one; “Decay2 [Nihils’ Maw]” which was the only song featuring vocals. It’s a track from the White2 album and it normally features vocals by Attila Csihar but his part was done by Boris’ drummer who filled in quite well actually. He stood on the edge of the stage like a evil witch character pointing at the crowd while looking really evil. That took like ten minutes or so, then he started the demon-like chanting.

And I believe that it was after this track that the volume got increased even more which caused my entire body to tremble for the rest of the show. My entrails even started acting up cause they were being vibrated to different locations within my body.

 

All in all I think I can say that this is the most brutal thing I have ever seen. Exactly the opposite of the fastest razorgrind, the slowest lowest deadliest drone. A unique experience which I hope to encounter sometime again in a couple of years.