Gorefest, The Monolith Deathcult - Old school is still up-to-date
Amersfoort’s venue De Kelder is trying to profile Amersfoort as “Rock city”. In their quest for recognition they’ve received acts like Samael, Fleshcrawl and Mortification and they’ve also found Hate Eternal and Misery Index plus supports willing to perform in Amersfoort during their upcoming European tour in January/February. Tonight it was time for Dutch old school death metallers Gorefest, accompanied by The Monolith Deathcult and Baatezu, to help them receive their wanted status. Due to the early beginning and our appetite we unfortunately missed Amersfoort’s very own Baatezu.
After the release of Triumvirate earlier this year I was eager to see The Monolith Deathcult live again. On their new album they blend extremely fast death metal with all kinds of music, and today was the chance to see them doing it live. The sound check duration was a bit long and didn't seem to go very well, but when the band begun, the sound was fine nonetheless. Most of the tracks indeed came from their new effort, including all the aforementioned influences. Next to the tight, fast and sometimes technical death metal, we heard hints of black metal, folk and other world-music related samples, some industrial sounds and sinister keys. All in all a whole lot of noise at once, but still it didn't become messy, which is of course a compliment. The most unexpected moment of the show was when all members, except their keyboardist, left the stage - letting him do some kind of 'solo' with drum & bass samples and later even a digital hardcore beat. A very skilled band with their own sound, a band we in Holland can be proud of! (Mindsaver)
After a tough period in the late ‘90s, Gorefest split up in ’98. In 2004 the band reformed again and since then it’s like they’ve never went away. The fans were treated with 2 great records the past few years, La Muerte and Rise To Ruin, and the live-shows are very impressive. Also on an early evening on a Sunday in Amersfoort, they succeeded to impress the audience strikingly. Most of the songs played were of the two previously mentioned records, but also classic songs like ‘Reality – When You Die’ weren’t forgotten. Old school death metal is mostly criticized due to its lack of originality, but that’s not an issue when speaking about Gorefest. They’re capable of reaching a lot of metal heads without disavowing their roots. The only point of criticism of the gig in Amersfoort would be the light-engineer. This guy was a bit too hysterical with his over-the-top light-show. Maybe it was perfect for the average outdoor-stage, but for a little indoor-stage it was just too much at some points. (Gilles)
Related Content