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Witnessed

House Of Metal Festival 2014: Day 1

04/03/14 || cadenz

Who: Napalm Death, Hatebreed, Hypocrisy, Raubtier, Bombus, Civil War, Thyrfing, Belphegor, F.K.Ü, Enforcer, Skull Fist, Avatarium, Vanderbuyst and more.
Where: Umeå, Sweden.
When: February 28th to March 1st, 2014.

The annual highlight of the festival winter season is House of Metal in Umeå, Sweden. This Northern city is the birthplace of great bands such as Meshuggah, Naglfar and Refused, and the festival is always executed in grand fashion, thanks to the immaculate arrangements by the great people in charge, including Mats “Möken” Björklund, Petra Edström, Lisa Orman and GD’s own teddybear Tommi “DrSnuggles” Konu. The festival is held indoors (duh, winter in Sweden isn’t a feasible time to play open air gigs) at Umeå Folkets Hus, and has a capacity of 2.700 per day. Even though the place wasn’t jammed, the turn-out was pretty good. Especially the second day (Saturday) must have sported at least a couple thousand metalheads. I have to commend everything round and about the gigs as well; be it getting drinks in the bar, a taco buffet, burgers, merch, vinyl or CD records, earplugs, directions, meet & greet with the bands, workshops and panel discussions, metal photo exhibitions, Guitar Hero tournament, easy access to wherever – it’s all good, it’s all fixed. House of Metal is by a mile the most convenient festival I’ve ever attended, all you have to worry about is to have a good time. Tip: book a room at the hotel across the road for extra comfort, 40 meters from hotel lobby to festival venue.

So enough of the bullshit, what about the gigs? Well, I and the Mrs. started off with checking out Vanderbuyst at the second biggest stage, Studion, which is below ground level. This place has a club feel to it, as it’s smaller and more crowded. The power trio from the Netherlands made quite a nice impression on me with their late-70’s/NWOBHM-tinged hard rock, with many guitar hooks and bluesy solos, and a good frontman in Jochem Jonkman. Even though the songs in their set list were a little uneven in quality, this was an energetic gig that was the perfect starter for the festival, and get a well-deserved 7.

Next up was Bombus at the main stage, a concert hall named Idun. This band has gotten somewhat of a talk-of-the-town reputation during the last few years, and their stoner/doom/punk metal/rock works very well in a live context. Both guitarist-vocalists have a nice raspy voice and they aren’t afraid to use them, a lot. Bombus’ stage presence was very extrovert, and they really excelled on their slower songs, such as the set-closing “Into the Fire”. Slow, patient build-ups are very effective on gigs, as long as they’re well-executed, and this is where Bombus really shone the brightest. The faster and punkier tracks were OK, but due to lack of variation, they tended to blur into each other and made me lose interest. Still, I’d love to see these guys again, and hopefully before that their songwriting has blossomed from this well-working show-off of rudimentary riff-making and arranging skills to compositional mastery on their third album. Here’s another 7.

Speed metal a la 1980’s is finally back in fashion again, and we were treated to two bands of this variety tonight, Enforcer from Sweden (whose gig I sadly missed) and Skull Fist from Canada. SF made the most of their time on the underground stage, clearly blowing the minds of the hordes of jeans-vests-patched-to-the-brim-with-band-logos-wearing youngsters with their fast and technical speed metal assault. Both guitarists showed some impressive shred chops, and the vocalist’s naturally high falsetto voice was very entertaining in its high-pitched nasality. Don’t get me wrong, it suited the music very well, it’s just funny when a guy wearing a helmet hairdo, half the leather in Canada and a leftie metal axe stands in front of hundreds of people and screams like an angry imp right out of a fairytale. After a couple of songs I retreated to watching the show from the bar at the back of the room, as speed metal always gets better after a couple of beers. Well, Skull Fist didn’t, ‘cause the songs that seemed so nice in the beginning turned out to be the exact same songs they played later in the set, just with different names. You don’t believe me? Well, I don’t believe in you either so there you go. Justice, and a 6, was served.

What happened next? Napalm Death happened. Shane Embury and his bald spot happened. Danny Herrera and his steady grooves happened. Mitch Harris and his “shy boy”-manners between songs, but hammering riffs and fantastic black metal screams during them, happened. And, above all, Barney happened. What a hero this guy is. Tripping around with the appearance of a British office rat in shorts and T-shirt, making his weird epileptic dance moves while screaming his fucking heart out to enlighten the masses with ND’s massive and (often) well-thought-through satiric criticism of politics, religion and whatever else that pisses them off. We got to hear several tracks from the superb “Utilitarian”, as well as tracks from most periods of their career, with a plethora of short grind numbers from the earlier days inserted in the middle. How many times can you hear “You Suffer” before you get bored of it? Exactly. The crowd seemed to be into the gig as much as the band was, and for me this gig was clearly the pinnacle of the festival. Ye olden gods of grind showed us how it’s done, and here’s a 9 for the trouble. Cheers!

If you squint really hard, you can see Shane’s panties.

Then some food, beer, wine and Jäger was on the menu, and next up was Hatebreed on the main stage. I’ve always hated this band on record, since the riffs are stupid and monotonous, the vocals are annoying and stuck-up, and above all – all the songs sound the same. No variation whatsoever to be found anywhere. Still, I thought that they would be kick-ass live, since this kind of stompy dorkiness should work fine when you’re standing in front of thousands of drunk fuckers who will do whatever you tell them to do. Well, fuck that. They sucked. The stupid songs were (at least) as stupid live as on record, all the crowd interacting seemed rehearsed and bland, the instrumental delivery was OK but uninspired – in this kind of music, I thought you were supposed to be fucking crazy on stage, fucking things up, jumping around, screaming, headbanging, moshing, you name it. Look at Slipknot, works like a fucking charm. Hatebreed, not so much. Here’s a 3 as parts of the crowd seemed to like it.

Last up on Friday night was Belphegor down in the basement. Corpse paint, goat skulls, you know the deal – black metüllz was the name of the game. Helmuth and his boys had a strong and commanding stage presence and played their shit quite well, with absolutely furious drumming by some fucker whose name I don’t know. Man, that guy’s got some speed and stamina! And a shroud of mystery surrounding him like Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility. “Impaled Upon the Tongue of Sathan” and “In Blood – Devour This Sanctity” were highlights during a gig that displayed a band with strong charisma and output, but sadly also many songs that don’t hold up to par. Also, if you can’t play guitar solos, don’t fucking play guitar solos. Helmuth, stick to riffs and grunting – you slay at that. Another good but uneven gig garners a 6 in my book. Onwards to new adventures, meaning drink ‘til you drop and tomorrow’s a new day. Kippis!

Stay tuned – day 2 goes up tomorrow.

Witnessed