Wanhoop - Methadrone - Nadja - Stereochrist Live gig on the 30th september, at the Negasonic music club in Aalst, Belgium. A varied evening, where the bands had one thing in common : heaviness. Wanhoop opened, and altho they describe their music as black/doom it seemed to fit more in the doom/death genre, but with some black influences. Fairly up-tempo heavy doom with the occasional slower interlude and black metal vocals. Wanhoop is a 2-man band, consisting out of the vocalist and lead guitar player, 3 members from several other -mostly black- metal bands joined as live musicians on bass, rhythm guitar and drums. On studio recordings there are additional keyboards and synths, but they managed to create a nice harsh atmosphere live without problems. So far it seems that the majority of their fans are from the black metal scene, but I'm sure that with a few more gigs or releases they will be getting a lot more attention from the doom scene as well. Website : http://www.despair.be Methadrone. Holy shit Methadrone! I've heard their music before on CD, but this live set was several times more massive and heavy. Probably the heaviest live performance I've seen/heard so far. Just 2 musicians, very relaxed sitting on barstools on stage, both playing bass guitars (lead 4-string, also vocals and the other rhythm on a 5-string). Additional drums and some more ambient/industrial oriented sounds were provided by a CD player. Musical wise it comes real close to drone, with some doom/death elements and of course an ambient/industrial touch. website : http://www.methadrone.com Next up is Nadja, again only 2 musicians (Aidan on guitar and a bass player) with some extra percussion and background synths on CD. It started off with a bit too much feedback which made it hard to hear what was going on, I can't tell if that was intentional or not. I've always liked Aidan's ambient music more than Nadja's but luckily he treated the audience to an ambient interlude, which showed the kind of things he can do with a guitar (Aidan's ambient works are almost exclusively made with guitar, from smooth and calm soundscapes to exotic sound experiments). Backed up with the bass player using a bow on her instrument, this track slowly -and very smoothly- morphed into the drone/ambient soundscapes known as Nadja. A very impressive track, too bad that was already then end of their set, I wouldn't mind if it had lasted a bit longer. website : http://www.turn.to/nadja Headliners this evening are Stereochrist from Hungary, with members from the disbanded doom band 'Mood'. At first sight perhaps a bit of an odd one out, apart from the fact that they, too, bring darn heavy music. It was the only band this night I hadn't heard before, I'd describe them as heavy, groovy, bluesy hardcore mixed with traditional doom-inspired metal. Probably not the kind of music I'd listen to, but these 4 talented musicians did an excellent live performance, very powerful and convincing and much to the liking of the audience. website : http://www.stereochrist.com All in all a very succesfull and enjoyable evening, on one hand due to the varied bands, but also because of each of the bands gave an excellent performance. My fave band this evening was Methadrone, who impressed me with their massive dronescapes. Written 06/10/2005 by S. Negasonic Web site : www.negasonic.com