LIVE REVIEW: DOOMSTAD XL - Terzij de Horde + Laster + Verwoed + Ggu:ll + Wesenwille @ TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht
A little pre-Christmas stroll through the Dutch underworld.
Yup, that’s the crazy life of the, erm, writer. I don’t know, man. I try to make it sound exciting. But yeah, on the last Sunday before Christmas, when mostly everyone was getting busy getting their spiked eggnog game on or trying to find the perfect cheap present for that annoying relative who announced they’d drop in last minute (or watching a rather important football match, too), I parked my bum on an airplane and flew to one of my favourite European cities, Utrecht in the Netherlands, to revisit one of the most unbelievably awesome venues I’ve ever seen, the mighty TivoliVredenburg, and to catch a glimpse of some of the prime representatives of the Dutch black(ish) metal underground these days.
As most of you are surely aware, this century has seen the rise of a few countries as hotbeds of prime activity when it comes to the darkest musical arts, rising in artistic relevance to heights that rival even those where the more primordial origins of the genre lie, such as Norway, Sweden or the UK. Iceland comes immediately to mind, of course, Portugal as well to a certain extent, and indeed the Netherlands have given us a veritable outpouring of black metal - or at least black-adjacent since, excitingly, none of the five really play any kind of orthodox by-the-numbers black metal that could be bluntly described as such without “experimental”, “post”, “atmospheric” or even “weird” pre/suffixes attached - names for the future, but also very much for the present. This event, featuring five of the most interesting current Dutch extreme bands in its line-up (and four of them Utrecht locals - what a breeding ground!), with almost all of them either celebrating a recent album (Terzij de Horde, Ggu:ll and Wesenwille, all with 2022 releases) or laying ground for a forthcoming one (Laster and Verwoed), seemed like a perfect way to take the pulse of the current state of this particular scene, so off I went.
WESENWILLE
The cozy Pandora room, one of the seven (!) venues that lurk within the colossal spaceship-like TivoliVredenburg, was still filling up when openers Wesenwille stepped on stage, but shame on you if you decided to still look for the perfect pair of socks to give grandma the next weekend, or have a cheaper Jupiler outside, or even watch the World Cup final - if football-maniac me could watch it through glimpses at my phone, so could you. And Wesenwille surely deserved the dedication. These sharply dressed gentlemen, operating under the leadership of frontman (and only fixed member when not performing live) R. Schmidt, delivered an impressive performance despite their early slot, instantly creating a strong, oppressive atmosphere, bending the blue light that filled the stage to their will with martial rhythms, dissonant riffs and a surprising amount of melody that still manages to creep into their austere sound. Razor-sharp and dry, but so full of soul, perhaps their take on urban, decadent, contemporary black metal can be best described by the title of one of their best songs, ‘Opulent Black Smog’. Material from their recent, and excellent, ‘III: The Great Light Above’ album, only released last October via Les Acteurs De L’Ombre Productions, fit in perfectly as if they’ve been playing it for years, too. That’s how you set the tone for an evening.
GGU:LL
The oddest men out in an already eclectic line-up, Ggu:ll (it’s pronounced “ghoul”, in case you’re struggling) were not only the sole band to hail from outside Utrecht - they come from the equally unhallowed ground of Tilburg, where, of course, Roadburn Festival takes place -, but also the ones with the flimsiest connection to black metal. Not that there is a super comfortable category to neatly tuck them into, but their approach is more akin to doom, with gigantic, drone-laden grooves slowly pounding your consciousness into a pulp. Of course, the menacing vibe Ggu:ll exude more than earns them the usual “blackened” epithet, and to be fair they didn’t feel at all out of place, rather the contrary - suffering through their show (read this in the best possible sense, obviously) was just like going through another particularly heavy and drawn-out sermon of a very long and punishing black mass. The suffocating heaviness of their recent ‘Ex Est’ album (released in October via Consouling Sounds, label that had one of its most important representatives in the audience too) was splendidly reproduced on stage, showing a super tight band despite the loose nature of the music, and I’m sure Coman and Tchouaméni heard similar harrowing sounds from inside their heads as this, as their missed penalties gave Argentina the title.
VERWOED
Perhaps the steadiest workhorse in terms of genre approach, Verwoed were wisely used as the day’s mid-point, a sort of grounding rod to assure us that yes, it’s all a rollercoaster adventure, but at the black heart of it all, we were ultimately there to raise horns and spread metal darkness. Having said that, nothing about their performance felt workmanlike or conventional in any way. Frontman Erik B., like R. Schmidt in Wesenwille also the sole fixed member of this project, is an imposing figure, and his powerful bellow instantly takes command of the crowd as titanium-strong song followed titanium-strong song. It would be impossible to pick a highlight in this tightly armored battleship of metal, but one naturally appeared with the staggering rendition of ‘Verder Van Het Licht’, the closer from their 2019 album ‘De Val’, which featured the appearance of the great Raven van Dorst of the mighty Dool. A clash of titans, as it were, and one of the best moments of the whole shebang. It was time for a beer.
LASTER
In fact, it would have been time for about a dozen beers, if your aim would have been to really try to get your head around Laster. And I suspect that even with a hundred beers you’d probably be left as fascinatingly adrift by their oddball music as the rest of us sober fools. Or you might have a transcendental revelation and forget all about it in an hour. Who knows what can happen inside each individual during a Laster show - the one thing we do know is that everything in there will be rattled. Beamed down to this planet from a neighbouring galaxy to the ones that spawned people like Ved Buens Ende, Solefald, Oranssi Pazuzu or Lifelover, just to mention a few spotted among the tornado created in my own head by the trio, they look and sound like what would happen if Fenriz told The Residents to go play Asylum Party songs in hell. The fact that they can hold a whole audience in a pleasingly packed room such as this enraptured while they weave through shoegazey passages, dramatic singing, shrieks and blastbeats is testimony to their genius - we don’t get it, not really, but we all love it. Their creepy death doctor masks or the mannequin torso they bring to the stage to rest on top of the amp are perfect metaphors for the surreal pleasure that is watching Laster perform live - we’re not really sure why they’re there, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Their forthcoming album will probably dissolve what’s left of our collective brains.
TERZIJ DE HORDE
So it came down to Terzij de Horde to wrap this marathon up, and while I’d love to say “no pressure”, given the unwavering high quality of everything that came before, well, there was a bit. Nothing they can’t handle, though. ‘In One Of These I Am Your Enemy’, their 2022 album also released on Consouling Sounds, was the backdrop for this whole thing, being revealed on stage for “the greater public” after a more intimate, “secret” presentation show earlier in the year. And that fits it to a tee, because this is grandiose music - as much as it twists and turns, as weird as those time signatures feel, not exactly Laster-weird but surely disorienting and dissonant, as underground as we gatekeeping types might want to keep it, the overall impact of current day Terzij de Horde is that of wide-screen, universal metal. While lesser bands headline big festivals with well-promoted pissant music, the intensity of this band’s “vitalistic black metal” (their words, and very well chosen in my opinion) is such that everyone reacts in a different way. Bathed in red light, some dance, some headbang (including an adorable child that I spotted in the seats to the right of the stage - good parenting!), a little moshpit appears, some just stand still and stare as if too overwhelmed for any other signals to travel through their nervous system, some smile all the way through (I’m looking at you, mr. bassplayer Johan van Hattum). If this whole day was a celebration of the vitality of the Dutch black metal underground, Terzij de Horde were indeed the biggest, most celebratory band of the bunch. All hail!
You can find Terzij de Horde, Laster, Verwoed, Ggu:ll and Wesenwille on Bandcamp with these respective links.
Massive thank you to Bart van Haare for the invitation, patience and kindness, Brent Oostrum for the desserts connection and overall hospitality, and Jostijn Ligtvoet and Denise Amber for the awesome photos.