Two fairly obscure bands went on a European tour together for about two weeks. The Canadians from Phobocosm are headlining and the Italians from Fuoco Fatuo are the support slot. The made one stop in the Netherlands (and two in Belgium) and close by in The Hague, so I rode my bike to Musicon to watch these two bands. The turn-out was quite low, I think no more than some 20 people actually showed up. Makes me wonder how this is even sustainable for the venue or the bands.

Anyway, Fuoco Fatuo is a pretty interesting doom metal band with quite an original take on it. They are very riff based but create more soundscapes overlaid with lead guitar. And some sort of droning noise fills out a thick wall of sound. The tempo is generally slow, but varies a lot with faster or even fast sections including some really fast double bass drumming. Pretty cool band on the albums and live it comes across even better.

I wasn’t all that familiar with Phobocosm. They play quite modern death metal. Lots of fast tremolo picked riffs. The musicianship is top notch. But the problem I have with most of these modern bands is that is sounds too sterile, too mechanical. There is no groove, no hooks, even though a few of the melodic riffs were catchy. And in the end is all somehow blurs together.