So the short history of this small festival is a bit funny. First there was supposed to be DelftDoom, but it was cancelled. Then there was BredaDoom but it turned out the venue got a double booking. So it was relocated to… Delft again, and so now we do have a DelftDoom. In the mean time a few bands cancelled as well – I forgot which ones, but I didn’t know either. And so it was 4 bands on this Saturday evening in Delft in a venue that seemed more suitable for a regular theatre, than a metal gig with seats and candles on tables and all that stuff, and a host in a fancy suit. But nevermind all that. It’s the metal that it is all about.

So the first band of the evening was the Dutch band Akelei who were also behind organising this festival – when I entered the club the drummer was collecting the entrance fees. The band plays doom metal of course, is quite melodic. The most distinguishing are the clean vocals and Dutch lyrics. Unfortunately the vocals were hard to hear and the echo didn’t make it easier to follow. Musically the band is decent, but not really groundbreaking. Sometimes they remind me a bit of My Dying Bride in their more dreamier moments.

Shattered Hope are from Greece and they got the honour to play here too and I think they travelled all the way here for just this gig. Mostly rather traditional doom-death metal, with deep grunts. I can’t say it was a really great band, they seemed to lack a certain flow in the songs with abrupt breaks and unfitting speedier sections. Nevertheless there was some interesting lead guitar work, which made it all more entertaining. The keyboard player seemed to be a bit redundant, as there was only one section she was clearly audible with some piano-like parts. During one song they were joined by Marquis of Ataraxie on vocals (who was there for doing session vocals with Mourning Dawn). So that made it a bit more interesting. So a band in a chock-full genre, that brings little news to the stage.

The aforementioned Mourning Dawn has members of many other French extreme doom bands, like Funeralium and Inborn Suffering, plus guest vocals of Marquis. The two vocalist held a kind of contest, trying to sound as extreme as possible. The music is much like Ataraxie and Funeralium, varying from extremely slow to quite fast, but with some black metal guitar work as well. They had just released their second album, and I think they only played songs from that album. So this is another pretty good band from France. Lots of great doom is coming from France lately.

Headlining was the German nautical funeral doom band Ahab. And this was the first time a large part of the audience got their arses off the seats. And it was not for nothing. Ahab proved to play their long songs excellently and it turns out that their songs work much better live as well. Somehow on the albums I get lost in the length of the songs, but live the riffs and melodies seem to stand out much more, as well as the varied drumming. They played a mixture of songs from the debut album and its successor, where it becomes quite obvious that these albums sound rather different. Even though it is all quite good and certainly worth going to, Ahab however do not come close to the majestic songs of the mighty Skepticism. Not on album, and not live either.