Certainly one of the more colourful people of the metal scene these days, this Kvarforth. The main difference with most attention whores is that he actually composes great music. And that makes it worth checking out his band Shining went on a short European tour in the late autumn. And so I went to the Parkhof in Alkmaar, a rather small venue I had never been before.

Local support came from the band Claustrophobia. Mostly the hall was still empty when they started playing. The music can best be described as a mix between black metal and melodic death metal – a name like Unanimated quickly comes to mind. Never they are that good though and they lack a second guitar to create a fuller sound. All in all not bad, but nowhere really interesting or original.

Skitliv is a band that was formed by Maniac – the former singer of Mayhem – and is another band Kvaforth plays in, guitar this time. Nowhere is this band similar to Mayhem, this is extreme black doom with lots of experimenting. No less than three guitars in this band, although Maniac more throwing it around than playing it. Somehow I can’t take this band too serious due to their stage act, Maniac dressed in some pink, too small jacket or whatever it was, and him ending up hugging and kissing Kvaforth. Anyway the few songs they played had some cool aspects but then ruined it by ending it with just lots of feedback noise on the guitars in the end. Apparently they didn’t enjoy it much themselves either as both maniac and a guitarist seemed to be pissed the entire time and they quit after almost 30 minutes while they were given 45.

Hellsaw is an Austrian black metal band that I hadn’t heard before. The music is very simple and melodic. And in the end it bored me a lot. All the songs sounded more or less the same. And apparently they are trve kvlt as the singer went backstage to have a sip of water. Of course as every one knows drinking water is not trve kvlt.

Then finally there was Shining who took more than 45 minutes to prepare themselves. Like all the bands, Shining had a pretty decent sound, tho the one guitar was a bit low in the mix. There was no blood-letting this show; but at least he put out some cigarettes on his arms and chest. The band played quite well but at times didn’t always seem to be too interested. Kvaforth made up for that by being the complete asshole on stage that he always is (or pretends to be) and giving it all. At one moment half way through a song he suddenly turned off all the amps in anger, but continued nevertheless – don’t know what happened (supposedly some one threw beer at him). Maniac appeared on stage to sing one song while Kvaforth went to get some more booze. After nearly 70 minutes it was over without any encore. Some of the songs played: Claws of Perdition, Submit To Self-Destruction, Neka Morgondagen, Fields Of Faceless.