013 in Tilburg organised a so-called metal matinee, this Sunday afternoon. The headliner of this event were the Austrian sickos Pungent Stench, supported by Eisregen, who are on tour together. The show coincided with a metal market in the same venue, so a nice combination of getting some new CDs and watching a good concert.

The first band however to play was the Dutch band Toxocara featuring members from various other bands, including Katafalk, Prostitute Disfigurement and Monolith Deathcult. The band plays a brutal death metal form, but with lots of midpace sections and intermezzos to make it sound interesting. All eight of the songs they played feature on their debut album Imminent Repulsion. So in short, this is a very promising band creating brutal music consisting of good songs too. A combination that is quite rare these days. I was impressed enough to buy their album afterwards. And after a few listens, it certainly is worth the money.

Eisregen is a totally different band and don’t fit in this package. This German six-some consists of a guitarist, bassist, singer, drummer, keyboarder and a violin player. What they play is a rather dull, metallish, gothic (?) music with German lyrics (the talk in between songs was also in German). Besides that they had two drunk guys on stage, one in shoes and underpants and the other one just in shoes. It didn’t seem many people were interested in this band as most stayed in the back of the venue or disappeared to the bar.

Finally, it was time for Pungent Stench who were dressed in their normal outfit this time and no wacky habits or kinky S&M wear. Kicking off with the classic Bonesawer off their debut album set the atmosphere for the concert. The vocals unfortunately were a bit low in the mix, but for the rest the sound was reasonably good. The set list was a bit odd, as it featured no songs from their previous album Masters of Moral, Servants of Sin and only two songs of their most recent Ampeauty. Schirenc announced the band as many different bands, like “We are Manowar, thank you”, including Autopsy and Slaughter. All-in-all a good performance from this old-school death metal band with many classics on the set.

Setlist:

• Bonesawer
• Fuck Bizarre
• Pulsating Protoplasma
• The Amp Hymn
• Splatterday Night Fever
• Deadly Medley (consisting of parts of ‘For God Your Soul… For Me Your Flesh and Blood, Pus And Gastric Juice)
• Viva La Muerte
• Extreme Deformity
• No Guts No Glory
• Sick Bizarre Defaced Creation
• Dead Body Love

-encores-

• Got Milf (this wasn’t played but instead some cover was played, but which?)
• Four F Club
• Klyster Boogie