On this Friday, four doom metal bands were playing in the Baroeg. The first band that played was Marche Funebre from Belgium. I hadn’t really heard them apart from some youtube uploads. That didn’t really impress me, especially the clean vocals were pretty bad and didn’t fit the music. Well that is pretty much what I thought of their live appearance. The music is a bit generic doom/death, but not bad though. But the vocals can be really annoying.

The next band is the one that I really wanted to see, even though they played in Tilburg only half a year ago. The French Ataraxie plays slow, tortured doom death with some faster part as well. And that they do very solidly. The first album is great and they started with L’Ataraxie. They touched the same album again with the title track Slow Transcending Agony. They ended their set already with a new song from a forthcoming album. With those four songs they extended their set already beyond the original playing time, but it was worth it. Too bad they didn’t bring the new Funeralium album tho.

The problem with doom can be that if the music isn’t very good, it usually is terribly dull. And that is the case with the Swedisch classic doom from Isole. They played a couple of old Candlemass riffs during the changeover and that sounded excellent, but when they started to do their own material it is actually quite dull. And what doesn’t help is that the vocals aren’t too strong, and seemed to fit bitter with a Hammerheart era Bathory clone (like their side project Ereb Altor).

The final band of the evening in Officium Triste. A band I have seen several times the last 10 years or so. And all their gigs are solid, well played, usually quite tight. But rarely more than that. Nevertheless their doom death style is very enjoyable and like all the times before, another very solid gig with a very interesting set list consisting of a cross section of their discography . Especially as they played No Hope, which is one of their best songs thus far and two new songs that sound a bit different. Surprisingly no songs of the just released split with Ophis. They ended their gig with the perpetual This Is Goodbye as an encore.