Ridden with Disease (okay a bit of a cold), I drove to Tilburg to watch Mourning Dawn. A French doom metal band that doesn’t play live a whole lot. This was their only Dutch gig since five years. As this started at half past nine, it was a pretty smooth ride to Tilburg with no traffig jams. That’s nice for a change too. On the other hand the turnout at the venue was very small, probably no more than 25 persons showed up.

Opening band is a Dutch band with the peculiar band name Dresden / Leninggrad. These guys play some kind of stoner doom with a very prominent bass sound and rather minimalistic guitar. Both are heavily distorted. And they sing it Dutch. The bassist was standing with his back to the audience most of the time apart when he added some vocals. The lead vocals are handled by the guitarist which were okay except when he tried to sing a bit higher or lower than the main vocal lines. Not really a style of music that I appreciate much, really.

Then Mourning Dawn set up the stage. That is a whole different style. Mostly doom metal but with some shrill, black metal-like vocals and odd lead guitar. It has a continuous eerie vibe. Seriously not that easy to digest. Even though it is generally classified under doom, the tempos aren’t all that slow a great deal of the time. Mostly the band focusses on the new album Les Sacrefies, but the title track of the previous album was played as well, and a haunting rendition of Grey Flood off the debut. Quite a solid gig I must say. I also finally got to buy their new album, with a cool bonus CD with extra material.