Already the 11th edition of this doom metal festival, held in the Baroeg. I’ve been to most editions over the years, and this year was interesting enough to go to both days again to see 12 doom metal bands.

The opening band was the Belgian Tyrant’s Kall who play generally rather simple doom death metal. The inspiration seems to come from Celtic Frost mostly with Lovecraftian lyrics. I didn’t dig the female vocals, especially the clean vocals but all in all not bad for a start.

Day 1 was doomed before it started as two bands had cancelled relatively shortly before the start (Pigrims and The Wounded Kings). Hence we got a first replacement band Evil Spirit from Berlin. Apparently a rather new band with little recordings yet. After a long intro with slow singles on bass and guitar, they finally started with not too interesting sludgy doom / death.

Then there was the first Dutch band playing; a rather new band, but considering all the grey hairs, experienced musicians:

Serpentarius

. They play more classic doom with a lot of Black Sabbath influences. They only had one 4 song EP out yet and so they played a couple of songs from other bands. The EP songs sounded pretty cool, but the 3 other songs were much less interesting.

The Portugese Process of Guilt were back after a couple of years with a new album under their belt. Yet their slugdy doom/death was way too repetitive for me and also very loud, despite my earplugs.

Oh and then was the band that I anticipated the most of the entire weekend, the British Solstice. They sorta reunited a while back with Richard Walker gathering a whole new band around him. For some reason their bass player was not there; but that didn’t matter too much with the focus mostly on the melodies of the guitar and the vocals. Yet worse was that during the intro already, Richard broke his a string. So like after 3 minutes they all went off stage again. After their return a few minutes later, they started with a new song called I am the Hunter. Which I must say, sounds pretty good. I can’t wait for them to record a new album. The new vocalist sounds pretty damn good as well, not as high-pitched as the previous sings. The remainder of the set was filled with four songs off the New Dark Age album. Hopefully this band comes back one day to do a proper tour.

I skipped the terrible Bunkur who were the second replacement and went home early. To return the next day

The second day opened with a Dutch band called Starve who play sludge metal. But unlike many of those bands, they were okay. Not really my thing, but not as entirely bad as most of those bands. And they probably also were the fasted band of the weekend.

Faal currentyl seems to be playing at every doom gig in the Netherlands lately as this is the fourth time I see them within a year. Not a bad thing though, Faal is an excellent band with an original style heavily based in doom /death with some more modern edges too it. So another good show of these fellows. All the way from Chile, the band Poema Arcanus were next. A very progressive, not very slow doom metal band. Somewhat close in sound to Mar de Grises, but more upbeat. I listened to their albums a few times, which I didn’t really like that much, especially the clean vocals. But live that was okay. The music is fairly complex and was executed quite well, and the vocals sounded better live than on record.

Yet another sludge band now; the German Gorilla Monsoo whom I heard about, but never actually listened too. They have a very rocking sound, and combined that with a solid stage presence, it was an interesting gig but not something I could sit down for and listen too on an album. Again quite fast for a doom metal festival.

Worship are touring (with Faal) in Europe for their new album, so a stop at the DDD fest seems all the more natural. This would also at least half the average speed as their funeral doom is very slow. This time they playing was much tighter as previous times I have seen them – so that was a pro. The vocals were a bit too loud in the mix which drowned out the guitars at times. Nevertheless a very solid gig and an interesting set list covering all their albums, and ending with the amazing Whispering Gloom.

The last band is the re-united Dutch gothic doom death outfit Celestial Season. Unfortunately they had a few technical dificulties during the gig; the cello and violin were hard to hear, which was improved only a little bit during the gig; and one of the amps broke down half way. They again played the entire solar lovers gig again but not in order and they surrounded it with two songs off their debut album. A set that I prefer over the one half a year ago. But that set was played a lot tighter than this one with quite some mistakes. But never mind that – the overall performance was pretty solid and a fine end to another great doom weekend in the Baroeg.