This is already the fifth installment of this small, indoor doom festival. The bill wasn’t all that interesting, with one major exception: The Chilean band Capilla Ardiente who did a short tour through Europe. I don’t expect them to return again soon, so that was a strong incentive to go. I skipped the first couple of bands, also in part because I had other things to do.

Anyway, when I arrived the Belgian gothic doom band Fading Bliss nearly had finished their set, so I heard only one song. What I heard was generally not too bad, but maybe a bit generic for the style. Except that the female vocals sounded terribly off key.

Then there was Faal. A Dutch funeral doom metal band, that has been around for quite a while and I saw them several times before. But at the last few gigs they appeared to have gone into a more experimental style, but apparently that is all gone now. They played two now songs that sounded pretty much in line with the material of their latest album. So perhaps a return to form. Quite a solid gig.

Capilla Ardiente was next. This is a sort of side-project of Procession who I have seen many times, for which most material is written by the bass player, Claudio Botarro. But it also features singer Felipe from the same band. Not surprising that these bands sound alike. But actually I like this band better than Procession, who seem to rely more on classic doom metal like Candlemass. They started with a song off their latest album, from which they played two more songs during the set, along with a song of their debut EP, and a cover of Angelwitch. That would be the only minor glitch of this gig, as I would have much preferred them to play a song of their own; Solve would be a good candidate. Never mind, they played an awesome gig where everything was right. Good sound, good performance, great music.

Finally there was Maltese Forsaken. A more classic doom metal band, that relies much more heavily on traditional heavy metal. I vaguely remember them playing at one Dutch Doom Day festival or another, but they probably didn’t impress me much then as it is just a faint memory. Well, they didn’t impress me this time much either. Not that it was bad, they played quite well, but I didn’t like the whiny vocals much and with only one guitar the sound was quite thin, as only the clean bass sound had to fill out the sound when the guitarist played the leads. Speaking of which most of those seemed rather out of place, especially the sweeping and flashy fast parts that also were quite sloppy. The slower leads were more interesting. Decent but no more than that.