The Dutch Doom Day festival celebrates is 15th edition this year and once more took place on three days. Nevertheless the line-up didn’t appeal that much to me. Only the Saturday had a few bands I’d like to see. And those bands actually played as the last three.

As I entered the venue Rotterdoom act Officium Triste was setting up the stage, and playing a bit of The Pathway as a line check they were ready to start their gig. The set was a bit of an uncommon one. Starting off with one of their longest songs – The Sun doesn’t Shine anymore. And then continued with a song they said never they have never played live before, To The Gallows off their latest album. And Bittersweet Memories off the split with Ophis, which is also quite rare on the set. Also included was a new song. Then they went back to the more familiar My Charcoal Heart. And then ending the set with another long long Like Atlas. Quite a good gig apart from a few mistakes in the lead guitar.

The Irish lads from Mourning Beloveth were headlining tonight, although they didn’t play last. They promised to play an uncommon set as well. Well, they started off with a few newer songs, mixed in The Sickness. Eventually came back to their debut album with In Mourning My Days. And I had seen them quite a few time with sloppy playing, they were overall a very tight act on this gig. The surprises came at the end when they played a cover of The Weeping Song originally by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. And they closed the set with an acoustic, the closing song off their latest album, called A Terrible Beauty Is Born. Sound-wise not very great success but a decent rendition. All in all this was one of their better appearance I witnessed.

The last band to play is Monolithe. They are from France and play doom metal with very long songs – all around 50 minutes – on the first 4 albums (named I, II, III and IV). Now their latest 2 albums contain each 3 songs of exactly 15 minutes. A bit odd really. The music has a very distinct feel to it, with often somewhat uncomfortable melodies to it. And that makes it rather heard to get into. In a live setting this worked reasonably well but with three layers of guitar there is a lot going on. Still the work from Monolithe I came across the strongest material. They played excerpts of around 15 minutes of the first albums along with a few songs of the newest album. A solid gig.