The Chilean doom metal band Procession – though operating out of Sweden – has just released a new album called Doom Decimation and they thought it to be a good idea to tour around Europe a bit to promote it. The only Dutch date is in Rotterdam. So I decided to check them out. They brought one support act with them, but the club added another two, more or less local bands to the bill.

Celesterre was the band given the honour to open the evening. They come from The Hague and the guitarist both are or were members of the semi-legendary atmospheric black metal band Murw. However this new band is more traditional heavy metal with some doom and black influences. The female back ground singer also took her place at the back of the stage and did a couple of vocal lines in every song. Not a bad opening band, it is obvious that they are all experienced live players. Musically not entirely my interest, but well thought-out songs and a style of their own.

The second band I saw for the twentieth time in about 15 years. Officium Triste is the local doom metal band, and more or less the house band of the Baroeg. They squeezed 6 songs in the 40 minutes they were given, focussing primarily on their latest album. World in Flames was a new song of a to-be-recorded new album. The gig was like most of their gigs very solid, except for a few obvious mistakes here and there, though.

The third band was Epitaph – one of the many bands named so. This one is from Italy. They play old style classic doom, strongly based in heavy metal, and like the earliest doom metal bands stilly quite fast. While the band played a steady set, most of the attention was drawn to the singer. He brought all kinds of attributes, including a skull, a doll, a sort of lampoon on a large chain that he carried around his neck, a catholic stories book from which he tore pages. In the mean time he ran across the stage, and through the audience. His English seemed quite horrible, because I could hardly make out what he said in between songs, let go decipher any of the lyrics. At least quite a different performance than the statue fest of many metal bands.

Then it was time for Procession. NWOBHM and Candlemass are apparently their primary influences. They opened up with a song of their new album, and during the set they would play a quite a few of them, interspaced with material from earlier albums. Felipe made a few jokes during his announcements, mostly in response to the audience. One of the songs got a dedication to Malcolm Young who passed away this day. Nevertheless, the band made a very strong appearance, and played tightly. Even though the music is not all that original, they do it well. However I still find their earliest material the strongest, especially the first EP. So all in all a pretty interesting Saturday evening.