Vltimas is a quite a new band, but with a few familiar names in it, like Dave Vincent and Flo Mournier. And they had just released their debut album, which got a lot of positive response. To promote it they do a handful of club and festival gigs this summer. And Leiden was on their tour, so I rode my bike to Leiden on this Wednesday evening.

There was one support act, an old Dutch death metal band, viz Antropomorphia. I like their first EP from way back, but never really followed them much and previous live experiences didn’t make me get their entire catalogue either. They look more like a black metal band but they play death metal. Not all that interesting, really, mostly based on early Death and Massacre. The guitar and vocal sound was quite thin in the mix which didn’t really help getting their music across.

Vltimas is a whole different ball game. Mostly death metal with a few black metal and thrash influences here and there. They were with five guys instead of just the three on the album. Cowboy David didn’t play the bass. He only handled the vocals. His voice sounds lower each time I hear him sing. Flo doesn’t rely on blast beats and complex drum patterns as much as in Cryptopsy. Really interesting that he can play more human style drumming as well. The partial cover of Black Sabbath had a couple of interesting touches, but also sounded quite different from their own material. And as they only have 9 songs the set as quite short. But a very cool new band and a cool gig too.