The first stop of the tour with Dread Sovereign was at the Baroeg in Rotterdam together with two other bands, whom I wasn’t all that interested in. Yet Dread Sovereign doesn’t play live very often so it was worth going to this gig nonetheless.

Dread Sovereign were the opening band but were given a very reasonable 45 minutes to play their set. The band was formed by Primordial’s singer to play some doom metal. Besides his characteristic vocals, Alan also plays the bass, and quite proficiently actually. The sound is for a major part made by bass guitar. Bones handles the lead guitars and the combination creates a think sound. On record the music is a bit bland perhaps but in a live setting it works a lot better. Both their albums got a couple songs in the set, along with a Venom and a part of the song Black Sabbath. Great gig all in all.

The second band was the Belgian Wolvennest. They play a mishmash of varying between black metal, some progrock, psychedelic, noise and krautrock. That makes often an incoherent experience. Some of the lead guitar parts were very interesting but oftentimes the songs seem to go nowhere. On top of that a rather mediocre female vocalist, makes it a so-so gig.

The last band of the evening was Sweden’s Saturnalia Temple. This threesome plays stoner doom. Generally not my favourite genre, and as such I didn’t much like this band. The guitar tone has a lot of fuzz, and the riffs are not very interesting. In one song the bass player used a bow to play – an interesting thing although it didn’t add all that much. The drums were pretty much okay. Vocally not all that interesting either. All in all quite a dull band.