Under the flag of Dutch Doom Day presets, local doom legends Officium Triste organised a gig; pretty much their annual gig in the Baroeg. They arranged two additional bands.

The just-as-local Facade fast the first to hit the stage. Classified as doom / death but they have some more progressive elements in there as well and the death metal influences are a bit scarce. Having three guitars seems a bit unnecessary most of the time as at least two of them were playing the same parts. Musically interesting, but I never liked Ben’s vocals in any of the bands he sings in. It just sounds flat and dull. Not bad. A singer that suits them better stylistically might make it a really good band

Arð is a British band, basically a side-project of the keyboard player Mark Deeks of the black metal band Winterfylleth. The now play as a six-piece, with 3 guitarist of which two handle the vocals. They play quite an original take on doom metal. The harmonic chanting vocal style, piano, melodic lead guitars. Fairly light, and not all that complex. It comes across live quite well. Maybe even better than the studio recordings. They played the entire album back to front as – I suppose – they have no other songs. Pretty good gig.

Then it was time for Officium Triste. I saw them a while back at From Dusk to Doom festival in Belgium, which wasn’t their best gig ever; hopefully it’d be better this time. The set list was largely the same, starting with On the Crossroad of Souls. And fortunately not a lot of mistakes in the lead guitar this time. They played a new songs from an album to be released early next year or so, called Behind Closed Doors. It sounded a bit different from the rest of the songs, but all in all a cool song. After the set was completed they came back – reluctantly – to play an encore in the from the The Pathway (Of Broken Glass). Quite a good gig of these veterans who have been around for almost 30 years.