Wacken Metal Battle Belgium 2023 Semi Final West-Vlaanderen
-- Wacken Metal Battle Belgium 2023 Semi Final West-Vlaanderen --
01/01/1970
Stijn Daneels
[INTRODUCTION]
Review
written by Stijn “Metal Shredder” Daneels with assistance from Marjolein “Mrs.
Metal Shredder” Deduytschaever. Pictures by Stijn “Metal Shredder” Daneels.
Since 2018
I’ve been participating as a jury member of the Wacken Metal Battle Belgium.
The contest to choose one Belgian metal act to represent our humble, tricolored
country during the Wacken Metal Battle itself. After three years of no metal
battles, this year the Wacken Metal Battle Belgium has made its triumphant
return and Saturday February 19 2023 we went to the bar Verlichte Geest in
Roeselare to check out the first six live contestants. Six bands entered, two
bands left for the finals.
[MALFESTED]
Before we
begin, we would like to give an honorable mention to Malfested. This
up-and-coming death metal band was scheduled to participate in this round of
the battle but they couldn’t make it because one of their guitarist had a
COVID-19 infection. Too bad, since their material impressed both me (when I
reviewed their debut album ) and David (when he reviewed the band’s second
album ).
Fortunately,
some of Malfested’s band members, including vocalist Arne, came over to check
out the other five contestants and they had a great time being there. As for
Malfested, I hope they’ll be competing next year (unless they get signed to a
record label, which would be even better). And now it’s time to discuss the
contestants who did perform live that night.
[DEAFCON]
The first
live contestant was Deafcon, a band I’ve been following since 2017 and who I
last saw live during the currently final edition of Evil Or Die Fest in late
2019 (I really hope to see that festival come back in the future).
Deafcon’s
style is straight-forward, Motörhead inspired rock n’ roll with a huge emphasis
on speed, melodic solos and snarly vocals. Even the way how frontman David
played his bass (more like a rhythm guitar instead of how a bass is usually
played) was very reminiscent of this iconic British rock band.
That being
said, however, Deafcon still missed some things. For one, it all felt a bit too
gimmicky, like the band decided to look and sound like Motörhead without having
a lot of individuality of their own. Also they lacked the catchiness and
overall flamboyance of Motörhead, I believe Deafcon relied too much on speed
without putting in some nuance. I believe they could play some nice bluesy
tunes along with the speed metal stuff.
Also, I
think Deafcon could’ve acted a bit livelier on stage (although they did come
loose more during the latter part of their show), especially guitarist David
Seys should’ve showed off his solos some more, he shouldn’t have been stuck to
his side of the stage so much and should’ve been put in front and engaging with
the crowd when he was jamming his sweet solos. Even though I’ve ranked Deafcon
the lowest of the five bands who performed during this round of the Metal
Battle, I still enjoyed their show and so did the people in attendance.
[UNRAVEL]
Next up was
Unravel, a very young band who recently contacted me to check out their debut
album “Closure” and although I didn’t give it a lot of attention initially,
their performance during the Metal Battle did entice me to check out their
material on record.
And their
material was quite unique to be honest. Using metalcore as a basis, the band
added melody & prog complexities and clean female vocals to the mix. Add to
that old-school hardcore male vocals and the vicious main guitar riffs and you
had yourself a sound that felt familiar yet more complex and multi-faceted than
what you would expect from metalcore.
There were,
however, still some rough edges that I noticed during Unravel’s performance.
First off, the opening felt too long, it began with a sample and then some
instrumentals before the full band finally jumped into action after about 2 or
3 minutes. For me, I would simply keep either the sample or the instrumentals
and then go all out. I also felt that vocalist Gaëlle didn’t sing with all her
intensity (according to Unravel, this was because this was one of her first
gigs using in-ear plugs and she hadn’t yet fully adapted the volume of her
voice to match) and that she and her colleague Gilles could still add some
extra dynamics to their dual vocal work. With that I mean that I believe they
can interchange the vocal duties more frequently than they’re doing right now
and maybe a couple more duets.
Still, even
with those few rough edges, Unravel genuinely impressed me, metalcore isn’t my
favorite subgenre (I enjoy it the most when I see it performed live) but in the
case of Unravel I’m very curious to see how this band will evolve. Unravel’s
style mixes metalcore brutality with melodic and clean modern metal and spiced
with prog. An original take on both metal subgenres that is now unravelling
before us.
[HOPE ERODES]
The third
contestant of this round of the Metal Battle was Hope Erodes. Another band I’ve
been following for several years now but who’d recently become much more active
in terms of gigs and after seeing them live last year at Asgaard Gentbrugge
(supporting Primal Creation) and during this particular show, it wasn’t hard to
see what drives them.
Like
Unravel before them, Hope Erodes is a metalcore band and while their sound
wasn’t as original or as complex as Unravel, they more than made up for that
with their sheer stage presence and tightly knitted songs. Hope Erodes’s style
was as harmony between melodic metal & head-on extreme metalcore.
Where Hope
Erodes really took the cake that night was in their presentation. They took the
effort to decorate the stage with banners and they used smoke effects very
effectively (in fact, they were the only band that night to really put on a
visual show). Not only that, but the band used every inch of the stage to
scream and jam around and vocalist Koen frequently jumped off the stage to get
up close and personal with the crowd while the other members jammed their riffs
while the smoke erupted from underneath them creating a sweet visual effect.
And all this visual flair and raw energy caused the crowd to eat it all up!
There was frequent headbanging, moshing and screaming and this further
amplified the bond between the band and the crowd.
For me,
Hope Erodes was the best act of the night (and therefore I gave them my jury
vote) and that’s saying something given the overall quality of the competition.
Hope Erodes’ sound was balanced and this combined with the band’s relentless
energy & high chemistry between them and the crowd made sure everyone had
an awesome time. Add to that the aforementioned effective use of stage banners
and smoke effects and it all resulted in Hope Erodes looking badass, sounding
badass and badass enough to move on to bigger things. Hope Erodes may have had
some rather underwhelming years before this, but they’ve now finally managed to
become a well-oiled wrecking machine.
[WORLD DECAY]
The fourth
band to compete at this round of the Metal Battle was World Decay. A band I
hadn’t heard of before except for when I showcased their song “Queen Of Ice”
earlier this month as part of Belgian metal band of the day. The comments did
tell me to keep my eye out on this up and coming act so I was looking forward
to my first live encounter with World Decay.
And World
Decay’s sound was quite straightforward, old-school thrash metal inspired by
the likes of Toxic Holocaust and Exodus. Their sound features frequent tempo
changes, shrieking vocals, melodic guitars, all backed by rhythmic drums and
heavy bass. Unfortunately, the band didn’t have the same powerful stage
presence as some of the other contestants that night. That doesn’t mean the
band stood still on stage, frontman Ben in particular banged his head like
crazy and frequently fist-bumped with the folks in front of crowd. All in all,
World Decay delivered a solid performance that night in Roeselare, nothing more
and certainly nothing less.
That being
said, however, I did take the time to listen to their “Blackened Soil” EP when
writing this review and I felt their recorded material to be very enjoyable and
well-recommended to thrash metal lovers. The only thing left for them to do, is
to more properly translate the intensity of their recorded stuff to a live
audience. Crank up the energy, crank up the power, use the stage more
effectively and I promise you that World Decay could become a thrash force to
be reckoned with.
[PROMISE DOWN]
The final
performance of this round of the Metal Battle was Promise Down, clearly one of
the hardest working Belgian underground rock acts in the past two years given
the number of shows they’ve done in 2022 and how many they still have scheduled
to do later this year. Last year Promise Down competed and won at the Gullegem
Metal Fest battle to earn a spot on this year’s edition of said festival so I
was curious to see them compete during this prestigious Metal Battle.
Promise
Down’s style is, like Deafcon who played earlier, inspired by Motörhead but
also has touches of Mötley Crüe and AC/DC. The result was a catchy and
hot-blooded rock n’ roll sound driven by multiple guitar solos, commanding
vocals, high emphasis on bass and smooth drum beats. One thing that I’ve always
enjoyed about Promise Down is their flamboyant stage presence and this
performance was no exception. Frontman William in particular not only sang with
conviction but also used body language to fluently convey the message. The
other guys also had a blast on stage and as always the camaraderie between the
members of Promise Down was convincing and it smoothly seeped through towards
the crowd.
One thing
that negatively impacted my rating of Promise Down during the Metal Battle was
the way they ended their performance. Usually they end their show very
memorably with the song “Furious Masturbator” that ends with frontman William
shooting heart-shaped confetti or spraying a water bottle during the song’s
“climax.” Now, I can understand that they don’t want to end every show the
exact same way so I wouldn’t have minded that they ended this specific gig with
some short jam session while thanking the people for checking them out. But
this time, however, the show ended rather suddenly as if they were playing
overtime.
While this
Promise Down gig wasn’t the most engaging one I’ve seen from the band thus far,
I was still happy to see them perform during that night in Roeselare. Promise
Down knows how to entertain a crowd using nothing but pure rock n’ roll flair
and I believe they’ve still got many fruitful years ahead of them.
[CONCLUSION]
{
My personal
ranking:
1 Hope
Erodes (JURY WINNER)
2 Promise Down3 Unravel (AUDIENCE WINNER)
4 World Decay
5 Deafcon
Both Hope
Erodes and Unravel managed to claim a spot for the finals Saturday May 27 in
Zingem.
And so that
concluded the first live round of the Wacken Metal Battle Belgium 2023. It
wasn’t an easy night to judge, but I’m thankful to see each of the constants
shine on that humble Verlichte Geest stage and after talking to all the bands
after the contest they unanimously agreed that it was a very fun night. Both on
and off stage. Now let’s see who will become the six other acts to join Hope
Erodes and Unravel during the finals. One thing’s for certain, it’s going to be
one hell of a battle.
}