Hemelvaartse Herrie 2023 review
-- Hemelvaartse Herrie 2023 --
01/01/1970
Stijn Daneels
[INTRODUCTION]
Review written by Glenn Schrijvers. Pictures by Glenn Schrijvers.
This time Belgian Metal Shredder went across the borders to the Netherlands for Herrie, located in Alkmaar and held in HAL 25. Herrie,
the Dutch word for noise. And that is what the Herrie events are, pure
brutal noise. The first event in 2019 was a passion project, a tribute
to years of promoting shows and tours for all kind of venues around
Alkmaar, the Netherlands. But it did not stay at that one event,
because the venue was not afraid of trying out new styles, brutal music,
weird acts, food and even drinks.
Over the years there've been more then 12 small and big events all involving extreme and loud music. In the covid period they were still able to do a couple of covid-proof try out events. They
work hard and are proud to get you the best experience possible with all
styles of metal music, unusual acts and great food and drinks. All this is not possible without Shitstorm, Raptor Events, the Scrapyard, 072-PC and of course the venue HAL 25.
HAL
25 is a cultural breeding ground and frayed playground in Alkmaar, with
a mix of artists' workshops, public places, events, festivals, catering
and much more. HAL 25 organizes cultural events, experiments through
makers residencies and facilitates business events and workplaces. All
this takes place in a large industrial hall with an outdoor area. HAL
25 was created in 2010 because the municipality of Alkmaar made a huge
empty warehouse with a large outdoor area available. Liveliness had to
be created at Overstad and HAL 25 went ahead of the troops to turn this
post-industrial area into a new part of the city. The
Scrapyard is the official taproom of Alkmaar brewery “De Moerspanner”.
With various specialty beers on tap and a large assortment of bottles
and cans, it is a true beer Valhalla.
At Scrapyard's manager Rick Ooms
you will end up in a warm beer bath, he will tell you all about the
wonderful world of specialty beers and make sure that you will not lack
anything. In addition, the Scrapyard also has a beer shop. A wide
range of different specialty beers from different brands. Great for at
home or for when you still must go! We
drove 2 hours and 45 minutes to Alkmaar, a bit further from Amsterdam.
We got stuck 10 min driving from Hal 25 due the opening of a bridge for the
passing of a huge line of sailing ships.
Big thumbs up for the parkings located near Hal 25! We got our wrist bands and entered the cultural breeding ground! So
unfortunately we missed the first band ‘Doodzonde’ a dutch black metal
band fronted by a father and his son. There were 3 areas: ‘De Tuin’,
‘De Hal’ and ‘De Bouwplaats’. De Tuin looked like a metal summer bar,
you could go in a jacuzzi (everything included), chill in the sun and
even get face painted! I went for the full experience and got face
painted as a black metal panda! There were merch stands spread
across the hall and a food truck with delicious food (fries, bars and
vegan burgers) and two bars to murder your thirst.
[SUBVERGENCE]
The first band we got to see was Subvergence, our Belgian deathcore outfit whose vicious blast beats and screeching vocals we had already
been familiar with.
Subvergence kicked off with ‘Era,’ a vile blast beats filled track with
immersive breakdowns and giving a Thy Art Is Murder Vibe. During the
second song ‘Survival Of The Flawed’ the audience grew bigger and
bigger. The mosh pits started brewing with additional headbangers while
Subvergence delivered their explosive cocktail of menacing deathcore.
Halfway the set smoke was released, so much that the entire stage and
frontrow turned invisible! It was a new kind of terror in the mosh pit,
flying kicks and fists popping out of the smoke, it was quite something
else! Subvergence played also a new song called ‘Psychogenesis’ that
gave a sneak peak of things to come and let me say I'm hyped! They
played songs like ‘Circle Of Fire’, ‘False Prophet’ and ‘Below Hell’.
[SERVE]
No rest for the wicked because Serve kicked off immediately after
Subvergence at ‘De Bouwplaats’ stage. I was thrilled because it was the first
time watching them live and without their former singer Jesse Lakerveld.
The band's new vocalist is the well talented Cheyenne Vakan who certainly did
not disappoint! Serve brought brutal, yet emotional hardcore and recently
released the new album ‘The Light Outlives The Sun’ (you can read the
review here: https://www.belgianmetalshredder.be/reviews/432).
Serve
unleashed havoc on stage: Cheyenne headbanging and jumping around while
spitting harsh vocals, Mark and Otto delivering filthy riffs and Joris
delivering crushing blast beats. Serve delivered a severe rollercoaster
filled with nasty breakdowns, blast beats, vicious riffs and vocals that
grab you by the throat! They played songs like 'Swarm,' 'Oblivion' and 'Bleed
Through Me.'
[HELLEVAERDER]
After this fierce set we got a 10 minute break, so we grabbed a
drink and prepared for Hellevaerder who was founded in 2017 and unleashed
black metal sung in Dutch. Hellevaerder evoked a dark occult
atmosphere, the band members were dressed like monks and the vocalist
Miranda wore a white dress bringing the light until she began unleashing
her diabolical screeching vocals upon the crowd with the opener ‘Je Bent
Niets Waard’.
Their set was filled with dark menacing blast beats,
medieval melodic riffs and darkened rigid vocals soaked in a dark
twisted macabre ritual. They played songs like ‘Vergeten, Verloren’, ‘In
De Nevel Van Afgunst’ en ‘Donder Dwalen’. You are worthless, death is
liberating, hail Hellevaerder!
[BLUEWAFFLE SAUERKRAUT]
Next up was Bluewaffle Sauerkraut who had to play without bassist due
to having no drummer. In any case, they brought entertaining gore grind while dressed
like bananas with the captivating words “Peel Me, I’m Hot”. The
audience went wild on the harsh gutturally frog/pig noised vocals,
tsunami of chaotic riffs, pounding drums.
There were mosh pits, circle
pits, wtf pits and Indian dancing pits. The sound wasn’t at100 percent from time to time but that didn't spoil the fun! They brought fun, sweat, laughs,
half naked men and lots of disgusting noises! Dutch goregrind at its finest!
[GORE DIMENSION]
We quickly fetched some food and let me say the French fries were
amazing and the vegan burger was astonishing in every way of the word, all the while enjoying metal piano on the background. When we came back it was time for Gore
Dimension from Turkey to bring brutal death metal! They were also the second band
to perform without a bassist.
Not that it mattered much, Gore Dimension demolished their set with
vicious head splitting riffs, nasty breaks, fast paced drums covered in
technical skilled filth! That resulted in sweaty mosh pits, windmill
bangers and headbangers, the crowd wanted more. They played songs
like ‘Summoning For The Endless Obliteration’, ‘I Savor Entrails Like
Entrails Of Mad Children’, and ‘Devouring The Gods.’
[SWAN SLAUGHTER]
It was time for Swan Slaughter that brought crossover metal with a huge
pinch of metalcore. Consisting of former bandmembers of acts 18 Miles, Death
Hounds and To Heaven Earth Is Hell. Swan Slaughter tore down ‘De
Bouwplaats’ with their hard-hitting melodic riffs, heavy ear crushing
breakdowns and harsh vocals fueled with anger and frustration against
mankind.
This caused for severe mosh pits, circle pits, headbangers.
People went even on piggyback in the mosh pits, even the youngest
metalhead went in the pit! I was genuinely surprised by this devastating
set of Swan Slaughter and looking forward what the future brings for
them. They played songs like ‘Cortisol’, ‘Off With Their Heads’ and ‘Red
Flag’.
[WHEN PLAGUES COLLIDE]
Then came the Belgian symphonic deathcore When Plagues Collide
who recently released their new album ‘An Unbiblical Paradigm’ (you can
read the review here: https://www.belgianmetalshredder.be/reviews/433). Their
set began while Coconut Clit Crusher was still playing on the other stage, this resulted
in a smaller audience in the beginning but after 2 songs the crowd flowed
in like salmons crossing waterfalls to mate.
Vocalist Wouter was going in full
crabby mode to unleash his outerworldly gutturals unto the crowd, drummer Sieben
was delivering blast beats so hard that the smoke machine puffed out so much
smoke that we got a second smoke storm, guitarst Santy delivering protein fueled
riffs causing his swole arms getting bigger, his colleague Joris delivering melodic
riffs with his stank face and bassist Joshua slamming bass lines while
headbanging.
The mosh pits went hard during the smoke storm causing
people to appear out of nowhere to fly straight into the crowd. During the breakdowns
everybody went berserk, Wouter even gives the mic to their merch seller Kilian who unleashed spine crushing gutturals himself to add even more momentum!
They played songs like ‘God Complex’, ‘Monopoly Of Violence’ and ‘Death
In Progress’.
[KANINE]
Then it was time for Kanine from France to take the stage. They delivered slamming deathcore so
brutal that it would cause severe head trauma and symptoms like randomly
spitting during songs. Kanine wasted no time and kicked off with 'Furie'
unleashing French deathcore at its finest. With 'Gangrene' we got an enormous breakdown right after the phrase ‘Espèce De Fils De Pute.' A breakdown that hit with
such force your neck would break! And a few moments a nasty spit fueled by hate caused frontman Jason to unleash his gutturals on the crowd!
I loved the
additions of ARF ARF during the set making Jason look like Cerberus, the mythical 3-headed hound that guards the gates of Hell! Drummer Gabriel was providing blast beats and breakdowns while
remaining completely zen all the while unleashing devastating chaos. Guitarists Alex and
Lucas brought the filthiest riffs I had heard in a long time while headbanging like their lives were depending on it. The only letdown for me was that the audience did not feature many deathcore fans who know how to 2 step and mosh like their
lives were at stake!
But the crowd gave their best doing piggyback
moshpits and headbanging through the set, I think the drunkenness level was
a little too high which could've caused a bit of brain freeze from time to time. At the end Jason
put on a pair of pink glasses bringing fun and deathcore together! They played
songs like ‘Karnage’, ‘Anubis’, ‘Snakepit’ and ‘Counter Slam’. Kanine
was my personal favorite act of that day thanks to their brutal assault of
slamming deathcore!
[EMBRACE YOUR PUNISHMENT]
After Kanine had left, another French band rose to the stage, Embrace Your
Punishment delivered brutal slamming death metal straight in your face!
They started with ‘Ascension’ unleashes a vile assault of gutturals, piggy
squels, screechs from the vocalist, outstanding pounding drums, chaotic
but technical riffs and some hardcore influences could be heard.
Their
dynamic intense energy and BLEGH shouts set the crowd on fire
resulting in mosh pits, circle pits and turbine driven headbangers. In
my humble opinion,
Embrace Your Punishment had potential to be the Lorna Shore of slam. They played songs like ‘Alone In This Pit’, ‘Fear The
Wolves’, ‘Nameless King’ and ‘Dark Passenger’.
[PROFANITY]
Profanity from Germany was up next, spreading their disease since 1993
with their technical death metal. They were on tour with the aformentioned Turkish metal act Gore Dimension
and were probably considered to be the weird duck in the eyes of the audience because the crowd was
watching like mindless sheep while the frontman was giving his best
jumping and screaming his lungs out in the same time.
Did Herrie make a
mistake for putting them on stage? In my opinion they certainly didn't because they provided a variety of extreme metal bands serving a
broad variety of genres. The crowd wanted only more slam because slam is
love, slam is life. It was a shame that most of the audience left to talk and chill
outside since Profanity delivered top notch tech death metal with a capital
D. So it wasn't a surprise they shared stages with bands like Cannibal
Corpse, Vader and Suffocation. The rest of the crowd might not have been all that conviced about Profanity's talent, but I certainly was.
[PARTY CANNON]
After Profanity we went to check out the Scrapyard and ordered a
specialty beer because we had time to spare due the intermezzo of 30
minutes. There was a performance of solo artist Zalm providing
grindcore punk in the meantime, but we needed some chill time before the
last band.
That final band was Party Cannon from Scotland, providing party slam a
malicious cocktail of slam, death metal and lots of fun. They ignite the
party with ‘High Five Ghost’ and threw beach balls into the crowd, and
later the famous orca came in to squeeze the last bits of energy that everybody had
left. Everybody went nuts with the beach balls flying everywhere and
hitting occasionally band members (which was quite an entertaining sight actually).
Party
Cannon brought genuine laughter and joy but also top notch technical melodic
riffs that turned into the filthiest riffs in 0,3 seconds, vocalist Stony presented deep gutturals and noises coming straight from the abyss, backed by mid-tempo sections turning into stank face breakdowns and blast
beats that unleashed your inner cave man! Near the end of their gig even the smallest metal fan went for a ride on the orca riding into the circle pit of joy! Party
Cannon ended Herrie in Glitz and Guts and played songs like ‘Electric
Soldier Porygon’, ‘1000 precents’ and ‘We Prefer The Term Living’.
[CONCLUSION]
{It was long ride and an even longer day but it was all worth it! Herrie succeeded in delivering a memorable day of fun, joy and extreme loud music for all ages! And add to that the jacuzzies, face painting, dj sets in ‘De Tuin,’ delicious food and drinks and a very friendly atmosphere. What else do we need? I know, another Herrie festival!}