Review written by Stijn “Metal Shredder” Daneels, pictures by Marjolein “Mrs. Metal Shredder” Daneels.

Although I had been quite critical about the EP (mainly the production quality) I’ve never been the person to completely dismiss a band (and I never will) and so I was curious to see the band perform live and see how they would be doing in a live stage.

A Sweet Suffering played a 30-minute gig at both 15h (3 PM) and 18h (6 PM). We arrived at around 18h, just in time to see the band kick off their try-out session. The band played their Carn(IV)al EP in its entirety starting of course with its opening track “The Outback Curse” and for me, that was the weakest song on their set. Like I said in the EP’s review, I like the opening didgeridoo sound effect but it goes on for too long and it takes too long for the band really get things going. For me, I hope they’ll be eventually moving away from this track except for using a variation of the didgeridoo opening that they could use as a band entrance, appearing on stage one by one as the didgeridoo howls through the venue (and ideally while the stage is engulfed in darkness and smoke).

Fortunately, the songs that appeared later on in the gig (like “Dogma” for instance), were better paced and showed to me some of the band’s current strengths. And those strengths for me are in the band’s combination of doom, death and thrash metal that they intertwine throughout their songs and while the whole thing can still be knot together more tightly, I believe this could be good direction for A Sweet Suffering to move towards.

In terms of stage presentation, the guys of A Sweet Suffering definitely had fun on stage and danced to their self-played beats although I did wish there was some more interaction between the band members. During their try-out everybody within the band kind of stayed inside their own individual bubbles. Fortunately, the band also took the effort of decorating the stage a bit, they put on a nicely sized banner at the back with their name on it and their logo was put on the speakers on both sides of the stage. Let’s hope soon enough they’ll be able to get enough budget to make flags with their logo on it to put on stage, that would give the stage an even better look.

And finally, I’d like to talk about the live sound mixing and despite the venue not being quite made for live music performances, I did feel that the overall sound mixing was pretty balanced. The bass was sharp (always a plus for me), the riffs and vocals sounded crisp and the drums felt beefy. So yeah, given the fact that the Carn(IV)al EP had such poor mixing (which wasn’t the band’s fault, they were victims of someone stealing the audio recordings, leaving them with nothing but salvaging whatever they could and put it together).

In the end, the band was grateful for everyone who came over to see them (which were about 30 to 40 people, which was pretty good given the small warehouse they were performing in). Everyone was pleased and as for me, I was also thankful to be there.

A Sweet Suffering still has many rough edges, but fundamentally I’ve got good vibes about this band and their potential. Now I’m going to patiently wait for some new (and this time properly produced) material from this fledging act or another live show (they’ll be playing this November 11 at the Kids Rhythm and Blues Café in Antwerp with another death/thrash metal act called Poseydon so that looks interesting).