Eternal Breath 25th anniversary show
-- Eternal Breath 25th anniversary show --
06/11/2022
Stijn Daneels
[INTRODUCTION]
Review written by Stijn “Metal Shredder”
Daneels with assistance from Marjolein “Mrs. Metal Shredder” Deduytschaever.
Pictures by Stijn “Metal Shredder” Daneels.
Eternal Breath is a band that we’ve been
following for many years now and we also are frequent visitors to the Blast
From The Past festival organized by Eternal Breath’s drummer Kenny Geerts. To
celebrate Eternal Breath’s 25th anniversary he and his bandmates
organized a celebration event and they invited 4 other great Belgian metal acts
to play along with them. All right, technically it was their 26th
anniversary since they were founded in 1996 and this event was originally
scheduled for 2021 but we all know what happened these past 2 years. In any
case, we were all ready to party!
[WUK?!]
The last time I had seen WUK (short for
When Union Kills) was at last May’s Gullegem Metal Fest (shortened to GMF from
now on) and that was an impressive performance, especially after my first live
introduction to this young band was their lackluster participation at last
January’s Metalworks Battle. Now I was of course curious to see if they could
bring an equal or even better show at Eternal Breath’s birthday party.
And I must say, WUK delivered once more! If
you read my review of their gig at GMF (check it here: https://www.belgianmetalshredder.be/festival_article/91)
then I can basically reiterate pretty much everything I said in that earlier
review. WUK’s style was a combo of thrash, death and hardcore punk that’s
overall well-balanced and paced but what made them stand out for me is that
there were two vocalists. There was guitarist/vocalist Nelis who mostly sang in
a clean, shouting voice (reminiscent of classic punk) while his vocal colleague
Seba went for more grunting & growling (providing the more extreme metal
influences). Some of the lyrics were sung in duet while others were split
between the two singers. This duality was also present in the guitar riffs,
with the aforementioned Nelis providing the fast and aggressive riffing while
the solos of his fellow guitarist Jens gave the material a solid melodic side.
The band also showed some genuine enthusiasm on stage and they frequently
jumped onto their WUK boxes in front of the stage to sing and jam.
Pretty much all my feedback from their earlier
GMF performance still applies here, I would cut out or shorten the interlude
samples and maybe the band can even further expand on the vocal and guitar riff
parts to make the singers and guitarists stand out even more from one another.
Other than that, there’s little I would change to WUK’s style or presentation.
Although their gig at Eternal Breath’s
anniversary event wasn’t that big an improvement compared to their GMF show I
saw a month earlier, they did once again provide me and the rest of the crowd
with an entertaining show full of youthful energy and aggression. If you like
such acts as Hatebreed then this is one nice band to check out.
[THORIUM]
Thorium is a band that I’ve been following
ever since the band’s very foundation back in 2018. I remember most of its
members from their time with the Belgian metal pioneers Ostrogoth and I saw one
of Thorium’s earliest gigs at the inaugural edition of Pluto Fest in 2018. Since
then, Thorium impressed me both with their eponymous debut album and with its
successor “Empires In The Sun” (read my review: https://www.belgianmetalshredder.be/reviews/277)
and this was my first Thorium show post-pandemic so I was looking forward to
seeing the band live on stage again after all this time.
If you like Ostrogoth then you’ll be
immediately at home with Thorium. It’s old-school heavy metal with power metal
influences although I feel that Thorium puts more emphasis on the power metal
side of things. Especially with David’s high-pitched vocals and the fast
pounding drums from Louis combined with the very audible and galloping
basslines from Stripe and the high-octane guitar solos from Dario & Tom. Since
Thorium didn’t had many opportunities to play songs from their 2021 “Empires In
The Sun” album before this gig it was obvious the band played several great
songs from that album including some of my personal favorites such as
“Exquisite” and “Where Do We Go.”
Unfortunately, the band also played a cover
of Savatage’s iconic “Hall Of The Mountain King.” Now don’t get me wrong, I
love that song and Thorium performed it beautifully, but I don’t like seeing
original bands playing covers, especially when they’ve got enough great
material of their own to fill at least a 1-hour gig. If it were up to me, I would’ve
replaced the Savatage cover with a shortened version of “1302 – The Golden
Shadow,” the epic finale from the “Empires In The Sun” album.
Nevertheless, Thorium played an excellent,
colorful show that made the crowd headbang like crazy. If you enjoy old-school
heavy & power metal then Thorium is a band that begs to be supported.
[WILDHEART]
A band that I’ve been following for more
than half a decade now, WildHeart is an act you may have already heard of,
especially if you once visited the glam & sleaze rock event WildFest in
which they perform every year (the festival takes place in their hometown of Geraardsbergen,
after all). As for me, I’ve seen WildHeart perform on a pretty much yearly
basis since 2015 and I knew that they would be putting on an excellent show.
And I wasn’t mistaken! WildHeart’s style
can best be described as influenced by classic hair and glam rock acts like
Whitesnake, Mötley Crüe and Aerosmith (hell, vocalist Farty even put scarves on
his mic stand, a nice nod to Aerosmith). The two things that made me fell in
love with WildHeart pretty much from day one were the catchy lead vocals from
Farty and the magnificent dual guitar chemistry between Juice and Foxx. The
band also frequently performed the vocals together, which further added to the
overall impact of the singing. Other than that, it’s straightforward hard,
sleaze and glam rock but with a ton of melody and technical finesse to not make
it gimmicky.
One big improvement in WildHeart’s
performance at this particular gig compared to the ones I had seen in the past was
their omission of their cover of Whitesnake’s “Still Of The Night.” This time,
WildHeart solely played material from their eponymous debut album and its 2019
successor “No Love.” For me, that was a sign that the band had built up enough
confidence to fully rely on their own material to entertain the crowds and
given the fact how enthusiastically they were received there in Harelbeke, it
was a good call.
For me, WildHeart’s show was one of the
absolute highlights of Eternal Breath’s anniversary event. They truly managed
to get the crowd invested in them despite playing for a more metal-oriented
crowd. They certainly don’t need a hometown advantage to bring about a show
full of charisma, energy and technique.
[SCAVENGER]
I remember Scavenger from a free metal festival
in Spring 2019 called Rock Kappaert. Although I enjoyed the show it was also
plagued by sound issues. Since then, the band has released a 2-song single
called “Backslider” and I was curious to see them live once more.
Scavenger is of course one of Belgium’s
oldest heavy metal bands and is another classic Belgian act that has been
revived in the past few years. Their style is old-school heavy metal with a big
emphasis on speed with impactful drums, melodic guitars, commanding vocals and
frequent peaceful interludes.
That being said, however, their show at
Eternal Breath’s anniversary gig didn’t glue that much with me. Don’t get me
wrong, the band performed very well on stage and the young new Scavengers all
did their best to bring the classic songs to live (those from the band’s
current only full-length, the iconic 1985 album “Battlefields”) but sometimes I
felt that the band, and frontwoman Tine in particular, were trying too hard to
sell themselves as international rockstars (for instance, Tine addressed the
crowd in English while she and pretty much everyone else in the crowd were
Dutch native speakers). Now, Scavenger did succeed in getting most of the audience
going, but again, for me it was a bit too forced, especially when compared to
how easily WildHeart managed to make the audience eat from their hands during
their respective gig.
Does that mean I’m dismissing Scavenger? Of
course not! Despite the disconnection I felt between me and the band when they were
performing on stage I do dig their material a lot, it’s loaded with genuine
metal energy and finesse and I’m quite an old-school metalhead myself despite
my relatively young age. In fact, I enjoy Scavenger’s classic material so much
that, right after their show, I bought the recently released ultimate edition
of the aforementioned “Battlefields” album and now I hope they’ll be bringing
out some more new stuff soon, an EP, a full-length or merely a couple of new
singles, I don’t care, just bring it!
[ETERNAL BREATH]
After 4 excellent support acts it was
finally time for Eternal Breath to wrap up their own anniversary show. I
remember my first Eternal Breath gig from way back in late 2015 and since I’ve
remained in close contact with the band and I go to their beloved Blast From
The Past festival every time I’m able to.
Since this was Eternal Breath’s own
anniversary event the band knew they would have to bring out their A-game and
for all intents and purposes, they delivered! Eternal Breath’s style is power
metal (especially in the vocal department) but with a thrashy harshness layered
on top of it. The band played material from their two full-lengths “The Joker” and
“World Of Chaos” and their singer Andy sung the duet song “Rich And Poor” with
Scavenger’s vocalist Tine. Speaking of Andy, despite being the oldest and only
remaining original member of Eternal Breath, he did have an impressive stage
presence with his tall, well-toned body and flowing grey hair.
The other, younger guys (including the newly
recruited guitarist Jen) also showed plenty of showmanship during the gig and
to top it all off, the stage was engulfed in flames for Eternal Breath’s final
two songs (one of them appropriately named “Fire”). A beautiful metaphor that
shows that the fire still burns within everyone in the Eternal Breath camp and
I hope they’ll make more use of fire effects during their future shows (but of course,
keep it safe). Finally, the band also played some new songs, including the tune
“God Has Called Your Name” which was a significantly slower and darker song
compared to Eternal Breath’s usual material. Overall, a rather short (for my tastes)
but excellent anniversary show and, as expected, a highlight performance of the
night.
Seeing such an excellent Eternal Breath
show did make me a bit sad, sad that this band has only got their momentum
really going in the past six years (ever since the release of their debut album
“The Joker” in 2016) and I believe that, in another universe, they would’ve
grown to become one of Belgium’s biggest power metal acts of their generation
and probably would’ve released 2 or 3 times the number of albums they’ve
released thus far. Still, their show at their anniversary party showed that
Eternal Breath had no intention of slowing down and with a gig at Alcatraz
later this year (among others) Eternal Breath still has a lot going for them.
We’re looking forward to another 25 years (and hopefully more fruitful ones) of
Eternal Breath!
[CONCLUSION]
{Not only was Eternal Breath’s 25th anniversary gig a great success, I also saw it as a celebration of Belgian metal in general. All five bands (including Eternal Breath themselves) had a unique feel to them and they all, each in their own way, managed to get the audience pumped. If you like Belgian metal in general then I warmly recommend you to check out all 5 of these bands. And now let’s look forward to Eternal Breath’s 30th anniversary event with even more bands and even more fire.}