Review written by Stijn “Metal Shredder” Daneels with assistance from Marjolein “Mrs. Metal Shredder” Deduytschaever.

Pictures in this article are stills from our Facebook live videos from the event. On Friday July 8th we went to the B52 Music Club in Eernegem at the invitation of WUK (When Union Kills). Since the beginning of this year we’ve been in close contact with this young band and we’ve offered them plenty of constructive feedback throughout the three gigs we had seen of them thus far. Since the B52 isn’t that far from where we live and since we had a free Friday night we went to this small music club to see WUK once more as well as the debut live show of Wasteland, another band from West-Flanders.

While the American instrumental metal band Pound had to cancel their gig at the B52 the up-and-coming progressive metal band Wasteland was more than ready to take on the small but cozy B52 stage. Although this was Wasteland’s first official live show they had already managed to create a cult following which was especially noticeable given how many people were present wearing Wasteland shirts.

While Wasteland describe themselves as progressive metal I did immediately notice their style had a certain doom metal feel to them thanks to the eerie lyrics and the shrieking vocals from frontman Bart. In the beginning of the show, however, I did find them to be a bit slow and repetitive and the band also needed some time to feel themselves comfortable on stage. But, as the gig progressed, their songs became more varied and unpredictable, especially the three songs they currently have on Spotify right now (specifically “Wasteland,” “Boss Battle” and “Condemned”) showed Wasteland’s strengths at the moment. Those strenghts are melodic riffs, galloping basslines, naturally extreme vocals, nice guitar solos and sudden but well-timed tempo changes. I also recall a particular song (probably a currently unreleased one since I didn’t find it anywhere) wherein singer Bart went for a couple of lines in a high-pitched, operatic voice which I found to be quite effective.

It took a few songs for me to get fully invested into Wasteland but in the end, I did find my first encounter with this fledging band to be quite enjoyable. Their sound has melodic, progressive elements but I do find them to be a bit heavier and more extreme than they describe themselves to be. Personally, I’d describe themselves as progressive doom metal. I think their style still has plenty of room for expansion and experimentation so I’m curious to see and hear what direction they’ll be going to in the future.

While WUK’s style sounded chaotic at first, there was method in their madness, they basically combined thrash, death and hardcore punk into a well-balanced cocktail but one of their more unique elements were their dual vocalists. There was frontman Seba who utilized more grunting & growling while guitarist Nelis more frequently sang clean. Sometimes they sang in duet while other times they switched vocal duties back and forth. Nelis’s guitar riffs also provided a nice counterpart to his guitar colleague Jens, who provided guitar solos and so added a melodic touch to WUK’s sound. One thing I think could still improve WUK’s overall performances would be them cutting out or shortening the interlude samples, for me, they weaken their pacing a bit. WUK is a band that I feel needs to maintain a fast momentum during their performances expect if they cool things down with some excellent guitar solo work, something I think they’re more than capable of.

In addition, WUK is a band that needs to move around the stage and the relatively small B52 stage didn’t suit WUK very well. As always, the band had put on the stage their lit-up boxes with their logo on them in order to frequently stand and play on them but the venue’s low ceiling prevented them to fully utilize those boxes (otherwise they might have bumped their heads more often than not). WUK did, however, entered the crowd multiple times and said crowd was engaged and energetic enough to start off a few mosh pits! Was this the best WUK gig I saw thus far? No, but it certainly wasn’t a bad gig by any means. The small stage wasn’t very suitable for an energetic band like WUK but they did make the most of it.