Well, actually I was truly disappointed because of the fact that few bands that were announced to play that evening (I mean RAKOTH and DER GERWELT) were absent due to some unknown reasons. This is the second time a band from Obninsk fucks the whole thing up – TEMNOZOR’ was the first one, and here is RAKOTH who also decided to ignore this fest. Well, too bad for them, simply because it was great (hmm… maybe not ‘great’, but ‘decent’ for sure!)
However, the beginning wasn’t so nice due to the fact that MIDGARD were the ones to open that gig. And, honestly speaking, this band FUCKING SUCKS!!! It’s typical childish black metal band, whose makeup was made with the color pens, and whose music isn’t worth a shit. Yes, the sound (as well as the equipment) weren’t so good, but even if they were both top-notch it wouldn’t help MIDGARD by any means. This band needs to work hard to reach anything. As well as rehearse more frequently. Musically, they’re black metal with keyboards (although synths appeared as something really hard to recognize), incomprehensible and noisy lacking any professionalism. You know, your typical DARKTHRONE clone, trying to be ‘true’ but turning out as regular poser band – moreover, I doubt if anyone of them is more than 18 years old. This so-called “band” just made me laugh… especially when the singer said: “The next song is about Ancient Slavs”. Yeah, but then why won’t you guys rename your band to “Perun” or something like that? What’s most strange, the crowd greeted them in a rather pleasant way, however it may be explained more than easily: this “crowd” consisted mostly of kids under age.
Then we had CHARON. Instead of RAKOTH, I believe? Anyway, it was worthy substitute. Their style is also black metal (of course!), but thousand times more thoughtout and well played in comparison to MIDGARD. I wouldn’t say that this band brings anything special, more likely they’re good average band with some future ahead. All in all, I feel like I will listen to their demo (or CD???) with pleasure if it happens the way that I get it.
ROSSOMAHAAR were the third band to perform. This time they appeared as a fully fledged band consisting of five people: Lazar (STONEHENGE, NARGOTROND) on vocals and guitars, Baalseguothstarius (STONEHENGE) on bass, Alex Kantemirov (TALES OF DARKNORD, DER GERWELT) on guitars, Maiden on keyboards and Igor Dmitriev on drums (both from MENTAL HOME). Looks like ROSSOMAHAAR appears as the most skillful black metal band among others coming from Russia, at least it’s lineup features undoubtedly talented musicians, all of them coming from most famous and respected Russian black / death / doom metal bands.
Their set was simply fucking awesome. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Lazar managed to sing in a most hateful voice his throat ever spawned, Alex was really good at his instrument and the same goes for both, Maiden and Baalseguothstarius (who is definitely an outstanding bass player!). But Igor was the one whose performance simply amazed me… His drumming sounded truly magnificent, almost perfect! It’s really sad that “Imperium Tenebrarum” (an upcoming album from ROSSOMAHAAR) won’t feature him on drums… I only hope that he will still play live with this band… otherwise, they won’t gain anything by using drum-machine as they did before. That’s for sure.
ASHEN LIGHT replaced ROSSOMAHAAR and the crowd turned really mad! Seems like this act was this evening’s headliner, at least to me. Even Lazar and co. couldn’t contrive to gather such a numerous crowd… They didn’t show (play?) anything new or outstanding, nevertheless their set was quite excellent. ASHEN LIGHT’s pagan black metal with plenty of synths appealed to me very well. Their lyrics, seeming to be too hackneyed to me, is the only shortcoming in my eyes (ears), however let’s just forget about it and better wait for their “The Song Of Veles” tape (or CD) which should be unleashed in the nearest time to come.
ASHEN LIGHT left the stage and NIGHTHATRED was the band to play further. Well, in fact I’m not willing to say anything in regards to them – they just don’t deserve my time. One thing I can say is that these guys tried to kick my ass during CHARON’s set however it resulted in nothing but a quite peaceful talk. Funny…
In the end we had THUNDERSTORM, whose performance I partly missed, although I won’t say I regret about this. This is one more teen-blackmetal “band” (well, I don’t own any info regarding their age, but who cares if they sound exactly the way I told you), perhaps even worse than aforementioned MIDGARD. Their stuff appeared as something totally incomprehensible and noisy… some meaningless buzz. Trying to escape the approaching headache I just left the concert hall in order to have a couple of beers and forget about these non-entities.
In general, this gig was rather nice in spite of the fact that half of the bands were utterly worthless.