» Gothenburg Metal Festival 2007

Reviewed by Thomas
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Gothenburg Metal Festival 2007
City: Gothenburg, Sweden
Venue: Musikens Hus
Date: 29-30 April 2007

Bands (in running order):

Day 1:

Miosis
Zero Illusions
MarysCreek
Sabbtail
Fatal Smile
Bullet

Day 2:

Moonlight Agony
Faith
Generous Maria
Thunderbolt
Electric Earth
Steel Attack

At the exact same dates as last year, Gothenburg Metal Festival was back for its third annual festivity, and what might perhaps have been the last? After some bad luck with late cancellations, the line-up came to look as above after the last minute replacements had been confirmed. Crystal Eyes, Wolverine, Treasure Land and festival organiser Stefan Björnhög's own band Destiny were all forced to cancel their appearances, but fortunately replacements could be find. To have such event as this with a low ticket price is something that is really great if you ask me, as it is a chance to discover a bunch of (hopefully) good Swedish bands (and one Norwegian this year), and bands that are not always that established among the big masses. All bands share the same stage and they have roughly thirty to forty minutes to deliver their goods before it is time to rig the stage for the next band that starts after a short break. And once again, just like last year, I raise my hat and must give a huge amount of credit to Stefan Björnshög who organised this event, it is great with people that get involved and dare taking initiative and I really hope that all went well so we can see a return of Gothenburg Metal Festival yet again in 2008.

Day One:

Miosis

Miosis made a huge impression on me as starters, and I can surely see some great potential in this progressive band. Among the influences and resemblances, I spotted bands like Tool, Radiohead and DeadSoul Tribe although it was the Tool-ish vibes they rested heavily on. The music itself is a bit introvert at times and visually this band is not among any joy-spreaders but they let the music speak for itself and you were almost put in a state of trance by their suggestive rhythms. What they do need to do is to get the singer in front of the stage instead of hiding behind the keyboard (or computer or whatever the hell it was) in order to make some more live-full stage appearances, and he could also use some more confidence in his voice, and all guys could use some more presence on stage, but musically speaking this was nothing but excellent. The songs were long compositions and they only had time to play four songs before their time was up. In addition, I believe it is the same four songs that are on their demo that they sold later and that I just had to get a copy of it for myself, so I could further explore this band, and so far, it only gets better for every time I listen to the demo. It was a bit unfair to the other bands to place these guys first, as it took some time to shake this off before you could melt the impressions from the following bands.

7 chalices of 10

(sorry, no setlist)

Zero Illusions

At the latest edition of Metaltown I favoured these guys instead of The Haunted, but this time I did not feel as positive about them. The vocalist had troubles, or at least it didn't sound too impressive with the high-pitch vocals and the entire performance felt rather anonymous. The music that oscillated from US power to straight heavy metal and some occasional progressive moves and always with good focus on the melodies came out ok, but it felt a bit struggling. I could spot some early Queensrÿche at some times but at the end of the day their music just went by too insignificant. It was heavy metal, that is for sure, but Zero Illusions did not make any everlasting impressions. It was nice and good to listen to but - nah, no more.

3 chalices of 10

(sorry, no setlist)

MarysCreek

These guys share the same problem as Zero Illusions, they had a major problem to make a lasting impression with me. Although, it got better as they carried on with their performance and it wasn't until the end it really loosened up. The heavy and party filled hard rock created by MarysCreek came out sometimes as melodic and sometimes as really heavy and with the intensity in the ending songs that they played, the band really showed that they are capable of good performing. It could have been a tighter performance and the vocals didn't have the power that I would have liked to their music, but they did ok anyway.

4 chalices of 10

(sorry, no setlist)

Sabbtail

Damn, what a massive groove this band produced. And without a shred of a doubt, this was unarguably the best vocal performance of the evening. I did not know what to expect from this band but what I got was a band that can get any person with just the slightest taste for music going wild. Not my kind of music really but this was simply impossible to resist, a most convincing performance from this band that in my ears brought out music in the vein of Deep Purple and Rainbow. I like it when bands are as heavy on the organ as these guys were. Full throttle on the keys and this was a tight performance and it was intense. This was surely an uplifting way to end the night for me.

7,5 chalices of 10

(sorry, no setlist)

Next band out was Fatal Smile, and by now I felt that the train had passed for the remaining bands this evening, since no band left could possibly top the performance from Sabbtail. After a couple of songs I found it wiser to head for the bed, as I had to get up for work the day after. And when the final band on the bill for the first day was Bullet, that earlier had failed to impress me on album as well as live, the decision to call it a night was easy for me.

Day Two:

Moonlight Agony

I praised the debut album from Moonlight Agony a couple of years ago, but when they recently delivered their second album they failed to impress me. And unfortunately they didn't make too good of an impression live with their new vocalist either. Ok for the fact that they where brought in late as a replacement act, but that doesn't hide the fact that they need a vocalist that can sing better. And furthermore a frontman that can match the charismatic music they actually can present. The progressive power metal worked best with their old songs, and strangely enough, so did also the vocals in those songs. Partly this was great when the keys and guitars harmonised in the progressive parts and with the wonderful melody-lines these guys can create, but at other times it was total nothingness.

4 chalices of 10

(sorry, no setlist)

Faith

The band Faith has over twenty years on their neck, and the base on which they rest their music is heavy and gloomy doom metal. However, Faith break the boundaries with two elements live that make this band stand out and that is the addition of violin and keyed fiddle. The long songs are spiced with melancholia and bring out some folk-inspired melodies thanks to the traditional elements. Moreover, even if this was dark and heavy, they kept a momentum in their music and when the violin played the lead it became mostly enjoyable. Faith brought a special guest with them in the final song, vocalist Zenny Gram (ex-Destiny, ex-Treasure Land), who raised the bar even further and ended their set in a very good manner.

5,5 chalices of 10

(sorry, no setlist)

Generous Maria

I came to think of Warrior Soul and somewhat by Led Zeppelin when listening to Generous Maria, the latter perhaps mostly by how the vocalist moved around. This was heavy hard rock with the riffs in the right place and catchy grooves that shook the foundations. However, the energy on stage never caught on to me. Even if the band did really well with the performance and there was a lot of energy on stage, it never really took off and the music did not move me at all. Perhaps in a different location, and with more people in the mood for partying and when the beer is flowing this could be good but there and then, this was more than a yawn for me.

3 chalices of 10

(sorry, no setlist)

Thunderbolt

This was the first band that I truly enjoyed this evening, it surely was a fresh bolt of lightning provided by these Norwegian metalheads. This was real heavy goddamn metal and a band that tried their best to raise some hell, but the vocalist efforts to get the crowd going was more or less in vain. Nevertheless, this was good in all aspects; good performance, nice songs, powerful and really great vocals and a energetic performance from a band that seemed to love being on stage. I got vibes of Saxon, Iron Maiden and traditional heavy metal from Thunderbolt and I liked everything that I heard coming from the instruments as long as they played. The bass-player busted a string in time for the last song, but luckily enough there was a bass to be borrowed as there where quite a few other bands around and the set could be brought to its end without further incidents. And with the forty-five minutes they played, it was the longest set on the festival that I saw, and they could easily have kept going for another forty-five minutes as far as I am concerned.

6,5 chalices of 10

(sorry, no setlist)

Electric Earth

How should you describe Electric Earth? Groovy, stoner, blues, grunge, heavy rock, or a bit of it all? Their name seems to be rather fitting and somehow it felt natural and somewhat back to basics with the performance from these guys. Currently I am trying to review their up-coming album and I can say that the songs from the new album were those that worked best with me, even if I couldn't find any parts of their performance that stood out above the rest. The band was performing tight and even if they didn't blow the roof off, I had a good time listening to them.

5 chalices of 10

(sorry, no setlist)

Steel Attack

As the evening went, so did the people in the audience, it was like the spirit in the hall had gone flat today as longer as the festival went on, and people went elsewhere. Well, it was their loss, since Steel Attack that ended this edition of Gothenburg Metal Festival did it with the honour. It was truly refreshing to hear Ronny Hemlin, a vocalist that can really sing out from the top of his lunges and make good use of his vocals and further a band loaded as hell to provide no less than one hundred percent for us in the crowd that remained. When Steel Attack entered the stage, it was an apparent raise of the quality level at all fronts, this is a band that knows how to deliver. The melodic metal suits my personal taste perfectly and the raw edge combined with the melodies made Steel Attack a perfect band to close the festival with. In addition, I must give the guys in the band an awesome huge amount of credit, these guys were the only band that I could see that was present during the entire festival watching all of the other bands, showing them their appreciation.

7 chalices of 10

(sorry, no setlist)

Some small last words

I just feel that I have to throw in a little disclaimer considering my rankings here. When you see this many bands in this short amount of time it is not always easy to hand out the grades. And when the time they had to perform was not longer than what it was, it doesn't exactly make it easier for me to give a fair judgement. And considering the fact that I had a splitting headache most of the second day may also have clouded my judgement. So please don't hold the grades against me too much, but the words I have written express my opinions and how I experienced what I saw, so by those I stand my ground.