Thick layers of dust were covering the small bag containing my earplugs. The joy of having to clean that, before putting in my pocket was the first of a long row of small celebrations that would mark this Fridaynight 1 October. Marko picked me up around 19:00 as we wanted to go early to the first all standing gig in Musicon since March last year. The relief was great and easy to spot on the faces of all attending. To most people walking around, this is what life is about have a drink and a laugh in a venue inbetween good live shows. So the atmosphere was good on forehand and the turnout was pretty decent as well. In spite oof some competition elsewhere that was to be expected. Melting Ees just released their album My Final Resting Place, which received good critics all around. Supporting and closing they invited Rages of Sin, who last year released with Divergence one of the best extreme metal albums ever to come out of The Hague and unable to promote it so far. Last minute openers substitute thrashers PPTA from Purmerend. So everyone was ready for a party in Musicon.
PPTA opened the party, but there seemed to be some issues with the soundsystem. So when they were supposed to play their last song, they still had not started. With corona curfews still in place this would impact the evening. When they finally got started it sounded all pretty fine again. I saw them before at Musicon and HPC and their theme is wrestling. So you get songs with titles like Piledriver and Ringside seats. Their best song to me remains Sumo Wrestler, where they simultaneously move from left to right leg as if we watch four sumo wrestlers preparing for fight. A nice warm up for some of the best extreme metal The Hague has on offer nowadays.
Melting Eyes followed even if it was their release party. In the end a good choice as they had the best sound of the evening. Their Death Metal is old school according to the omnipresent T-shirts, but their sound also has a fair share of doom. They more go for the ultra heavy than the ultra fast. I am no expert in Death Metal per se, but always find that death metal is made for live shows. While the CD sounds good already when you get the full blast from a stage coming over you, the impact just increases tenfold. So we enjoyed some 45 minutes with songs about death. I am pretty sure we will see them more often in the region as this release party showed them to be a force to reckon with for the coming years.
Rages of Sin were the band closing the evening. Unfortunately the sound issues from the start of the evening reappeared. When they started their gig all the audience heard were bass and drums. Not noticing it themselves at first they were signalled to stop and had a restart. I believe time started pressuring now as the problem got only half sorted. Guitars and vocals would remain low in the mix. This is a pity as their highly recommended album Divergence showed that Rages of Sin have no limits. Going from Djent to Slam Death and Progmetal anyone openminded and not afraid of grunts will find much to like here. As said before a poor sound ruined the experience a bit, but as I saw them several times with a better sound impressing me, I am sure a revenge will follow soon. In the end I still increased my garderobe with their fashionable pink shirt. Next week to be spotted on a beach in Portugal matching my yellowish green shorts under the motto only real men wear pink.
So overall the evening was a big success, thanks to Melting Eyes putting this together. Best of all was the sensation of freedom walking around in Musicon again. Only sad to find out Waku Waku was closed for an aftergig bite.
