Nefarious & Defazer - Musicon The Hague, 6 September 2026

Nefarious playing Musicon, meant metal royalty was coming to town. This because of the 18 Nefariouses on metal archives we got the one from the USA playing thrash/heavy metal. So introducing the band on drums we have Will Caroll (Death Angel), On bass Tom Gears who played with Blind Illusion. The guitar double means Rick Hunolt (Exodus throughout teh 80's) and Doug Piercy (Heathen among many others). What made the package complete is Sean Rivera on vocals, who adds the heavy metal touch and just released with Coffin Hunters one fine album in Cosmic Dawn. So Sunday afternoon meant Musicon and again it was a pity that the youth of today does not appreciate proper metal.

So it was 15:30 when Defazer hit the stage for an audience mostly off my generation. Defazer are The Hague's leading thrash metal band. I had not seen them for a while and again loved their energetic set, which did include some songs not released yet. It seems a new album is in the writing stages and what we heard so far did sound very promising. A good warm-up for Nefarious they were and yes originally Grindpad were supposed to open the evening, but circumstances forced them to cancel.

After a fairly long break, which was no problem with many usual suspects in this afternoon Nefarious hit the stage. It did not take long for me to realize we would be in for a treat. This is one fine band and their songs were easy on the ears at first hearing for me. Sean Rivera's voice makes them stand out from others, and their full debut album was played (whose new version I picked up with Sean's vocals). Given the band members we also got some covers and Goblin's Blade (Heathen) and Metal Command  from Bonded by Blood seemed good choices. Everyone I spoke with after the show agreed that we got one fine afternoon of prime metal delivered to us. To see a band of this level play Musicon always makeds me smile. Cheers to anyone putting this afternoon together for us.

Exist - Iconic - Karcius - Lex Legion

Some more CD tips from the last months.

Exist - Beyond Purpose

One of the albums I picked up at Progstorm is this EP by Exist, which was released the week before only. I discovered this progressive death metal band in 2017 when they released So True, So Bound. I loved next album Egoiista and missed Hijacking the Zeitgeist due to postage issues (also picked up at Progstrom). I can safely say that since returning from Canada, thsi is the band I played most. Also as I had two new releases. Still trying to figure out why Exist are not huge. Max Phelps is known from his work with Cynic and Death to All. Alex Weber is now also in Revocation and together they play in Wait. Anyway anyone into progressive death metal where both grunts and clean vocals are great try out Exist. Three songs only this time, with in the middle an epic track of almost 8 minutes, like they do so often. And now I know that live they are sensational too.

Iconic - II

Frontiers records love to put together super groups and Iconic is number 872 in that row. As the title states this is their second album. The members are Nathan James (Inglorious) on vocals with further Michael Sweet, Joel Hoekstra, Marco Mendoza and Tommy Alridge completing the band. If you don't know these names you are not into melodic hard rock and can stop reading. I bought this album as it was released at the right time for becoming an often played summer album. Musically you can guess the direction by reading the band member names and Whitesnake can be name-dropped. Is this world shocking original? Of course not. But both performance and songs are so fine, that you gotta love the album. No tours expected I guess, but to be revisited when uplifting moods are required.

Karcius - Black Soul Sickness

Karcius are a long running band from Canada, but I only discovered them with their previous album Grey White Silver Yellow & Gold. I was drawn to the band when reading that their vocalist is Sylvain Auclair from Heaven's Cry fame. Karcius are a bit less metal than that band and play music in the range of heavy prog rock or progmetal light. In heaviness Enchant comes to mind. With this album being more moody also a band like Wolverine pops up. Always a brave move to open with the epic track, but Wallow sets the right mood over 13:28 minutes. Just like the previous one, a very fine album by this band. Maybe time to explore a back catalogue?

Lex Legion - Lex Legion

Anyone into plain old Heavy Metal already owns this album and has read about it. The band is the King Diamond line-up of Them with not King Diamond, but Pagan's Mind's Nils on vocals. All songs very close to four minutes, there is no time wasted in showing off. Mosty fast and the voice of Nils surprised me, as when I saw him with Pagan's Miond a few times I never was this impressed. In the eighties it was the voice of King Diamond that kept me away from Mercyful Fate and King Diamond. Later my mind became more open and I do have the Abigail and Them double. This is must have material for heavy metal fans and I believe that they are talking about touring too. Tees can use the nice logo, but should stay away from the album cover really.