By Jase Walker
Euroblast is probably one of the best known European progressive music festivals, based in the lovely German city of Cologne and one that Über Rock has had its sights on for a while but not had the ability to attend… until now. Yes, with my imminent move across the Channel to the continent, this is one weekend which is definitely going to be top of my hitlist to make up for all the equally killer ÜK fests I’m going to miss out this coming summer…
So finally, they’ve dropped the first set of bands for the 17th iteration – and what a set of heavy hitters they are!
With Einar Solberg pulling double duty fronting Leprous as well as his own solo material (Leprous as Saturday headliner, Einar as Sunday headliner), that’ll be as good of a chance to get stuck into his incredible vocal performances as you could probably get!
Alongside these are some notable acts for me:
- German post-metal outfit, The Ocean, of whom I’ve made no secret of being a massive fan, and will probably clock in seeing them live about seven times in 2023 alone.
- Australian synth-metallers and Eurovision representatives Voyager, and with a new album on the way very soon this will no doubt be an interesting and exceptionally stylish set!
- American post-rock outfit, This Will Destroy You, who I unfortunately missed at Arctangent in 2022 so I suppose I better make up for that!
- Dutch doomy/shoegazey/weird atmospheric stuff act, GGGOLDDD, also in attendance following their extensive touring schedule with MONO.
- German frantic mathy prog metal trio, The Hirsch Effekt, who absolutely blew my head off at Arctangent 2022!
- British metalcore act Heart Of A Coward, who dropped an absolutely insanely face melting single recently, signalling their intent to cause mayhem at Euroblast this year!
- French avant-garde metal group Hypno5e, who have put out one of my favourite albums of 2023 so far, Sheol, which serves to show that Gojira isn’t the only incredible French act that can pull off massive epics!
- And finally, Tiberius. These Scots are finally getting some big recognition for their lively performances and no doubt they’ll be causing chaos when they decide to jump into the audience to get up to mischief.
As for the rest: Disillusion, Allt, The Omnific, Lucrecia, Artificial Language, Feather Mountain, Primaterra, Monosphere and MANKIND. What a bomb of a first announcement, and all in all, an outstanding first set of bands announced for the 2023 return of Euroblast! See you in the pit!
- Euroblast takes place at Essigfabrik in Cologne over the weekend of 29 September – 1 October 2023.