By Jase Walker
It’s almost time for the spooky weekend but that’s not a particular concern for me right now because I’m about to go get my face blown off by some electronic music stuffed metal in the form of The Browning. For another time this year, I’m finally trying a new venue out which is Nobel in Leiden! I’ve been meaning to visit this for a while since my last trip for Cellar Darling was waylaid due to illness. If there’s one thing that’ll be sick tonight though, it’ll be The Browning supported by Within Destruction and Abbie Falls.
I’ve found the venue and had a bit of a wander around, it’s not massive but it’s still in line with my opinion that the Netherlands is spoiled with bloody lovely gig venues. Walking on to the tune of a DnB cover of ‘Kingslayer’, this is rudely interrupted by a ripping riff to signal their start.
I am wondering where the bass is right now, though: I can hear everything fine just with the exception of almost any low end which is a bit odd. I mean there’s no actual live bass player anyway but rather three guitarists so I guess they just didn’t press play on the bass track.
That being said, I can’t fault how much energy they’re throwing into their live set though which is translating quite well into how the crowd is responding to them. Abbie Falls clearly love doing what they do; they’re still acting like it’s their show despite the opening slot. Talk between songs is kept to a fairly quick few words here and there, the rest of it is straight riffy business. This culminates in a huge wall of death going at it towards the end of their set.
A real great audience reaction to Abbie Falls that I was hoping to see and was fully delivered on. The drummer crowd surfing during their last part of their set was fucking cool as hell too. Still a bit miffed that the sound hampered the show a bit from my point of view but I don’t think anyone going mental down the front really cared so that’s what matters eh?
Next up is my favourite troop of Slovenian weeaboos, starting with something that weirdly sounds like KoRn’s ‘Blind’ but then it’s maybe just the drumming for it. Anyway, it’s time to get things going and compared to Abbie Falls I can definitely feel the bass much more now, lovely stuff. I don’t think I know another band that samples Dragon Ball Z with ‘Kame hame ha!’ in a song either.
This band is so ridiculous in the best way, cast away the shame of being a bit cringe and embrace the silly, this is Within Destruction! Were I a betting man I’d be putting money down on them angling to get used in an anime opening or ending and I wouldn’t be shocked if they do manage to pull it off eventually. I mean songs like ‘Animetal’ are just fully baiting out the weeaboos in this room, it’s a bit meme-y at times but you gotta love it.
They get some flack sometimes for losing their original deathcore edge but every time I see them live, especially tonight, reminds me that I don’t think this has ever been the case. You want music that has a sense of humour as well as disgusting vocals and breakdowns? Yeah Within Destruction are absolutely it.
Also, Skyrim music as between song filler? Incredible. Of course it wouldn’t be a Within Destruction set without ‘No Way Out’, this is going to easily get one of the fiercest pits of the evening. Their singer fully commits to a backwards jump onto crowd surfing, let’s up in the air and everything, rock and fucking roll!
After popping out for a breather, I’ve come back into the hall to find a kid on stage dancing around and directing the crowd to Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’, this whole evening’s been a bit odd to say the least. The dance party continues for a while until we’re forced to listen to ‘Crazy Frog’… lovely.
The change in gears to pounding techno signalling the start of the set with ‘Wake Up’, a cataclysmic start and the pit most definitely wakes up and gets stuck into the frenzy! It’s barely been two songs in and I’ve just seen someone getting carried out that looked fully clean knocked out, hope they’re okay, Christ.
The Browning’s fusion of super heavy metalcore with trance and rave is fantastic to experience live, and little wonder it goes down well with a Dutch crowd considering their music history. This sort of style is a bit different to other rave metal pioneers such as Northlane or Electric Callboy; while they focus a bit more of a fused style, The Browning leans more towards building the rave elements around the big riffs and slamming drums. It ends up in something that sounds like what you would describe as hardstyle metal or something to that effect.
I’ve got one eye on the out almost constantly, this is a properly aggressive sea of people slamming into each other, no space for crowd surfers here, you commit to the pit or get out. Another fella surges past me, seemingly like he’s caught an unfortunate hit to the face, good god tonight is really claiming injuries.
The light show The Browning brings with them is fully built for a rave show too, plenty of strong neon beams and strobes going off constantly. Some brave souls did try to get on with crowd surfing and came quite close to getting crushed in the middle of the pit in the process but the band takes it with good sport and helps fish them out onto the stage before they quickly jump back into the chaos.
They make a brief mention over how the music of the Netherlands is what inspired them into existence which admittedly isn’t super surprising but still pretty awesome to hear them say it. I get the impression by this point that we’re progressing to the end of the set as it’s time for their cover of Eiffel 65’s Eurodance hit, ‘Blue (Da Bee Dee)’, and the moshpit is now a dance floor.
In the end, this is all another great show from The Browning and seeing them gather pace is fantastic after it’s taken quite a fair bit of time for them to get over to Europe properly in the first place.The ever growing part of metal that seeks to fuse it with trance, techno, rave and EDM is bloody great and The Browning show off just how good they do it every time.
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