By Jase Walker
So, for clarity for those who don’t know, tonight is “King’s Night” in Dutchyland and this spells the first part of a day of country-wide mania where everyone wears orange, gets hammered and possibly falls into a canal. I’m not doing any of that shit tonight though as I’m wearing black and going to see four bands with equally unreadable logos, so you just know it’s going to be a heavy one.
Aborted leads the show for an ensemble stomp around Europe causing outbreaks of sore necks across the continent. Supporting this package are Crypta, The Zenith Passage, and Organectomy. Expect various moments of fast riffs, various bits of screaming, gutturals from the void beyond, and most importantly, blast beats. If I don’t go back home with a head that’s vibrating by the time I hit the pillow and tinnitus for my tinnitus then I’d be quite surprised.
Organectomy kick things off with zero subtlety, ungabunga riff time and gutturals, but also not forgetting smashing that bass drum like their lives depend on it! There’s more “Breee”s already than your average birth name chart for last five years of the Ünited States. This sort of stuff is the distillation of the likes of Fit For An Autopsy and Distant down to keeping things “simple” by going for absurdly heavy grooves and a constant level of aggression.
They’re first up but the rooms looking pretty busy already and there’s few people who aren’t throwing their heads around recklessly.
Nothing quite ties stuff like this together like a singer who keeps belting out gutturals that sound like a bathtub draining though, in-between all of the rapid fire parts and fast grooving, the bit where they really lean into the disgustingly heavy slow parts is real payoff territory.
This New Zealand outfit definitely set the show off on the right track, absolutely fucking disgusting in the best way.
In a more subtle manner, the room darkens as The Zenith Passage takes the stage and rapid blast beats and riffs batter my ears along with super-fast vocals that remind me a lot of Archspire. Heavy, rapid, techy, all the stuff I like in one package. These also practice a lot of technical guitar riffing with the bass matching them note for note in the same way the likes of Obscura and First Fragment operate, there’s something about an excellent bass player in this sort of technical death metal niche that I really can’t get enough of.
There’s a brief break of more subtle playing and dreamy soundscapes that are reminiscent of Ne Obliviscaris and it suddenly clicked, I am fully knocked over by these! All I can think amongst the cacophony of noise is that I need to listen to a lot more of these.
The centre of the crowd is a constant ebb and flow of people going nuts and smashing into each other in the pit, causing a few errant pints to go flying around; well,it’s King’s Night after all – although not as most people know it.
Crypta are up next, bringing a Brazilian flavour of heavy shit, smashing out riffs that would make Sepultura and Gojira turn. At times these come off leaning a little bit on the side of thrash but never taking the foot off the accelerator for a second; Kreator, Strapping Young Lad, eat your heart out. Speaking of which, their singer’s singing style reminds me a ton of Devin Townsend, that constant dual tone scream that roars on both low and high together.
The pit is in full engagement as people bounce off each other, pushing around and frequently falling out of the pit at some speed. Haarlem tonight respects one thing, and one thing only, does it go hard? And yes it absolutely does.
I probably can’t get too far without mentioning some audible elements of influence from Sepultura I guess either, you don’t become a household name in Brazilian metal for nothing. Crypta are fully delivering the goods on this set though, outstandingly brutal and energetic, great to watch on stage as they consistently move around a ton and best of all is seeing the outrageous crowd reaction to them!
As we move to the end of their set, there appears to be a group of local Brazilians that loudly chant Crypta’s name in the form of a “oh le oh le oh le” football chant, I shouldn’t be surprised!
Seriously though, Crypta have absolutely fucking destroyed it, absolutely incredible set!
Aborted‘s playlist prior to their show has some terrible bangers in it such as ‘Rock n Roll McDonald’s’ or ‘Guns Don’t Kill People’ from John Lajoie… anyway it’s time for riffs.
The moment they kick off, several beers fly through the air and people are immediately going at each other full force. People surge past me, eager to get stuck into the pit and feeding its size as it grows ever fiercer – and we’ve not even properly started.
Aborted’s stage setup with two frozen skeletons in cases either side with their massive banner as the backdrop, this isn’t any small show, this is well over 1000 people wanting chaos and havoc! “Are ya ready for some fast shit?” the singer bellows and clearly people are as two people’s pints get launched over me the moment the riff hits with a massive surge of people losing their minds.
The floor is fully decorated with the remains of many unfortunate beers that did not survive the clashes of many sweaty bodies, the centre of the pit looking a bit slippy by this point. I’ve spotted one of the venue security off to one side with an expression that’s a mix of worry and confused wonder at the state of the crowd. Their singer decides to get the crowd to do jumping jacks, or “sports” in general with a large camera on stage to capture it. And, well, they certainly did it; I like to think I can say I’ve seen a lot of stuff happen at shows but jumping jacks is certainly a new one for me and I’ve seen a lot. It’s genuinely quite hard to overstate just how fierce this crowd is: it’s a near constant stream of people running around in circles, grabbing their mates and flinging them into unsuspecting people on the periphery of the pit, beers are flying every other minute, it’s pure chaos!
Using ADHD as an excuse to get a second (well, first) wall of death of the evening is definitely one way to do it. Although that being said the crowd clearly doesn’t really care about that because it’s another excuse to go apeshit so off they go in a writhing sea of arms and faces in stop-motion animation due to the strobes. Also, did they just finish their set with Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’? Yes they fucking did!
Aborted: fierce from the moment they start all the way to the end, fast, riffy, groovy… but above all, absolute fucking filth. Technical death metal is alive and well and with pioneers such as Aborted at the helm, it’s never been safer.
An evening that has been a visceral assault of brutal metal from start to finish. People may be enjoying King’s Night in a more traditional sense but I enjoyed it headbanging so hard that I’ll feel it next week. Incredible show.
- PHOTO CREDIT: Aborted photo © Tamara LLenas/Courtesy of Aborted.
