By Jase Walker
Normally I’d have talked myself out of doing two nights on the bounce on a trip to Tilburg but in this case I could not forgive myself for missing either one of these shows and tonight is a massive serving of absolute filth. Dutch locals, Distant, strike out on a massive stomp around Europe alongside similarly disgusting Enterprise Earth as co-headliners and to tie off the lineup is The Last Ten Seconds Of Life and the good lads in Harbinger to open. Tonight is going to be a heavy one!
One thing that’s quite handy about shows in the Netherlands is that show and band times are always published in advance so this show skews a bit towards early start and early finish. Harbinger are armed with a 30 minute set to get themselves across to the early birds for this show so let’s get it!
Harbinger steps up to the plate and it’s time to get things started. Oh how I’ve missed these so much! I did get a bit of insider info that the song they’re opening with is the absolute latest thing they’ve written and what a nasty riff it leads with, this is what I know and love these guys for! This is how you do an opening slot though, you give it all the same balls you’d give your headline shows and act as if you’re the biggest band on the bill, tell people to spin the pit, scream for people to join in with the vocals or breakdown, fuck shyness, just go all out.
Thirty minutes to kick some arse and show a crowd who may not have any idea who you are what you do and looking around I think people have got the message! Sounding great, performing great and for me it’s fantastic seeing these lads smash it just as hard as they ever do. They’ve clearly won over the crowd by the end of their set and people are bouncing around and flinging their heads around with enthusiasm. Absolutely slayed it lads.
The Last Ten Seconds Of Life kicked off their set and seemingly having not brought a backing banner which confused me for a moment as Enterprise Earth is there as a massive print instead. This shifts heads heavily away from the technical style of Harbinger to straight grinding caveman riffs and gutturals so low you’d struggle to match them with a didgeridoo. TLTSOL are one of those metal acts that does not deal in subtleties. It is time for caveman riffs, double bass pedal fuckery and vocals that sound boulders smashing together.
People slam into each other with reckless abandon right from the start: it’s Friday night for fucks sake, what else are you going to do at arguably one of the heaviest shows happening in Europe right now? Admittedly this sort of level of heaviness isn’t quite my style, I can fully appreciate just how unbelievably filthy this is, you don’t get to put out vocals like that without an incredible amount of hard work and practice.
Every single song in the set is top tier filth, there’s just no doubt about the fact that sometimes you just have to surrender yourself and go full monkey brain and embrace it. Part two of four done, now for the big guns.
Enterprise Earth signals their beginning with obliterating everyone’s eyes with strobes before hitting us with their calling card of face melting riffs and supremely low gutturals – the metal show is now in session, please disrespect your surroundings. It’s immediately obvious why I gravitate so much towards bands like Enterprise Earth, they’ve got all that disgustingly heavy stuff with vocals that sound like King Kong farting and low tuned grooves but there’s also layers of melodic work in there to tie it all together.
By this point it’s pretty obvious that the adrenaline is firing and the blood is pumping because there’s no shortage of movement in the crowd now. The constant flashing of lights gives me flashing images of people’s faces constantly switching between screaming and pure stank face, Enterprise Earth are giving everyone here exactly what they asked for! The opener for their new EP goes hard as fuck live, leaving super heavily into their heaviness over melody and almost purposely designed for getting people moving.
I’ve seen Enterprise Earth a number of times now and their live performance never disappoints. A constant onslaught of riffs and energy and a presence that vibrates all the way through you and ticks the boxes of what a live performance should be on so many levels. Enterprise Earth are one of the bulwarks of technical death metal from the states and their presence stomping through Europe is never unwelcome.
That’s three out of four so far, all with top notch performances, and I don’t believe for a second the lads in Distant are going to be upstaged…
Finally, it’s time for the Dutch lads in Distant to round off a show on home turf. I’m no stranger to these after so many times last year and I get the shivers every time they start without fail. Every single time the crowds here go absolutely nuts without a moment’s hesitation and tonight is no different. With the way they conduct their shows it’s easy to see why they got picked to tour with the likes of Lorna Shore not so long ago.
Distant are a fine example of how the Netherlands can produce some utterly foul metal that can rival the powerhouses of the ÜK, Germany and the Nordics. It’s also understandable how a room packed with Dutch would also be ready to go nuts to Distant so easily too although I can vouch for them getting a great response anyway. “I wanna see you on your worst behaviour” is a request the audience does not refuse, peering down towards the centre I can see a sea of flailing arms and bouncing heads almost certainly disrespecting their surroundings.
Pioneers of the “bring back that nasty riff but slower” approach are Distant, mixing it with the fattest bass drop I think I’ve ever experienced, nothing like becoming hyper aware of every single hair on your body! While a little overdue, the crowd is finally starting to throw up crowd surfers that admittedly are a little polite when jumping back into the crowd compared to some shows but you don’t get that at shows without doing something right.
As we draw to the end of the show, Distant once again shows why they’ve got such a strong following, which is especially showcased by 80 per cent of the audience wearing Distant merch, they’ve got an unshakable focus on writing some of the most terrifying and foul metal around right now and putting it to work at their live shows.
It’s nice to see a show like this at the start of the tour rather than the end of it for once, but this tour is going to leave a trail of destruction in its wake. The ÜK won’t know what hit it!
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