#metalcon

On Friday, the first band to take the stage was Mullet. Mullet is a Rock band, hailing from The Hague, Netherlands. The band consists of Timon Domela (vocals), Julian van Dam (guitar), Diederik Andeweg (guitar), Niels Budel (bass) and Domenico San Giorgi (drums). Most of their songs reminded me of a mixture between Black Album Metallica and Punk. The solo’s however were power metal, creating a very interesting and unique sound. One of their songs was a medley of their favorite metal. This consisted mainly of Master of Puppets (Metallica), Symphony of Destruction (Megadeth) and Trooper (Iron Maiden) among others. The transitions between those songs were flawless! Aside from their own songs such as Down With The Ship and March, they played covers of the Tool song Vicarious, For Whom The Bell Tolls by Metallica and a rock cover of Bier by Dutch rapper Steen. Mullet was a great band to kick off a fabulous evening of music! I rate this performance 8/10!

The second band of the evening was Skullsuit. Skullsuit is a groove metal band from Maastricht, which is in the south of the Netherlands. The band members are Roy on vocals, Dennis on guitar, Roel on bass and Rob on drums. Once Skullsuit started playing, I immediatly knew that I was watching a very professional band which was most visible in their confident stage appearance. Their songs are both groovy and energizing. The combination of music and vocals reminded me of a mixture between Pantera and Texas Hippie Coalition. Aside from that, Skullsuit manages to create their own, individual sound. Their final song of the evening, Made By Hate, could almost be considered thrash metal. Their overall performance results in a 9/10!

After Skullsuit, the music got a bit wilder with Mourn taking the stage. The band describe themselves as Heavy Stoner Blues Groove Rock Sludge Metal. The band consists of Pieter Verpaalen (vocals), Yordi Lopez (guitar), Thomas Frankhuijzen (drum) and Robin Zielhorst (bass). These men together manage to create music which reminds me of Stoner Rock/Metal such as Rival Sons and a band such as Lamb of God on the other side. The vocals reminded me of a combination of Jesse Leach of Killswitch Engage and Randy Blythe of Lamb of God. Their overall appearance was professional. An illustration of this was when a guitar strap slipped off the player never missed a note, credits for that. The only downside to their performance was the lack of interaction with the audience. Fortunately this did not bother the crowd who were too busy headbanging and moshing. This performance truly deserves an 8/10.

The final band of the evening was Martyr. Currently, Martyr consists of Rop van Haren on vocals, Rick Bouwman and Marcel Heesakkers on guitars, Jeffrey Bryan Rijnsburger on bass and Wilfried Broekman on drums. Their music can best be described as heavy, power, speed metal, a genre they manage to honor with their live performance. This show was a promotion for their new album ‘You Are Next!’. The music was perfect, mostly playing their newer material, as well as older ones. During this show, the crowd went completely mental with moshpits and headbanging everywhere. It was not surprising that the band invited the crowd on stage to party with them, creating a very energetic and pleasant atmosphere in Musicon. Even though the show was planned to end at midnight, Martyr decided that midnight was not the right time to end the party and kept playing. Afterwards, the crowd was most definitely prepared for the other bands to come on Saturday. The combination of both sound and performance results in a solid 10/10 for Martyr!

Part 2 will be uploaded tomorrow, June 2nd.

Links: Mullet Facebook Mullet Official Website

Skullsuit Facebook Skullsuit Official Website

Mourn Facebook Mourn Official Website

Martyr Facebook Martyr Official Website