23-04-2016 Dark Mental Festival

[schema type=”event” evtype=”Festival” name=”Dark Mental Festival” sdate=”2016-04-21″ street=”Kraftwerket” city=”Copenhagen” country=”DK” ]
At the last day of Dark Mental we knew what to expect, but then again we get surprised again.

The night got opened by Prevail. The band makes Melodic Death Metal but the band has a whole lot of brutality in there, which keeps that melodic parts a bit behind. A bit of Thrash may come forward thought. The band simply picks some from all and unites it. Not completely bringing new sound, but a sound that is solid, they seem to know exactly what they want to say and that radiates well in their performance. That’s their strength. A nice one to start the evening with.

Hearteater is a local band making Hard Rock/Metal. Their words, if you say metalcore you could easily be right as well. Let’s say it’s in the middle. The band is still young and they released a debut EP last year.

In their live performance they show themselves being quite energetic. No one really stand still or keeps it down. You would guess that is always a pro, but sometimes you may think the band could win a bit in tightness when taking one step back on that. A look at the vocal techniques would probably make their vocalist be able to go deeper even and give a more solid sound throughout the whole set. What we liked about them is their enthusiasm. They mix things they like in their sound and could surely come to something interesting if they keep building on that.

Abscission was an interesting one. With their melodic side hinting to Black Metal at first, the looks not so much and then the Death comes in. And takes over. A good blend in which their vocalist skilfully switches the vocal styles a bit to create drama and variance. One thing to mention is though: they did not captivate me up to the end of their set. The songs have all a bit too much of the same in there and that makes that towards the end you have seen it… But they could work on that, a smarter choice of setlist would work for them, for the music itself is an interesting base to grow from.

Silver Grime is the surprise of the day. The band is all about Doom combined with that Stoner feel over it. Raw vocals giving it a certain drama. What is the most brilliant on these guys is the fact that live the words, the drama and the passion right on front of you while performing. The music sets the atmosphere, the mimics of the vocalist, but not only him, are there to add a great deal of this music being so alive. It feels like it all comes out with ease and that shows the quality of them, because what they play certainly sticks together well. Quality material, these guys are on their way to a Roadburn booking, can’t be mistaken… they belong there!

Caro seems to be Denmark’s heaviest underground success, a full house for these guys at least. They start their show with creeping us out a bit… a wining child but then their violence gets exposed to those watching them. They have that Death Metal sound with a bit of groove in there. The songs flow easily and maybe they don’t even have to put in a lot of effort to convince their audience today, they do not cease to do it. They have a strong vocalists on board who lays a lot identity into their sound, setting them a bit apart from what many others do.

The band certainly caught our interest. As they are around for almost a decade (first under a different name), the band’s latest full length is already dating back some years. Whether they have something new for us soon is unknown to us, but we would certainly welcome that.

The Finnish Khroma passes by us again here in Copenhagen after we ran into them also a couple of weeks ago. They make Electronic Metal, something we did really got to see in the festival and so we were curious to see how people would like them.

While the guys released their album “Stasis” a few weeks earlier, they had plenty of music to play for us and the audience seem to approve of what they got to see. Some fans were around, shouting for “A Vessel To Steer” which comes from their previous release and eventually the band played that one too. The intensity of their music seem to wow people, And some movement in the audience comes round. The band turns out to be one of the winners of the evening for they surely surprised many in such a positive way!

Drephjard has not really been active in the past years and in their active years, they never released much material either. Seeing them on stage here could be seen as a rarity, an unique thing and it surely was interesting.

They stick with a traditional form of Black Metal, cold and yet with a quite good tempo into it. They take it up for you, and supply you with anxiety and darkness, a factor that makes them wanted here, but the show is maybe a bit minimal, the band does not bring much alive, not at themselves and let all be from the music. With a bit more into it they could leverage their atmosphere to its most intense level. Whether the guys remain active this way is to be seen, perhaps another release is in planning?

If you close the festival you have to that with a bang. Colapso are right the ones to do so as it seem. Just as Khroma we ran into them recently on their tour, but due to visa problem the band was not playing in its full ornate. Good luck for us as today the band is having the missing link amongst them and gosh can we say that makes a difference!

A lot of power came from them, songs were now an experience and you cannot be unaffected seeing this band perform. It went all wild and the band shows they can overtake the place here easily. What a show to end with, so much energy. Colapso released the full length album “Portales” last year, we suggest you check that out, because if you were not there to end the night with these guys, you HAVE missed out.

So came an end to this three day adventure in Denmark. Loads of amazing Danish bands have played and we enjoyed seeing them all. Realizing that statistically we get a quite small amount of promo’s offered of Danish bands, we would kindly invite all Danish acts to include us in your press list. Loads of talent out there!