18-01-2025 Thulcandra

Supports:  Sacramentum, Nephylim
Location: W2, Den Bosch (Netherlands)

Some Black bands found their way to s’Hertogenbosch this weekend, Thulcandra and Sacramentum were on the road and brought the local Nephylim along.

Nephylim

Up to the locals to open the night. The band is from this town, so it was no surprise to see lots of their friends on the front row giving it all for them. The guys play Melodic Death and their debut came out in 2020. In March the band will release their brand new album “Circuition”.
The guys are eager to play here tonight, a hometown show brought with a lot of enthusiasm is also a joy to watch for those who are not familiar with the band and the guys are playing for a quite full venue. Performance wise the band show themselves as charismatic. The whole stage is used and combined with a strong melodic section the songs stick in mind easily. A good opening from Nephylim, which will play in this venue again when the album is released.

Sacramentum

The Swedish Sacramentum has been around for over three decades although a new album hasn’t been seen in the past two of those. The band has been playing live shows the last years though and seeing them showing up in The Netherlands is providing us with a good opportunity to experiment the songs which reached high status amongst the dedicated fans of the band. The most interesting to watch is the front man Nisse Karlén which is a charismatic and theatrical performer. Here and there some comments were given on them having to tone their performance a bit, for example at “Blood Shall Be Spilled”, but we could not tell if that was for sure or just a joke. In any case, the band has a long set going and although they have an entertaining set, the whole was perhaps about two or three tracks too long, for the songs played are quite in line with each other.
Nevertheless, interesting to watch.

Thulcandra

For the German Thulcandra there is not really a specific person that draws most attention, the band has a quite equal shine on all of the members. Whether it is their guitarist putting in the melodic touch or their drummer giving the whole a proper backbone, the band creates a good balance in their sound. The band released a live album last year, so people could already find out what the live experience looks like. The set was filled with a diversity of tracks that played with the energy a bit. At some point front man Steffen mentioned people in the audience seemed quite into the ‘ballads’ which seems a reference to their most melodic tracks played. For sure these were working well, and got the most audience response, but do not count out that at the very last song on the setlist, “Spirit of the Night” a little moshpit took shape in front of the stage.
Overall Thulcandra showed us a steady and entertaining performance with a good divide of energy throughout.