27-07-2007 Detonation

Support: Massive Assault; Venue:Acu, Utrecht (NL)
By: Wouter van de Kamp
 

After having heard their fourth release I was very… sorry… I mean VERY eager to see Detonation live. It had been quite a while (one and a half year) since I last saw Utrecht’s pride. But first on the bill was Massive Assault.

I had seen this band live before in Arhem, supporting The Red Chord, but do not recall much of this show. They couldn’t really impress me, everyone was waiting for the headliner anyways. So now they had a second chance.

This fivepiece Dutch band can be said of to be a swedish death metal band. Since ACU has one of the smallest stages that I know of it was no surprise that the singer decided not to perform on stage, but in front of it. And he surely needed the space. Either this guy was loaded up on speed or just drank too many red bulls. I don’t think I have seen him standing still for one second. He was continually jumping and speedwalking. Sort of what one is used to with hardcorebands. Being a former soundengineer at ACU I know that creating a good sound there is a hell of a job and it looked like Massive Assault was suffering from that.

But that was counterbalanced by a very energetic performance. Still though, I couldn’t really be impressed by it. And so the wait for the headliner continued at the bar. Haven’t paid much attention to the the other attendants. While I was in the hall (which is apart from the bar) I hadn’t seen much movement, but that could be due to my being back being turned towards the crowd since I was taking pictures.

Detonation… Locally famous, but having been support act of four Nilegigs in Europe, a European tour with Gorerotted, Decapitated and DAM and having done several UK tours, this band can be said of to have achieved quite somewhat. Especially compared to Dutch standards. Their latest album Emission Phase (released April 2007 through Osmose   Productions) is quite a bit more polyrythmic than what they’ve done in the past and is a real elaboration on their melodic death/thrash from their previous releases. A real progression to the more technical stuff. Adding to that the rythmically much more complex singing of leadsinger Koen and you got the perfect ingredients for a never boring  show. And so it was.

With Maarten behind the mixer they got a brilliant sound (at least as compared to ACU standards). Fortunately they didn’t just play the whole new album, but went back to An Epic Defiance and Portals to Uphobia as well. Especially Thomas stole the show through his complex drumming. Add to that the extremely technical guitar play of both Koen and Mike and the brilliant Otto on bass and you’ve got a never boring show. The audience seemed to think just that. A lot of headbanging and moshing and shouting. This wasn’t just the regular homebase gig with a lot of enthused family and friends. What a great performance. No wonder that the crowd wanted an encore and Detonation eagerly complied with that. I am really looking forward to their gig at Stonehengefestival the next day, with undoubtedly much better equipment than ACU. If you ever have the chance to check Detonation out…

Pictures of this gig available at Basementonline.nl

Links:
Detonation official website
Massive Assault official website
Osmose productions
Acu