Graveland Festival consistently meets high expectations with its well-balanced line-ups, often featuring a nice mix of Death Metal and Black Metal, along with other genres, over its two-day span.
"Where darkness meets Death."
Day 1 began a bit late for us, starting with the Technical Death/Thrash band Xoth.
Xoth delivered a heavy dose of technical thrash influenced by some death metal vibes, songs heavily Sci-Fi inspired about aliens, reptilian people and blood harvesting robots took over the stage for around 50 Minutes of the soon to be rainy festival.
Not long after, Black Metal band "In Twilight's Embrace" from Poland took over the festival by storm, to deliver a fierce presentation of their force.
In Twilight's Embrace last Album Lifeblood released in 2022 has been one of my favorite releases by the band which they did not fail to play some tunes in their set-list.
They say pictures are worth more than words so please check some of their shots above (You can always click on them to enlarge.).
Singer Cyprian Łakomy always have a really strong presence on stage that heavily helps set the atmosphere, In Twilight's Embrace delivers a strong mix of black metal adding up some melodic tunes without falling out of the black metal bucket. Highly recommended back to give them a listen. (Lawa and Lifeblood are some of my favorite releases by them.) Give them a listen ->
Next on the stage we have the blasting fierce force known to man as Darvaza, full black metal coming from Norway-Italy by Wraath and Omega!
Darvaza never disappoints in a well built set-list covering their repertory, Wraath's commanding stage presence and Omega's riffs and dark choruses create a nightmarish experience. Their live members are also up to the task of delivering a crazed and intense set.
This, Hungry, Triumphant, Darkness... is calling..
The festival continues strong with no other stuff than some sweet Swedish death metal blast by Centinex.
Centinex is a Swedish death metal that's been around since the 1990. Acknowledge by their raw and aggressive sound, which provides the classic elements of Swedish death metal, Even through several line up changes, Centinex is a band who keeps afloat and keeps the flame alive of the "Core" essence of the band. Vocals by Henrik delivers some heavy gutturals and stage presence not to be looked over!
Sentenced to suffer, a misshapen life
Sentenced to suffer, the rage will arise!
Sentenced to suffer, the rage will arise!
Weather was not being gentle on the festival and rain could be seen from time to time but at some point it was a merciless downpour, however this did not stop the crowd or bands to give them all on the festival grounds.
Coming next we had an overdose of black metal with Tsjuder!
With the heavy rains in their best prime, Tsjuder starts playing and people start to gather around to the stage no matter the rain, a fiery power-trio starts blasting Norwegian black metal at it's best.
"An alien monstrosity Looking upon through a still lake
Midst titan mountains"
Midst titan mountains"
Anytime I am talking about music with my friends over-seas, there's a topic sometimes it comes up, that is music bands from the country that really pops up, Netherlands is a really rich country in music... and coffcofftaxescoffcoff.
Lots of bands are getting out there from Netherlands and Dool is one of them, Dool has recently been getting more and more attention which by the way they do deserve!
Again, may not be necessary really metal but you can hear some influences, but this one is thrown more onto a heavy rock, psychedelic/dark rock influenced band. Certainly a nice to have in the festival as well, some may say you can hear some "The devil's blood" influences, which makes sense since Raven was part *at some point* of TDB. Truly great composed music and tightly executed which is something to applaud! The festival crowd certainly enjoyed their set and so did I.
You can check more of them at their bandcamp or spotify.
Raven approves.
Closing the festival grounds on Friday after some rain and heavy dose of dark mystic set by Dool we got another dose of mystic Swedish doomy-dark set by none other than Tiamat.
Tiamat is one of those bands who have a lot of changes during their timespan, starting with some death metal at their early stages, moving to a more progressive - dark rock sounds.
Still is one of those bands that even when mixing up different influences into their core is still really good.
Their set-list was a pretty long one closing the day with a special set composed of 2 of their albums in their entirely; "Clouds" and "Wildhoney".
What a way to finish the first day of this festival, closing tags for this one, a success.
Even with the heavy rains, ponchos and umbrellas kind of half-saved the day also good bands, tight performances, friendly faces and beer did also saved the day.
