Reviewing a festival such as Roadburn is not an easy feat. The grand scale of varying musical genres that are on offer over the 4 days, plus the additional side programme, including artist conversations, art exhibition and more always makes it a slight challenge to summarise in a short review. What doesn’t help is the fact that this particular writer is an Academic by day and the month of May is generally a very busy time in the world of Academia, with loads of exams, dissertations and other in-course assessments needing to be marked. Sadly, this doesn’t leave much creative headspace to write about a festival as important as Roadburn, hence the slight delay in getting these words on paper.
I just mentioned Roadburn being “important”, and there are various ways to interpret this. On a personal level, this is one of the more important times of the year for me, as it gives me a chance to travel back home and meet up with my family and friends, and to be at the festival I’ve fallen in love with since my first visit back in 2016. In the more general sense, Roadburn is important on the musical calendar as each year they demonstrate how to put a festival together that always seems to be a few steps ahead of what other festivals in the world are doing. Somehow Roadburn seems to find those artists that aren’t that well-known yet and all of a sudden everybody talks about them. What also makes Roadburn very special are the commissioned pieces that have been a returning feature at the festival since a couple of years ago. Basically, it’s ever more obvious that Roadburn is not just about music, it’s about art and culture on a much grander scale.
But, I am going to be honest here, as I found last year’s edition quite a challenge on the musical front. Whilst there were loads of great artists and bands playing last year, it was also the first Roadburn edition where the line-up was very experimental (as Roadburn is all about “redefining heaviness”) and for the first time I had some moments during the festival where I didn’t know what to see as I wasn’t particularly interested in the shows happening at that specific time. This sounds like a luxury problem, but for me Roadburn is a lot of “being in the right state of mind” to see a particular show or genre, and often I diverge from my original plans throughout the festival, not always seeing the artists I really wanted to see beforehand, which I admittedly struggled with last year.
However, this year I think the organisers got the balance just right. On the one hand the experimental line from last year continued, but there were also a lot more “traditional” heavy Roadburn bands playing than during the previous edition, keeping the heavy music fans (or should I just say the metalheads?) quite happy. Unfortunately, some of these “traditional heavy” bands played at some of the smaller stages, which inevitably meant long queues and therefore potentially missing out.
A great example of this is Torpor, probably the most doom band on the festival’s line-up. Just by observing people’s band shirts and battle jackets it was pretty obvious doom metal is still a hugely popular genre among the Roadburn crowd, and it was no surprise that a lot of people missed out on seeing them as they were scheduled at the Hall of Fame, the smallest stage at Roadburn. Luckily for some, they played a secret set at the Skate Park the next day, but those infamous Roadburn secret sets are a different bag completely, only a valid option for a select few. Torpor certainly they did not disappoint. Sometimes you just need a heavy doom set to get the neck muscles going and be in the zone for a good 40 minutes or so. Another great performance in the doom metal genre came from Body Void who returned to Roadburn to deliver a crushing performance of their latest album Atrocity Machine, again showing that combining harsh electronics with ultra heavy doom makes a fantastic mix.
Body Void – Photo by Paul Verhagen
Talking about heaviness, one of the more anticipated sets of the whole festival was the long-awaited return of Khanate to the live stage, after having been on a 19 year long hiatus. To see and hear this so-called supergroup deliver their punishing slow pulsing doom/noise/whatever music on a stage such as the 013 and its amazing sound system was a prospect to make any heavy music fan giddy with excitement, especially after having been to their Conservation with Seldon Hunt as part of the side programme the day before. It’s hard to describe their music, but I heard a friend of mine describe them as “Sun O))) having a panic attack”, which is a rather fitting description. Ultimately, they’re not for everyone, but for most who were present to witness this it was a truly mind-altering experience.
Khanate – Photo by Niels Vinck
Sunday was “Dutch black metal day”, with Fluisteraars being one of my personal highlights as I highly anticipating their show, as this set was a rare live appearance. They presented themselves on stage with nothing but their instruments, no black metal gimmicks or anything like that. Just 5 guys demonstrating how black metal should be done: immense, blisteringly fast and super tight, with beautiful melodic parts. Earlier on the Sunday fellow Dutch black metal compatriots Laster and Verwoed played at the same stage, with Laster presenting their new album Andermans Mijne and Verwoed their latest offering The Mother, demonstrating very nicely that the Dutch black metal scene is one of the more interesting ones in the scene at the moment.
Laster – Photo by Niels Vinck
Whilst Roadburn always had the “whole album” shows, with bands either playing a classic album in full or a brand new album, this year there were a lot of bands presenting their latest releases. Couch Slut had their European debut where they performed their excellent new album You Could Do It Tonight, though technically speaking their actual European debut was the day before where they played a secret set at the Skate Park. The official show was a brilliant demonstration of noise rock, with the anecdotal vocal deliveries by Megan Osztrosits talking the audience through various stories and experiences, which was an even more impressive feat since Megan only had around 90 minutes of sleep the night before. Inter Arma was back at Roadburn again, playing the festival for the 3rd (?) time, where they presented their new full-length release New Heaven. Inter Arma is probably one of the most impressive and tightest live bands on the metal circuit, mixing death metal, black metal, sludge and doom effortlessly, and having genuinely fun on stage whilst doing so. They played twice more later on during the festival, with their first secret set being my personal favourite, where they played their classic songs at the small Hall of Fame, and a 2nd secret set at the Skate Park where they played Neil Young covers.
Couch Slut – Photo by Niels Vinck
Inter Arma rocking in a free world at the Skate Park – Photo by Paul Verhagen
There were simply way too many fantastic sets to mention in lots of detail here, but without making this look like a tick box exercise, I saw most of the following sets, or at least parts of these sets: Birds In Row played their superb album Gris Klein in full, which was a set high on my want list, though sadly clashed with the start of Fluisteraars; Wiegedood are one of my favourite black metal band, but this time they performed a live soundtrack to the Japanese horror movie “A Page Of Madness”, which I really tried to like, but it didn’t do much for me, perhaps mostly due to the lack of the music being actually synchronised to whatever was happening in the movie; Ukrainians White Ward finally successfully managed to travel outside of Ukraine after not having been able to do so last year, and they played a superb set on the first day of the festival, sadly without their saxophone player present, which they solved by using saxophone backing tracks; mysterious death/black metal outfit Thantifaxath played a devastating set, that was perhaps quite challenging for some due to the experimental nature of their extreme metal music using various time signatures and dissonant tunings. It was great to see they had theremin player Jon Liedtke in their line-up for the performance, who was at Roadburn as part of the Inter Arma crew; Fuck Money was one of this year’s hype bands, having heard a lot about them in the lead up to the festival start, and they did not disappoint with their unique brand of “space punk”, showing great musical skills especially by the drummer Alton Jenkins; this was followed by Deaf Club, with charismatic frontman Justin Pearson putting on a fantastic show, delivering a short set full of energy and power.
Fuck Money – Photo by Niels Vinck
Deaf Club – Photo by Paul Verhagen
A special paragraph needs to be dedicated to Blood Incantation. They played two sets at Roadburn, both of a very different nature, with their first set focusing on their dark ambient album Timewave Zero, and their second set focusing on a mix of songs from their death metal back catalogue. I’ve tried to listen to Timewave Zero a couple of times, and whilst I like the style of ambient music a lot, I usually switch it off after 20 minutes or so. Live this was a different story, where they captivated the audience with beautiful synth and electronic sounds accompanied by a stunning laser show. I never knew seeing 4 death metal dudes on a huge stage pressing and turning various knobs on vintage electronica and synthesiser instruments could be so captivating. Their headline set the next day was a completely different story though, where they went full force death metal, playing songs from their Starspawn and Hidden History of the Human Race albums and more. Beforehand some people questioned having a death metal band headline the main stage at the 013 on the Saturday of the festival, but this was a great demonstration of extreme metal performed in the best possible way.
Blood Incantation – Photo by Niels Vinck
The “problem” with Roadburn is that there’s a luxury problem of having to make choices. Unless you stick to the bigger stages it’s impossible to hop from gig to gig, seeing a half show here and there as you won’t get into the smaller stages if you’re not there some time ahead of the show. Plus Roadburn is a whole set sort of festival, you will inevitably miss out on a great performance if you only catch the first 2-3 songs, and I’ve experienced more often than not that Roadburn sets get better towards the end of the performance. So, with this in mind I regretfully say that I have not seen anything by the UBOA, this year’s Artist in Residence, and Agriculture, bit artists being on the Flenser record label, which is one of my favourite labels around. Beforehand I was also dead keen to see Dool, but they then clashed with one of the Inter Arma secret shows. This year I didn’t get to see much of the commissioned pieces, other than the piece Kavus Torabi had written, entitled ‘Lion of the Lord’s Elect’, which was an interesting progressive, psychedelic journey. In retrospect this is a real shame, as these commissioned pieces only get performed once and never again. Lastly, I have yet to enter the Paradox to see any performances there, and if I get to go back next year this is something high on my list. I’ve seen various video footage of artists playing there feeling very envious not having been there!
Anyway, this has turned into a rather long piece to write a report on one of the best festivals in the world, a festival that keeps evolving and reinventing itself, each year taking on new challenges by never playing safe, even after having done this for 25 years now. As I said at the beginning, I think the Roadburn organisers got the balance just right and I really hope that they keep this balance between the more traditional heaviness and the more experimental genres during next year’s edition.
Fluisteraars – Photo by Niels Vinck
