Ceremony - October 13th - Eindhoven

Unfortunately I wasn't able to go to the This Is Europe fest. So when the opportunity came along to go and see Ceremony a few days later I jumped in the Reflections van and went for it.

The Dynamo youth centre is a great place for hardcore shows. But you never know how the Dutch audience will respond to a band. Will it be 'let's stand and see' or 'let's have fun together'?

Midnight Souls opened up the night. Despite my review and interview the Dutch haven't warmed up to this band so far. Which is a shame if you aks me. Besides the bad sound and a bit of an apathetic crowd reception Midnight Souls played a pretty solid set.

Next up were Sabretooth Zombie. By far the worst band I've seen this year, though other people seemed to think differently. The riffs and weird song structures just aren't my thing.

So Ceremony. I actually only like their latest record a lot and was a bit sceptical about tonight's perfomance. Which soon dissapeared after the band pressed go and went for a highly energetic, entertaining set. A lot of younger kids went wild on the band. Massive pile-ons, weird stagedives and even weirder dances were introduced this night. All around mayhem. With suprisingly Get The Most/ Devotion drummer Aaron behind the Ceremony drumkit.

A nice way to spend a wednesday evening.







All pics are by Anne Kohler. See more here.

Up next: Bane this saturday in Gent and The Real Danger, The Fake Boys and Dave Smalley in Tilburg this sunday! Good times!

Devotion - Bastard Son Of Affluence Blues -cd/lp

Devotion is the new project of Go It Alone vocalist Mark Palm. With the help of Get The Most and ON drummer Aaron O'Neil Palm recorded 10 songs which are released on vinyl by Rivalry.

Recordopeners 'My Desert' and 'Iron Fist' don't stray too far away from the Go It Alone sound and could easily have been on the bands' last album 'Histories'.

But Palm did Devotion solo for a reason, it's his outlet and without bandmates he didn't have to compromise. The song 'Bastard Son Of Affluence Blues' is the first showing of that vision beginning with a hardrock orientated intro before evolving in a hardcore song.

Throughout the record there are hints here and there of different styles being incorporated in Palms' trademark sound of slow melodic hardcore.

It's on the B-side of the record that Palm tends to stretch this even further. 'Needle Full Of Liquid Pain' and 'Out Of Body' being songs that remind of 'Dirt'-era Alice In Chains with some early Soundgarden references.

'Stained Glass Bottle', the last track, brings it all together and sounds like a very natural combination of hardcore, grunge and even southern rock.

Go It Alone already showed Palms' gift for writing lyrics and with Devotion he stepped up to the plate. The main themes of the record are Catholicism, isolation, apathy and addiction all served on a very cynical and realistic plate. Palm himself summarizes it best with the lines 'The cross and the bottle offer no escape for me. Left to wonder: will I ever find peace? I haven't found it yet.'

Devotion isn't the only band nowadays with roots in hardcore incorporating grunge (Blacklisted anyone?). Yet on 'Bastard Son Of Affluence Blues' it is done in a very natural way which makes this one of the most progressive records staying within hardcore bounderies and one of the best records to come out this year.