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It’s autumn in our beautiful country and while the leaves slowly fall from the trees, many bands set out into the world to see who likes to listen to them! After we ventured onto the Black Metal paths once more, we decided that we definitely needed more of that. We therefore decided to check out the „Scherben“-Tour by ELLENDE, GROZA and SERVANT, that made its way to Dresden on 18th October. Dark and gloomy sounds were celebrated in a ball room from 1914 and it was sure way to make our skin crawl with excitement!
Stay tuned for an unique combination of darkness, emotion and loooooooads of fog!
Huge thanks to lightinmirror.de for the wonderful pictures! You always withstand the bad lighting!
SERVANT
The evening was opened by SERVANT, a band I hadn’t previously come across. In accordance with this fact, I approached them and their set quite ingenuous and open-ended.
What I cherish about Black Metal in general is the very direct and unadorned approach that the musicians display. They go on stage to present, nothing more and nothing less!
This was the case for SERVANT as well. Right from the second they stepped onto that stage, you knew which way this was headed. This has a certain honesty!
I found the music to be quite appealing! They manage to combine many elements of high quality, from clear but nasty vocals to technically demanding drums to fast guitars, there is something for very Black Metal fan! After the concert I couldn’t resist listening to their newest alum and at times it sound like what reading Nietzsche feels like…It’s very possible that I’m over interpreting this, especially since I had the chance to attend the same school as the famous German philosopher, but the music has something distinctly occult to it that would match him pretty well!
In that regard, they set themselves apart significantly from GROZA and ELLENDE since their music has a more emotional approach, in my opinion.
Overall, I did discover a new band for my „Black Metal Autumn“ playlist in SERVANT. In that regard, it was a bit sad that they only played for half an hour. If you want to delve further into SERVANT’s musical cosmos, I can wholeheartedly recommend their newest album Death Devil Magick!
GROZA
Next up were GROZA, who we had the pleasure to see at Wolfszeit this year, but a club or ball room show is vastly different from a festival show. GROZA is best seen in the darkness of a club than in the daylight during a festival.
The group around singer P.G. opened their set with the song Asbest, one of their most emotional songs ever, at least for me. Between the sometimes melancholic and sensitive parts, haunting guitars in combination with a shouted-out despair dominate the mood of the song, which almost brought me to the brink of tears. It was brutal as an opener, but for this occasion, it was just right!
The set was shaped by the song from the latest album Nadir, which in my opinion is their best album so far. With their distinct and uncompromising Post Black Metal, GROZA manage to occupy an emotional space in me that was previously empty. They invite the audience to take part in the confrontation of one’s mind and to venture deep into your own psyche. It has a certain healing aspect for me because I know that I’m not the only one dealing with certain emotions und here I can find a musical counterpart to unique aspects of my emotions.
The set was unfortunately much too short, but had its highlights in the songs Deluge and Daffodils. Judging by the audience’s reaction, I wasn’t the only one not ready to part with this dark world of thought and to exchange it for another one… In conclusion, I can only say that it has been quite some time since there was such a fitting and overwhelmingly harmonic tour line-up as we saw it with GROZA and ELLENDE! Maybe my view is skewed by my general autumn melancholy, but it was just what I needed! If you weren’t there, you really missed out!
ELLENDE
But before we get to the musical highlight of the evening, I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize the truly great sound of the evening! We experience a lot of live shows and rarely has the sound been as good as it was that evening. The fact that KATATONIA kept playing between the individual bands was just wonderful. Keep up the good work!
Further in the text and also in the program of the evening: ELLENDE! Anyone who has followed this band for a while knows that they have a holistic Black Metal concept that is second to none. For us, the anticipation was particularly high because it was the first time we were able to experience them live.
The hall had already been shrouded in a haze of fog by the other bands when the first notes rang out, hinting that the current release Todbringerin would play a leading role. The combination of the veil of fog and the melancholy, painful tones was certainly one that the ballroom in Dresden’s Parkhotel had never experienced before!
The evening’s song repertoire was an outstanding mix of releases and even a song from Rückzug in die Innerlichkeit had made it onto the setlist. While singer L.G., corpse paint and animal bone armor included, performed the deeply emotional songs on stage, like a kind of Salvator Mundi of Black Metal, the audience swayed in a trance-like state in front of the stage. I have never experienced anything like this before. The atmosphere was literally palpable and so deeply connected to the music that I had difficulty returning to reality afterwards.
ELLENDE set a world-weariness to music that has a fatal coldness of despair attached to it. However, it is by no means brutally confrontational, but atmospherically sensitive, and in the live experience you share this impression with everyone who attends this performance. Through a complete dedication to the music, L.G. and his comrades-in-arms manage to create a kind of catharsis that is unparalleled in the scene.
For outsiders, it is certainly completely incomprehensible how you can do this to yourself, but believe me, I have rarely needed a concert as much as this one. All the pressure I had been struggling with over the last few weeks suddenly had an outlet to escape from. It was an evening full of deep feelings for me and the realization that many emotional states are not as incomprehensible as your own mind often makes them out to be. In short: Black Metal is also therapy!
Unfortunately, the excursion into inwardness ended far too quickly, but fittingly with the song Abschied. Mentally, it was far from time for me to say goodbye to this evening, but perhaps that’s exactly the point: goodbyes never come when it suits you or when you’re ready for them. So all I can say is that it was an absolutely unique evening for us. This tour was an absolute autumn highlight for us and it was an honor to be able to experience it!
Even if you are not quite ready to leave this evening behind you, let me tell you that the last word has not yet been spoken. An interview awaits you here shortly, which I myself am looking forward to with great anticipation. So stay tuned!
Shieldmaiden's Voice 