The Last Advance: Somnus, Sanctorum, Moonspell, In Flames

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11/12/99, Flying Machine, Lorain, Ohio

Hi,
It is, most possibly, the very last review for the Year 1999 and I would like it to be a little bit special. You probably thought that I was going to give away something here? No fucking way! OK, let me switch to the show itself and give you some details on what was going that evening at good old FLYING MACHINE. First of all, both local bands played great as usual. I just fucking adore our big 3, which are FROM THE DEPTHS, SOMNUS and SANCTORUM. SOMNUS opened the set this time and they did not disappoint me although the set list was the same as usual.



In Flames
Taken from www.nuclearblast-usa.com

During the show I finally managed to buy their demo tape from 1997 which is called 'TO RETURN THE CRIMSON SKIES' and their LS. I bought it directly from their bass player who was quite drunk by the time I approached him and as a result I got LS of XXL size!!! ;-) Oh well. SANCTORUM was up next and they played even better than the first band! Another plus was that they also presented their new song 'OBSIDIAN BEAUTY' which is as good as their older material. I just wish that they finally make some proper recording, so everybody could witness their undeniable strength. I know they had some kind of demo a while ago, but unfortunately I was not able to get my hands on it. By the way, the funny thing is that FROM THE DEPTHS, who were scheduled to play next never showed up, which was completely opposite of what happened last time when they were not scheduled to play, but did! So we're tied here. When MOONSPELL finally got onstage I did not even recognize them first. One half of them looked like some parody on Goth act (or maybe they were serious???) and the other like they just arrived to Cleveland from the KORN-country. Anyway, they started to play and it was not very good at all. Sound was way too bottom-endish kinda like all this "new metal"
bands and they did not sound very tight either. They played both "Alma Mater" and "Opium", but both songs sounded strange and very different (not in a good sense) from studio versions. I can not say that I really enjoyed their new material either, although Century Media claims that this is kind of 'back to the roots' album. Well, whatever, it was not THAT bad, but I expected them to be much better than they actually are.



Moonspell: used to be Metal?
Taken from www.centurymedia.com

IN FLAMES suffered from the same problem that hurt MOONSPELL so badly, namely, bassy sound. I don't have a sufficient knowledge to tell if they always have this kind of live sound or it was a soundman who fucked up with something, but if it's being done on purpose, than it's a very big mistake. Anyway their sound was not as bad as MOONSPELL's plus their playing abilities are far superior to those of our beloved Portuguese :-) All in all they put up a pretty good show with practically all mandatory hits like "Moonshield", "Episode 666" and others, but it was not outstanding by any means and, certainly can not be compared to those played by ICED EARTH or COF. Now you are probably going to ask me why the hell this review is so damn short comparing to others, and what is so special about it? Well, I can tell you that it is short because I don't like to give you details that nobody really cares about anyway like exact description of the guitar sound or how many bps the drummer can play. If someone is interested in such excessive details they can buy the latest issue of Terrorizer and learn something new and exciting ;-) As for this review being special I can proudly say that it's special due to its shortness and nothing else! :-) OK, enough bitching, you probably already hate me anyway, so...
See you all later,
Andy.
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