unrefined heavy metal. With a vocalist who was more than keen on getting his crowd to start moving, with a throat of gold and with the killer joke of the evening – the introduction to the so-called ‘nostalgia trip’ ‘Hammered’ –, Megasonic definitely played the set that the crowd loved most. Nostalgia was indeed Megasonic’s key word of the evening: how it was a golden moment.
But in the end, the rowdiest batch of the night was the firmly atypical young wolves of Drive By Suicide. Entering the stage with an announcement of utter terrorising noise (or teringherrie as the Dutchmen stated it), their sound quickly defined itself to yours truly as the sharp balance between an open sewage and a Gojira/Slipknot/Soulfy monsterhybrid. For 45 minutes, they stormed the venue with their hatecore approach, perhaps transpiring best to unadapted ears through the guitarists’ Doom T-shirt. Their show eschewed the aimed-for destructiveness of a Slipknot show, the rhythm of Deftones, the moaning chaos of The Dillinger Escape Plan and the groove of Machine Head. Their broad bass and rhythm sound carried the vocalist’s tormented growls, grunts, screeches and violent whispers further and further alongside the waves of distorted guitars. While definitely atypical to the previous bands, Drive By Suicide certainly dropped the mic on the harshest of manners.
With the ultimate note of the night fading out, the crowd started to wait as the jury gathered to decide their victor, as others counted the popular vote. Thus two bands were finally allowed to pass into the finals: first to get their ticket were OKNOS, by grace of the jury. The second band to enter the finals were MEGASONIC, as their show was the most loved by the crowd. A third was still able to get forward, however, by the chance of the Golden Ticket: a final way straight unto the definite Olensfest 2017 bill, to be granted to one of the bands that did not make the finals. The answer for that question on the other hand, had to wait until the 25th of February…
TEXT: DIDIER GOOSSENS
Report on the battles of february 25th on the naxt page.