Metalphoto is an independent Dutch Photo E-Zine devoted to extreme metal music, founded in 2007.
Metalphoto's photographers portay the subculture of dark metal.We present artistic photo's and short written reviews, on selected concerts and festivals, mainly of black, death, trash, pagan/viking metal and grindcore.
Black Metal and JazzThe Norwegian jazz band Shining played at the Vierdaagse Feesten in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, last July 19. Black metal being Norwegians biggest export item, it is not remarkable that young musicians in Norway are born and bread with it. And, like happens with every form of art, transform it, mix it and create new styles from it. We saw this movement away from the pure black metal, earlier this month with Angst Skvadron at Under the Black Sun and last May, Wolves in the Throneroom demonstrated the versatility of combining Trance with BM. Now then: black metal with a saxophone! This flirtation of jazz / industrial musicians with black metal certainly was an interesting experiment. Although we must admit that the gathered metalheads left the premises rather quickly, esp. those who had hoped to see the Swedish namesakes of the band, while the jazz adepts seemed to enjoy the music better. Anyway, Jørgen Munkeby, singer, guitarist, sax player and producer of the album Blackjazz, was a feast for the eye. He reminded me of a young version of Satyricon’s Satyr, with the same drive and energy, but without the arrogance. Check out our pix and see if you agree…
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My Dying Bride @ Zwarte CrossMy Dying Bride played at the Zwarte Cross Festival in Lichtenvoorde, The Netherlands on July 17. This year they celebrate their 20th Anniversary.The band played songs from their first and last records and everything in between. This British doom metal band is still as good as ever. The fact that vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe hates to be on stage cannot be judged from his appearance. He gave his well known great show, as you can see from our photo’s and video. My Dying Bride was preceded by two Dutch bands: God Dethroned an internationally succesful death metal band and The Devil's Blood
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Under the Black SunThis greatest little festival on Avant Garde Black Metal was held in the most gorgeous spot one can image: a clearing in the woods in the German countryside east of Berlin. A few hundred of connaiseurs were gathered here for a leisure weekend of interesting music from all over Europe: Germany, Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Slovenia. Our favorites were: Ravencult from Greece. This relatively unknown band played really marvelously. They gave us a taste of the upcoming album "Morbid Blood", which we can recommend. Irrlycht, from Munich (DE), consists of Members of known bands like Caedes, Hati and Vargsang. They brought old school German Black Metal with a good sense for melodies. Angantyr was estd. in 1998. After a live break for almost two years in 2007 the band returned this year with a strong new lineup to present it's harsh Danish Black Metal. They made a great show out of it. The expectations were high for Glorior Belli which was announced as “one of the best French acts around these days”. Their show and musical performance was absolutely great indeed. Mortifera gave a live performance of their Necro Black Metal which was appreciated well by the audience. The festival ended with Angst Skvadron , the brainchild of Norwegian musician T. Nefas, known for his work in Urgehal, Kvist, In Lingua Mortua, Vulture Lord and Beastcraft, among others. They performed their first live gig outside of Norway at Under The Black Sun 2010. Angst Skvadron plays depressive, psycedellic, alien death metalmusic! They integrated theatre with the music, which made it all in all a very interesting performance. 
| Obituary @ BurgerweeshuisOn this last day of June, Obituary took a kind of break of their European 25 th Anniversary & Festival Tour by playing in a small club in Deventer (NL) . Obituary was really kicking ass here. The old School Brutal Death Metal band from Florida seems to get better every year. The band is remarkably able to combine great routine with obvious pleasure. The set was gradually built up, they played new and older work from their ’89 CD “Slowly we rot”until their latest release, “Darkest Day” (2009). Ample time was reserved, during their 1,5 hour performance, for impressive solo’s of Donald and Ralph, which were highly appreciated by the audience. The event in Burgerweeshuis was small but exquisite. It was absolutely worth it to come and meet a great band in such an intimate setting. We’re sorry if you missed this party, for it was so much fun and the Obituarians proved to be really nice guys, taking time to mingle with the audience after their show. The warming up for Obituary was done by the local Death metal band Toxocara, who did a really nice job. Toxocara plays quite a high level of death metal and does a good performance on stage. We expect to hear more from them in the near future. |
Sludge @ BaroegLast week was good news for the Dutch lovers of Louisiana sludge, for Crowbar played at three different venues in The Netherlands. We visited Kirk Windstein and his friends in Baroeg and were able to shoot a nice series of photo’s of the band. The good oldies were preceded by rising local talent, a.o. the Belgian sludge/ trance/hardcoreband Amenra and Greyline from Groningen. Amenra's show was very impressing, extremely dark -both the lyrics and the light conditions-, using video visuals and playing catching music. Greyline is a Dutch rock/metal band with a very melodic, swinging sound and tight rhythms, who just returned from a successful tour through Scotland, where they’d been promoting their new CD, Behind the Masquerade. |
Lamb of GodLast thursday, June 10, in the great new pop concert hall Metropool of Hengelo (NL) Lamb of God from Richmond, Virginia, USA, entered the fully packed Jupiler Stage where some eight hundred fans had gathered, enduring tropical temperatures and humidity to hear "true American Metal". In the photopit, already at the second song, I had to look for cover for Randy Blythe's sweat drops pouring off of his face. Like a Diesel engine, the band slowly started off with two songs from their new album Wrath, but within twenty minutes they exploded with energy that never stopped for the next five quarters of an hour when they played their big success songs like “Something to die for”and “Redneck”, from their previous albums Kiladelphia and Sacrament, mixed with new work from Wrath. Read further.. |
Amsterdam Tattoo Convention 2010The athmosphere was just great at the Tattoo Convention of June 4-6, 2010 in Amsterdam. Happy tattoo lovers gathered around the 100 (!) booths of tattoo artists from all over the world. We had come here to look at the art of the Nordic tattoo artists who are well known in the Black Metal scene and we met Carlos Aguilar of Blackshadows Tattoos from Uppsala, Sweden and Mikael and Alex from House of Pain in Stockholm, Sweden. Both shops are well known for tattooing a great many metal artists and their specific, black-and-grey styles are well known in the metal scene. Mr. Carlos has done people like the late Jon Nodtveidt (Dissection) , Helmuth of Belphegor and artists of the bands Dimmu Borgir, Morbid Angel, Destruction, Gorgoroth, Necrophobic, Dark Funeral, Legion of the Damned, Watain, Immortal, Krisiun…. Read further.. |
Metalfest Austria 2010The season of big outdoor metal festivals in Europe was opened last May 12-15 with Metalfest Austria. This annual metalfest (previously called SummerNights) is devoted mainly to black, death and pagan metal and therefore one of Metalphoto’s favorites. Held in a vast meadow, close to a castle and nature preserve, the location on the German-Austrian border in the town of Mining is excellent; not surprisingly this festival attracts a growing number of between five- and ten thousand metal heads from all over Europe. Despite the disappointing weather the atmosphere was excellent on this venue, which I think is the coolest and most layed back of all but the smallest of European metal festivals. This year the visitors were treated to three and a half days of continuous shows of renown bands on the two main stages, that were situated next to each other. Almost without having to move one could watch all major acts, with usually not more than 5 minutes of intervals. To us the highlights of the event were the performances of Bolt Thrower, Twilight of the Gods, Deicide and Marduk.On a third podium, in a tent, upcoming bands played and also attracted many listeners. We watched some good grind core there. We present reviews and photo series of each day, covering 30 bands and their audience. Dedicated, more comprehensive, photo reports on separate bands will follow later at this site so come back again.Read further.. |
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