To start the evening, Horrible came with unsettling background music on stage and a sinister tone in the venue due to the red spotlights and low brightness. Even though the band is fairly underground and only have 1 album released on 14 February 2024, the fan base was clearly there and came very early to wait for when they came on as the venue was full before the start. This extreme metal with powerful riffs and rancid screams created mosh pits from start to finish. Vocalist Deha, a man with little talk and very intense eye contact, gave the audience a terrifying feeling that draws you into his world. He was clearly respected by his fans when he started to mosh along himself and could get everyone to sing along with the chant ‘allies of satan’. Combine this with an outro that literally left everyone in pieces plus full fists in the air, and you get a successful opening act with everyone super curious to see if Coffin Feeder can top this! ‘We are horrible and so are you’ were the final phrases with an aggressive mic drop.

The headliner many people have been waiting for, Coffin Feeder, a collaboration with veterans of the metal scene from bands such as Aborted and Fleddy Melculy, came marching on stage with amazingly loud applause towards them. The crowd was capable of anything, with moments when I myself had to stand back a bit due to flying cups, mosh and circle pits that were too big for the club room and crowd surfers that just launched themselves at people without expectation of whether they would be caught. Before the show, they posted on their social media that they were going to smash the venue, and they clearly kept their promise. With songs from their latest full-length LP and also a mixture of their old songs from 2021 and other single releases, it was a well-balanced show for both new and old fans. The comic side, including Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions, from singer Sven de Caluwe provided calm throughout the songs, so the venue was not completely broken up. As a contrast to the previous act, this frontman is very social and communicates that his songs are about films he grew up with. This adds something original and provides comic relief throughout the show. As a 47-year-old man, he left everyone shocked at how boldly he could scream and perform. With him stealing the show even at the end when he crowd-surfed on a true Brussels classic (‘Anderlecht champion’ by Lange Jojo) you can say the evening was a true blast of brutal music and original sounds of both bands. Hardcore and metal genres are alive and well in Belgium!