First up is the Dutch band On All Fours. A bit of a weird moniker, and just to be clear I saw nobody crawling around like a dog on or off stage. Funny banter aside, tonight’s gig started out with some moody Dead Can Dance-like intro before this local band from Puurs took the stage. Centerpoint is vocalist Klaartje Keppens whose timbre reminded me a bit of Messa’s frontwoman. Occasionally, she was joined in by her male compatriot who had a more than convincing icy shriek. Riff-wise we’re treading slowly in doom territory mostly although the second half of their set had a bit more of a black metal vibe to it. To my surprise one of the guys pulled out a trumpet for some segments which worked remarkably well with the atmospheric set. They’re quite a new band with no official releases under their belt just yet, but judging by the handful of songs they showcased for us, this is an outfit we will be revisiting in the future. Alongside Splendidula we’re really getting a solid base of female-fronted doom bands here on our local shores.

Another Dutch band took the stage next: incidentally, The Monolith Death Cult has taken a somewhat similar stylistic journey as the Swiss headliners. On their first records, which came out around two decades ago they were playing a particular brutal strand of technical death metal which they gradually infused with more industrial and electronic elements as their discography grew. Their last album dates from 2024 in the form of ‘The Demon Who Makes Trophies of Men’ which was the final arc of a trilogy. Tonight’s performance was a blistering set that raged through a lot of their latter material although they did make one or two throwbacks to their earliest years. Not to shy to throw in a few jokes in between songs we got a relentless, uncompromising set that held a middle ground between Morbid Angel and Ministry. By no means are these easy-to-listen-to songs, you’ll need to go to Arch Enemy for that. But for the merciless delivery of razor-sharp death metal and surgical strike drumming, tune in to Monolith television now.

It’s been some time since Samael played in these parts, their latest album ‘Hegemony’ going back all the way to 2017. Since then they’ve revisited and celebrated some of their longtime classics like ‘ Ceremony of Opposites’ or ‘Passage’ , but it looks like new works are really underway. Tonight’s set reflected the celebrating of both old and new. They brought the house down immediately with a pumping version of ‘Rain’. They went back even further in time with heads with blackened headbanger ‘Son of Earth’, followed up by ‘Jupiterian Vibe’. Alongside Mysticum, Samael was a pioneer in taking black metal to unknown industrial regions in the early nineties, and this will always be regarded by many as their golden period, but rather than rehashing that formula for the next two decades, they always evolved. In their case into a much more electronic, EBM goth-style direction over the next ten years. They hinted at this period shortly midway through their set, Vorph even putting the guitar aside for a few songs, before playing some new material in the form of ‘Hail to the Sun’, maybe not the ideal summer hit on the beaches of Ibiza, so they just called for the horns on fan favourite ‘Baphomet’s Throne’ instead. Fantastic to see this pioneering band from the nineties still holding their own in 2026.