In The Woods, Saturnus & The Foreshadowing @ Willem Twee
28.10.23 Den Bosch, Willem Twee, Netherlands
With the Norwegians In The Woods, the Danes Saturnus and The Foreshadowing from Italy, a full dose of doom metal on tour through Europe are of course not to be missed. This opinion was probably shared by many other metal fans and the “Willem Twee” in Den Bosch filled up accordingly when The Foreshadowing from Rome opened their set with “Havoc”. With a crystal-clear and extremely powerful sound, the Italians encouraged the audience to join in and immediately had the fans on their side. They concentrated mainly on material from the magnificent album “Second World” (2012) and singer Marco skilfully used his deep and penetrating vocals to round off the powerful and melodic sound of The Foreshadowing. The Italians were convincing across the board and it didn’t matter that the bass tracks came from tape. With “Departure” and “The Dawning”, The Foreshadowing also presented material from older albums and, after almost an hour of playing time, truly deserved the huge applause they earbed from the Dutch audience for this convincing performance!!!
Setlist The Foreshadowing
Intro
Havoc
Memento
The Forsaken Son
Hope. She´s In The Water
Second World
Departure
The Dawning
The stage was now set up for the Norwegians In The Woods, who had swapped the headlining position with Saturnus this evening. After the successful performance of The Foreshadowing, the fans were now really in the mood and In The Woods were able to maintain this level right from the start. They opened their set in impressive style with “Heart Of The Ages”. Bernt Fjellestad is an exceptionally good singer, who also performed the band’s older compositions faithfully and endeavoured to maintain constant contact with the audience. In general, you could tell that the Norwegians were having fun and presented their songs with almost playful ease. The audience thanked the band with lots of applause.
In addition to the material from the current longplayer “Diversum”, the focus was primarily on older releases such as “Omnio”, “Heart Of The Ages” and “Cease The Day”. The setlist was therefore peppered with song material from almost the entire band history. In The Woods are clearly committed to their musical roots and the variation between “Diversum” and the old releases suits the band very well. It will be interesting to see what the future holds. In any case, In The Woods delivered a strong performance and received another very enthusiastic response from the audience for the black metal-influenced closing number “….in the Woods”. Very good gig from those guys around Bernt Fjellestad!
Setlist In the Woods
Heart of the Ages.
We Sinful Converge.
The Coward’s Way.
Empty Streets.
Yearning the Seeds of a New Dimension.
A Wonderful Crisis.
299 796 km/s.
…in the Woods
The audience was now more than pumped up for Saturnus’ performance and after a short changeover, the Danes took to the stage. The extremely melodic and melancholic doom songs unfolded their effect from the very first second and the intensity of Saturnus’ compositions is truly immense. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t escape it. The Danes immediately had the crowd on their side and frontman Thomas Akim Grønbæk Jensen impressed with his ultra-deep growls. He was also very easy-going in his dialogue with the audience and always found the right words to say. Saturnus have already undergone many personnel changes in their long band history and it is to be hoped that the current line-up will stay together, so brilliant was the interaction of the whole band.
The Dutch audience cheered to every song and it was noticeable how the band and fans formed a unit and almost merged together. This calm composition style, which is unusual even by doom metal standards, is a high degree of art and a special component of Saturnus’ songwriting. The two new guitarists Julio Fernandez (rhythm guitar) and Indee Rehal-Sagoo (lead guitar) set special accents with their unique playing. In general, Saturnus were very animated throughout the entire performance, headbanging as if there was no tomorrow. Every song had its very own effect and the smouldering gloom was especially evident towards the end of the set in “I Long”, which was dedicated to a deceased friend. Simply brutally beautiful!
Saturnus ended a very good performance with the very catchy “Murky Waters” and were once again rewarded with a lot of applause. Hats off to the likeable Danes !!!
Setlist Saturnus
The Storm Within
Empty Handed
Closing the Circle
A Fathers Providence
Breathe New Life
Forest Of Insomnia
Truth
The Calling
I Long
Murky Waters (Encore)
Conclusion:
It was an all-round successful evening. Starting with the very nice, spacious location, which was also very well attended, and the friendly staff, a great gig with 3 brilliant bands who impressed all along the line. Special thanks go to the sound people, who did an excellent job.
The bands were also very open and all the musicians could be seen at the merchandise stand after their shows. This trip to Holland was more than worth it!
Text & Fotos Hanzi Herrmann
