photo by Paul Verhagen, via Roadburn's website
Roadburn Festival is one of heavy music’s best kept secrets through no fault of its own. Each year, it draws several thousand people from all corners of the globe to sleepy Tilburg, Netherlands—for doom-leaning metalheads and stoner rock aficionados, it's better than Christmas. It'd be more hyped were it centered around any other type of music, but its experimental leanings make Roadburn a precious secret. Still, to its organizers, atmosphere is more important than exposure. It’s more than a festival, it is a close-knit community of thousands. It may sound flip to label it a sort of Mecca for heshers, but that’s exactly what it is: Roadburn is the Promised Land for those who follow the riff, a land of doom and hashish that keeps the good times rolling and the amps turned up to eleven.
This year’s lineup featured the usual mix of promising young bloods and legacy acts. Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth renown served as this year’s guest curator, and his well-documented love of prog rock more than made its mark on the bill. While the past few years have seen more extreme strains of metal creeping into the fest, Roadburn 2014 was a more mellow affair than usual. The big headliners were Candlemass (playing Ancient Dreams in its entirety), Loop, Triptykon, Crowbar, and of course Opeth. As is the case with any big festival, though, sometimes the most compelling acts are lurking on the second stage.
Thursday started off slow and nasty with North Carolina sludge lifers Sourvein, who warmed up the main stage crowd with easy greasy aplomb. French atmospheric black metallers Regarde Les Hommes Tomber battled for time-slot supremacy with 40 Watt Sun, the downtrodden current project of Patrick Walker (known best for his vocal contribution to cult UK doom outfit Warning) while upstairs in the Stage 01 venue, Brooklyn doomhaulers Hull cast out their demons and roared. In Het Patronaat, Samothrace hurled forth an immensely cathartic performance rife with plaintive melodies and Bryan Spinks’ gut-wrenching roar. This venue proved to be the jewel of the festival, as it later playing host to crushingly emotional sets from the likes of Conan, True Widow, and the resurrected monolith that is Graves At Sea.
The indoor stages turned up plenty of gold too. Napalm Death’s much ballyhooed special Roadburn-exclusive set turned out to be a mixed bag. The novelty of watching this iconic British grindcore band play at trudging near-industrial tempos soon wore off, and left many of us wishing they’d ditch the Godflesh routine and kick out some Scum jams. For what must’ve been the first time in their storied career, Napalm Death were faced with hecklers shouting, “Play faster!”—which says it all. New Orleans’ own Crowbar lumbered onstage soon after to rescue the mood and pump up the crowd with finely-aged classics like “All I Had I Gave”, helmed by a grinning Kirk Windstein. His beard may now be streaked with silver, but it’s impossible to argue with that commanding bellow. The room was far too packed to wriggle in for a closer look at the Great Old Ones, but the French band’s soaring progressive black metal atmospherics were worth soaking in from the very back. Day 1 closed out with Bong, those British masters of psychedelic no-tempo drone doom. The air was filled with smoke, but there wasn't a fog machines in sight...
Friday was heavy on the prog and stoner vibes, which gave me ample time to indulge in that other great Roadburn pastime: sampling plenty of tart, punchy kriek from the bar. This year’s lineup was fully stocked with American bands, many of whom were making their Roadburn debuts. The Body coated the main room in waves of strangled distortion. In Het Patronaat, Finnish funeral doom masters Tyranny slowly enveloped the building in evil and thoroughly exacerbated more than a few hangovers. Their crippled tempos left a grimy residue for experimental supergroup Corrections House to later revel in. Despite the lure of Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin freakout and Procession’s dyed-in-the-denim trad-doom stylings, Candlemass was Friday’s biggest draw, and for good reason. The Swedish greats put the “epic” back in epic doom, and a guest appearance from Primordial vocalist Alan Averill only added fuel to the fire started up by Leif Edling & Co. One last surprise for the day came from Terra Tenebrosa, a nightmarish black/doom hybrid that came clad in monstrous masks and brought a dark ritual atmosphere into the church, closing out the evening with a ghoulish flourish.
Saturday went by in a blur of low-slung riffs and mountains of amps thanks to the likes of 11Paranoias, Windhand, Obelyskkh and the reliably abrasive Indian. Oakland raiders Noothgrush brought sludge and thunder down upon the main stage far earlier than was even fair; these gods (and goddess) of nihilistic brutality were a huge highlight, and left the crowd ravenous for more. By now, Roadburn favorites Yob may as well claim their title as 013’s house band and be done with it; they seem to pop up every year. I’m not complaining, though, and neither was anyone else as this most affable of bands moved gracefully through an unexpected set of huge-sounding, ultra doomy new material. Across the hall, Inter Arma’s incendiary Green Room performance lit the world on fire.
Sunday is traditionally designated as a cool-down day—it ain’t called “the Afterburner” for nothing. Usually, the calm after the storm features tons of proggy, noodly bands to help mellow out the remaining hordes, but this time around, Roadburn threw us for a loop and loaded the lineup with some heavy hitters. Morne were a perfect choice to close out the evening with grit and gloom, while au courant Swiss death metal duo Bὄlzer were incredible, despite vocalist/guitarist KzR’s insistence that today “was not our fucking day.” Yob is the only band that could have followed such a brilliant appearance, and they more than delivered; there are few bands on this green earth that can rival Yob on a bad day, let alone a good one.
Tom G. Warrior’s gothy doom collective Triptykon played their first live gig on Roadburn’s main stage some four years ago, and it was only fitting they return to showcase a selection of new material from the upcoming sophomore album Melana Chasmata. The new songs sounded heavier than hell, but they got the greatest reaction when Tom reached deep into his back catalogue and pulled out a handful of stunning covers of classic favorites from the Celtic Frost and Hellhammer days (including stirring renditions of “Circle of the Tyrants” and “Messiah” that had the crowd roaring along with the diminutive giant). Moments like this are what make Roadburn great, and I almost feel guilty for spilling the beans on its treasures. Here's to the next generation of doomed pilgrims.
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