Band overview :

Inhatred + The A.R.R.S. + Manimal + Scar Symmetry + One Man Army And The Undead Tree + Blockheads + The Old Dead Tree + Sikth + Dagoba + Gojira + Amorphis + Soilwork + Hypocrisy + Mayhem + Moonspell

Unbelievable, a festival with such great bands, not too expensive quite near me?!

That was my first thought when I read the billing of this festival - as (good) festivals are pretty rare in France.

The Metal-Therapy festival is the second biggest festival in France nowadays, as there's no Fury Festival anymore. Metal from 11 o'clock in the morning till 2 o'clock in the night, 15 bands and 15 hours of Metal, a Metal-Marathon so to say. Together with an entrance-fee of only 39 € for such more or less well-known bands in advance sale it's definitely value for money.

Facing some line-up problems before, the organizer had to replace two bands : Hate Eternal (who had cancelled their European tour already for the third time!) and Impaled Nazarene (who werenīt allowed to play, because of some protests of the French catholic organisation AGRIF). Instead One Man Army And The Undead Quartet and Scar Symmetry were added to the billing, a worthy replacement.

Arriving just in time, the usual entrance procedure went quite fast. So the first band got on stage, when we arrived in the Galaxie hall. The whole concert was organised pretty well and all bands played nearly in time without bigger delays. No encore (unfortunately), but therefore always only fiveteen minutes of changeover and no delays.

Outside the concert hall, but still in the building were some food and beverage booths with waffles, sandwiches, pizza e.g., as well as sales booths were you could easily spent lots of money on CDs, patches, shirts and other metal related articles. Nice alternation when you didnīt want to see a band or just needed a rest. The prices of food and beverages were ok, especially for a festival. You canīt complain about 2,50 € for a beer (0,33) or 3 € for a bigger pice of pizza.

But inside the hall there was also enough entertainment during changeover. There were two huge screens on both sides of the stage were they showed the running order and 10 new episodes of Happy Tree Friends that havenīt been released so far. It was indeed funny to see lots of metalheads running to the screen to watch the next episode during every pause or hearing them singing this silly song.(those of you, who now the Happy Tree Friends understand what Iīm talking about ;-)). A little bit later there were a few air-guitar contests, in addition to this comic series, on a smaller stage just besides the mainstage. Needless to say, that with an ascending alcohol consumption also the air-guitar presentations got more well... interesting or even weird. Most played song mustīve been "The Trooper" and "Roots, Bloody Roots". Nothing spectacular but great for the competitors to make a good show with their imaginative guitars.

So all in all it was truely hard to get bored at this festival even with no band playing.

Perhaps also interesting to mention, that there was the opportunity to sit down at the tiers in the back of the hall. So you could have a little rest without missing a band. After a few bands had played the tiers became pretty crowded and it should stay like this for the rest of the day.

But letīs start with the different bands now :

Inhatred

So Inhatred, a french Metalcore band were the first ones to enter the stage that morning. Afore I had some doubts, as Iīm not really into Metalcore, but Inhatred acquited themselves quite respectable.

Although their music was powerful there were no greater reactions from the audience. One reason might have been that lots of people were still outside when they played and the other the sleepy people I mentioned before. But after only twenty minutes time was over for the "awaking"band of the day.

The A.R.R.S

Manimal

My first impression was like: "What the heck is this?!", whereas the reaction of a friend was just: "Weird!". Not only the music, but also the vocals were strange. Sometimes it sounded like the vocalist couldnīt decide whether he should shout, scream, use clear vocals, grunts or sound like a little child that was snivelling. Once I got used to it - after two songs or so - I even liked it somehow, it was interesting and different from "normal" Metalbands.

So how should I describe this music to someone, who never heard of them? Difficult, very difficult. On their page they say "Faith No More mixed up with Cannibal Corpse". So perhaps now you understand what I meant by "difficult to describe".

But donīt be scared, theyīre worth to be checked out! And Iīm pretty sure they won some new fans with their gig at Metal-Therapy.

Scar Symmetry

With their first song Christian Älvestam (voc) already resolved all doubts. It was just brilliant with lots of energy and a great mixture of songs. I was especially happy about "Reborn", that song is a catchy tune and the audience finally seemed to wake up! They also played songs from the upcoming album 'Pitchblack Progress', which indeed sound pretty promising and were gladly appreciated by the people. So they convinced the crowd with ease of their Swedish Death Metal. Letīs hope theyīre going to play on many more festivals this summer, as their new album is surely going to be a great success!

One Man Army And The Undead Quartet

So the Death Trashers were the replacement for Impaled Nazarene and by commiting them to the billing all the bands, that were also playing at the German Fuck Easter Festivals were playing here in France. Once they entered the stage moshpits started again and it seemed the audience was completely awake... after 4 bands, finally! At the latest when they played the bonustrack from their debutalbum "So Grim, So True, So Real" everyone was in high spirits.

I must admit that I didnīt like this bands very much before, as I had seen them already in January. But it must have been the bad sound, as I liked them much more at the Metal Therapy festival. The band had lots of fun on stage and so did the people in the audience.

Blockheads

The Old Dead Tree

So The Old Dead Tree played a set that left nearly nothing to be desired, "nearly" because they didnīt play one of their best songs "It Canīt Be". But appart from that, they showed that their music is live even more intensive than on CD. The main focus was laid on their latest album 'Perpetual Motion'. Songs like "We Cry As One" were acclaimed as well as "Unrelenting", "So It Be" or "If".

Together with Scar Symmetry the best band of the day (so far!).

Sikth

Although Sikth were Prog as well as The Old Dead Tree, they were completly different.Two vocalists and a talented instrumental fraction, who were complementing one another really well.

At first sight youīd never believe that Sikth play some kind of Progmetal, one vocalist wouldīve optically more fitted in a Metalcore band and the other one better to a band like Sepultura.

I must admit that I only heard one song before their gig, which made me quite sceptical, as it sounded weird and confusing and I had doubts, whether this music would work live. But this strange music worked amazingly well on stage. Some vocals even reminded me of Cryptopsy, a lot of shouting, clear vocals, quite complex rhythms and breaks. Typically Prog but yet so different. In some songs I even heard a bit of Strapping Young Lad ("The Bland Street Bloom"). Just listen to this song and you know what I mean. I havenīt heard a song in the last time with so many different elements . Iīd say that there was so much diversification in one single five-minute-song as other bands donīt even have on a whole CD. No easy listening, especially when your ears arenīt used to this kind of music, but very interesting once you got used to it!

Dagoba

To say it forthwith, they were THE surprise of the day for me and probably many others. I had already heard of them, but hadnīt expect them to be SO good.

In a promotext it said "Young, talented and hungry : What other words could better describe the four members of Dagoba? Furious maybe. [...]" and I just thought "Yes, thatīs the normal promo chitchat." But in this case it was so damn true.

Dagoba came on stage and from the first note on the audience went off the rails. (this was surely the band were it was also hardest to take pics, as I was pushed against the ceiling all the time).

Their music canīt be described with just one buzzword, as they took different elements of the bands they grew up with, such as Pantera, Machine Head and Fear Factory as well as some Blackmetal, and created something new with a high penetrating power. Iīd say there were also driving elements of bands like Sepultura or Ill Nino in their music.

Shawter (voc) truly had the audience on toast and he just had to do little circles with his hand and immediatly there was a circle pit going on.

Most people seemed to know the lyrics of hits like The Man Youīre Not or The Things Within (what a refrain!) by heart. The guy just beside me e.g., was screaming his lungs out during the concert. If you should ever get a chance to see them life, do so!

Gojira

I expected nothing else from a band with such a name (which is actually the japanese version of "Godzilla" and the former moniker of Gojira, when they started their carreer). So they really acted Godzilla like during their gig, smashing and crushing everything with their heavy, heavy riffs and driving drums and guitars. Songs from their 'Terra Incognita' album were played as well, as some from their latest one 'From Mars to Sirius'. Very intensive and this gig convinced me to buy some more CDs of this talented band.

Amorphis

After the second song they went on with songs from former albums and I was getting excited how the songs from a great album like 'Tales From A Thousand Lakes' were going to sound like. So after Against Widows from the Elegy album it was time for In The Beginning from Tales From A Thousand Lakes. Perfect, just perfect! If I hadnīt already been sure that the new vocalist was probably one of the best choices Amorphis could've made, I would've been after this song. There was no weak song during their whole set, which contained two more songs from the actual album as well as two more from the Tuonela album. Inbetween they played Signs From The North Side from the Karelian Isthmus album and their gig was ended and topped off with Castaway from the Thousand Lakes album.

Setlist :

Perkele
House Of Sleep
Against Widows
In the Beginning
The Way
Under Soil And Black Stone
Signs From The North Side
The Smoke
Alone ? (I didnīt get this one... I think it was from Am Universum)
The Castaway

Soilwork

Hypocrisy

After this energetic gig I was wondering whether Hypocrisy could keep that level.

But no problem for Peter "Jack-of-all-trades" Tägtgren and his band. Once again Swedish Metal, even harder than Soilwork and once again a great gig, the fifth or sixth time Hypocrisy for me and I'm still not bored. I haven't seen a bad Hypocrisy gig, I guess Mr Tägtgren just can't do any bad ones.

The setlist was a good mixture of older and newer songs, as usual. Songs like Warpath from their latest output Virus or of course the great Fire In The Sky from Into The Abyss. The nearly obligatory renaming of Roswell 47 into something else, was of course made. At first he annouced the song as "France 47" and later on he sang "Amnéville 47". I think I haven't seen a Hypocrisy show, were he didn't do it.

So overall the temper was perhaps a bit lower than it was during Soilwork's gig, but it was nevertheless great. Thumbs up for a wonted solid gig!

Mayhem

One hour of severe Blackmetal coldness, a lot of raised horns and a somehow diabolical atmosphere. This gig must've been interesting even for those people, who normally don't listen to Blackmetal.

Moonspell

Fernando Ribeiro is just a very charismatic musician. He enters stage, starts singing and leaves you breathless. One and a half hours Moonspell, one and a half hours journey through the different records of their bandhistory. Great songs from their EP from 1994 Under The Moonspell and Antidote from The Antidote album were played as well as Finisterra from their (soon) upcoming new album Memorial. A lot of people were screaming for Vampiria (Wolfheart), probably one of their best known songs and so they should get it of course.

Although it was nearly 2 oīclock in the night and most people were already there since 11 oīclock in the morning Moonspell were able to enthuse people with ease.

Granted I was a bit tired, but I was adrenalised enough to enjoy the gig, like the rest of the audience. There were less people, than before, but still enough to fill the hall.

To end this admittedly long live-review, what could be better than a nice quote ?! So I'll end with a very nice comment of Fernando Ribeiro who was announcing a song from the Under The Moonspell EP : "Now we go back to an old album, it's from the year 1994. And you know what?! That was a lucky time for us... there was no Metalcore!"

And you know what? In a way he was damn right, although the 2 Metalcore bands, that were playing in the morning clearly showed me that there's also some good Metalcore out there!

Overall I got a very positive impression of this festival despite some rough securities. (ever saw, that people got pushed back into the crowd?) and too short gigs from the first bands (20 minutes or half an hour is way to short!). So next year perhaps less bands and longer playing times. But I guess such short gigs are great for some more or less unknown bands to present themselves in front of a larger audience.

So it's quite sure that Iīm going back there in the next year when there's again such a great billing and it says :

One Day - One Disease - A Single Therapy !

Metal-Therapy!