Live review: Inferum and Depths of Kronos at Willemeen, Arnhem, The Netherlands, September 7th, 2018

Inferum, five young guys studying at the Metal Factory, doesn’t exist that long yet. However, despite their pretty short existence as a band, they won the Dutch Metal Battle and the Dutch Wacken Metal Battle in 2017, resulting in them performing at Wacken Open Air. On August 18th, 2017, they released their debut EP called Modern Massacre. To celebrate the 1 year anniversary of this EP Inferum plays a few Modern Massacre anniversary shows, one of those being on September 7th in the café of Willemeen.

Of course, tonight there is also a support act who will try to get the audience in the right mood for Inferum’s show. This first band of the night is Depths of Kronos, consisting of vocalist Tijn Bosters, guitarist-duo Mat van Baest/Sietse Schoenmakers, bass player Axel Kruithof and drummer Tom Verstappen.

Half an hour after the doors of Willemeen opened the café is already quite busy, while Depths of Kronos should start their show any moment now. Immediately when Depths of Kronos played their first notes it is pretty clear that this will be a very heavy evening. The sound is good right from the beginning, it’s pretty loud too and Depths of Kronos’ music thunders through the café. Instrumentally Depths of Kronos is solid as a rock. That Axel Kruithof’s bass unplugged during the first song or Sietse Schoenmakers’ guitar has a broken string a while later, doesn’t really make a difference and it seems like everybody forgot this at the end of their show.

Due to the very small stage and Depths of Kronos being with five members, it’s pretty busy on the stage. When guitarist Sietse Schoenmakers left the stage to replace his broken string, there was an empty space on stage. Bass player Axel Kruithof immediately saw this and temporarily took over this position on the stage. Of course this is logical, because he had more space this way, but this also shows that he really has a good eye for stage presence.

Speaking of stage presence,  everyone in Depths of Kronos has a great eye for it, but especially vocalist Tijn Bosters. He clearly gives all he can and shows he really feels his music very deeply. When the stage gets too small for him, he just leaves it to sing in the audience. However when he talks to the audience in between songs his Brabant’s accent strongly contrasts his intense vocals.

Besides all this, Depths of Kronos also shows to have much fun during their show. This, combined with their very energetic, heavy show results in a very great mood among the audience. Depths of Kronos delivers a very nice show to warm up the venue for Inferum, also resulting in a few moshpits and many banging heads in a pretty packed café. I rarely saw such an energetic and nice band as first band of the evening!

After Depths of Kronos’ show and half an hour of changing the stage it was time for vocalist Morrison de Boer, guitar-duo Lars Deelman/Ozzy Voskuilen, bass player Stan Albers and drummer Wouter Macare, together being Inferum, to enter the stage for their Arnhem Modern Massacre anniversary show. With the heavy and intense kick-off of their show it is pretty clear that this is going to be heavy as fuck. Looking back at this, it was the perfect intro for a perfect show.

Pretty soon after this intro the mechanic-sounding death metal of Inferum is roaring through the café. This mechanic sound is especially coming from the very nice drums and guitars. Instrumentally Inferum sounds very tight and awesome. Add Morrison de Boer’s very roaring vocals to that and you will have the perfect recipe for a phenomenal show. And delivering a phenomenal show is exactly what Inferum does tonight! The lights and, at some moments, smoke-machine are perfectly adjusted to Inferum’s music and also add something extra to the already perfect show.

This band sounds and performs like they have been doing this for a very long time. The fact that they won the Metal Battle in 2017 clearly didn’t surprise me and after tonight I totally understand this.

This was my first time seeing an Inferum show, but this will definitely not be the last time. What a show, a complete experience that you shouldn’t miss! Inferum plays a very tight, all-crushing show resulting in an audience getting completely crazy. Very well done!

Sitting in the train going back home I look back at the show: this for sure was a very awesome, all-crushing evening and it’s a miracle Willemeen isn’t destroyed by this. Both Depths of Kronos and Inferum delivered a very nice show and I for sure hope to see both bands again soon! Also a huge compliment to Dawn Cox for setting up this great evening in Willemeen, great job!

Here you can also read a part of Promoting Bands in which Inferum was mentioned.

Inferum Official Website
Inferum Facebook
Inferum Twitter
Depths of Kronos Facebook

2 Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.