Memento Mori Fest — 2
(Review at MetalFront)

Memento mori. Mind the death. The ancient Romans were wise enough to say those words. When being mature the man tends to save for the old age, and when reaching that very age he starts saving for the funeral of his own. The man turns out to have worked his whole life for the only purpose, i.e. to get prepared for the death. Sounds paradoxically, but we should admit there is a sort of logic in it. The people who organized Memento Mori Fest-2 on October 22, 2005 one more time decided to remind us about Her Majesty Death.

Nightside Glance started the night. Guys in corpsepaint, dressed in leather, with rivets and pins from head to toe (we can only conjecture how hot they were…), struck with the melodic black in Cradle-Of-Filth style. Though the soloist squawk was a bit lower than that of Deny. This was something like between half-scream and middle-scream. The female part of the audience (and me too, why should I fear saying that) devoured them with their eyes and forgot about time, and the male part was hesitating what they should do: either get down to sweeping the floor, meaning slamming and swinning their hair, or it was too early for the party to get started? Anyway, it was the thing the audience needed for warming up. However, there was something that spoilt the impression – I mean some parts reminded me of the Cradles, Dimmu Borgir and the kind. My ear has even managed to catch one riff sliding that was taken from the first album of Entwined. On the whole that was a peacockery, but a pretty one.

Then Like A Gossamer went on stage. The band is original enough if we speak about the style chosen, it's doom/progressive with a touch of death. They have made a good performance if we forget about several minor flops, but at the end of the performance the attempt to play a cover for Amorphis “Black Winter Day” spoilt absolutely everything. The sound operator showed himself as the most talented guy in this situation – he didn't connect (or maybe intentionally disconnected, who knows?) the second guitar.
When Favourite Mirror were playing there was no me in the hall, that is why I will have insolence to describe their style as psychedelic dark (quoted from the poster of the gig) and the comments of my people who stayed and listened to that stuff: “You know, that's fucking shit, or a kind of. Why did they allow this gothic electostuff to be played here?” and “Shit, that was cool! I didn't even imagine these mentalists can create something worth listening to!” End of quotation, you have a splendid chance to think yourself regarding the matter.

When Articulo Mortis were climbing the stage someone staying behind of me yelled right into the ear of mine trying to sound like growl, but sure with no success: “Kugel!”, and then, as soon the the called Kukel answered with a roar, he started swinging madly his hair all around and made enormous draught. No, no, I really do get everything the right way, it seems they are madly in love… When the guys were playing their second or third song the breakdown of the gig seemed to be approaching – the strings tend to break when they are exploited too intensively and zealously. But the One came and saved us from the fall, he lent his own guitar to the guitar-player of Articulo. Thus the band made the same performance as a year or two ago. They have changed almost nothing in themselves. So I can say nothing good and nothing really bad about the guys. That's what we usually have… We return to the point were we start without leaving it. They were listened to for many times, they have become the classic of the Belarusian metal stage of the last two years if we mean sympho-black style.
The appearance of Stormhold (melodic death from Gomel) was taken enthusiastically by the warmed-up audience. What we have really enough of here is death, but these guys have a nice trait – no composition was characterized by thoughtless cloning. They have a clear recognizable style of the band. It's a technical and professional band, you'll hear nothing negative about them from me. During the most of their performance I was sitting on the stage edge and candidly enjoying their music, as well as the vigorous growl and a bit not polished scream of the band frontman. The guys played better than at Metal Dazhynki 2005 where I saw them last time.

Infestum. Many people waited for them to appear. For two years and a half. And finally they have come – the perfected scream of Èîíà glided as the razorblade across the nervous system, the drums kept time with the heartbeating, and this made us feel tingles down the spines… Between the songs, like before, Èîí was scream-telling the audience about Good and Evil, Life and Death. The mad glance of pupils widened was rushing about the hall – this looked painfully genuine and extremely effective. Once again the strings didn't keep the strain… The kind Samaritans-guitar-players seemed to be over that is why Infestum left and didn't play what was planned till the logical end.

The headliners were Chordewa from Moldavia. Atmospheric black with the elements of progressive. I guess the organizers planned to finish the gig the way it was started. Anyway they have almost succeeded, if it were not for Chordew female voice – that was absolutely out of place. On the whole the guys made a cool show.
I hope that Memento Mori-3 (it is rumoured that it is to be continued) will turn out to be no worse that Memento Mori Part 2.

CAESARA

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