Minsk (8/10)
Start 20:35 / End 21:20
Minsk formed in 2002 and despite of its name, the band comes from Peoria, Illinois, but it referred to the Belarusian city in honor to its history, several times burned to the ground and always rebuilt like a Phoenix from his ashes. Minsk has just released its new album “The Crash And The Dawn” on Relapse Records after six years and now is touring with Floor in Europe for the joy of every Post-Metal fan. Minsk didn’t disappoint the expectations and offered a powerful set of Psychedelic Metal, where Ambient, Hardcore Punk, Doom, Sludge And Post-Metal merged harmoniously together. As its trademark, most of the songs started slow and simple with synthesizer layers, to evolve then through tribal drum patterns in heavy complex structures, where the members sang alternating clean and ferociously screamed voices. The result was like a merciless tide that comes to you, rise up till your throat and let you without any possibility to escape: the only chance is to abandon yourself to it, let it come inside you and tear you apart to reach the final catharsis. A live experience that shouldn’t be missed.
Floor (8/10)
Start 21:40 / End 22:30
The history of the American band Floor is interesting indeed: formed in 1992, Floor split up in 2003 after the release of its self-titled debut album one year before. Floor came together again in 2010 for some shows and released its sophomore album “Oblation” last year on Season Of Mist after 12 years from its debut. During these years, while the guitarist Steve Brooks formed the band Torche (in about one month it plays live in Berlin), Floor reached a cult-following, thanks to its influential blend of Doom heaviness and power Pop melodies. The live show simply confirmed the quality of Floor, with its typical two droning detuned guitars that makes possible the bass guitar absence. Steve Brooks had the lead of the show, fully supported by Anthony Vialon and the drummer Henry Wilson, and all of them showed to enjoy playing again together, above all in Berlin, first time of their career. The audience acclaimed continuously the band, giving to Floor their full appreciation and they remained astonished and disappointed when Steve closed the set after about 50 minutes, putting his guitar in the suitcase. Really a pity to see such a show finish so early!
Venue: Cassiopeia
Price: 12,00€ at Stateless.limitedrun.com
Setlist: Floor
Berlin, 12.04.2015
Hey, nice article! I guess we were pretty close to each other. Just a side note, current Floor drummer is Henry Wilson, speaking of which I would suggest to check out his side projects Dove (such a masterpiece) and more recently House of Lightning. Cheers!
Thank you Borja! I´ve just corrected it and I´ll check his side projects too! Thanks for the suggestion
Glad that Berlin got to check out Floor. I live in Chicago and have been fortunate to see them several times since they became active again. Here’s hoping they will stay together so we can all have more Floor! And yes, Dove and House of Lightning are the shit! Three of the only good things to ever come out of Florida.