Solbrud at Blå, May 19th, 2016. Support: Chêne
The metal band Chêne from Oslo warms up the stage with elongated, heavy, dark, atmospheric songs. Their style fits well with that of the main band. This is Chêne’s first concert ever, and what a debut!
On stage they naturally seem a little shy, but they certainly know their stuff. The smoke is heavy and kind of sets the mood for the evening, which is still young, and some handfuls of spectators stands dreamingly and listens while drinking beer. Chêne shows that they have exactly the right kind of attitude as they leave the stage in full feedback.
Solbrud have since they started up in 2009, already released a demo and two albums. As a tribute to the analog format, they are now out with a cassette EP in limited edition; «Besat Af Mørke». This Danish black metal band is popular in the metal scene and has played at large festivals like Roskilde, Copenhell and was last year to look at our own Inferno Metal Festival.
The music of Solbrud is a bit of the kind that hums and goes beneath the surface with an even intensity and builds up and up without taking off completely, slowly dragging you into its heavy, beautiful and sad darkness. That way, it grabs a hold of you in a completely different way and keeps you like a storm under the skin. The songs are so long that they only get to play a few during the roughly hour long concert.
Solbrud starts right off with the song «Afbed» that settles as heavy massive atmospheric noise that plagues the senses. There are a lot of instrumental parts, the vocal is a hoarse, hissing growling that somehow settles beneath the music. The song «Klippemennesket» follows right after with a beautiful calm intro followed by «Besat Af Mørke». Solid amounts of smoke, backlight and incense underlines the mood. The strobes that sometimes cuts through are hurtful. It is so so with people in front of the stage at first, but eventually it becomes fairly full. The crowd stands a bit far away from the stage and is quite calm, they stand almost dreamingly and waving as trees, taken with the music. People are clapping after each song, almost a little solemn. «Besat Af Mørke”, this year’s cassette EP, is only to be heard live apart from on the release just mentioned. There is a storm of sound from the stage, pagan and rebellious, sung in Danish although it is not so easy to hear. The music gets even harder with the song «Sortedøden».
The music flows gradually into each other, it blends, almost like being underwater. The time you spend at the concert is like being in a world of moods where words are not so important. Vocalist Ole Luke does not speak with the audience in between songs, except when he, on behalf of the band says goodnight before the last song “Dødemandsbjerget”, perhaps the darkest and most captivating of them. The end of the show comes a bit sudden you might say. I certainly wouldn’t mind them playing a little bit longer.
-Tina-