The Pain Machinery
The Pain Machinery
Sturm Café
Severe Illusion
Aslan Faction
Aslan Faction
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More than a party - 2004
”Det svarta staketet” arranged the mini-festival ”More than a party” on Easter Sunday at Fredmans in Uppsala, Sweden. The line-up consisted of four interesting industrial/EBM acts, Aslan Faction (UK), The Pain Machinery (Swe), Severe Illusion (Swe) and Sturm Café (Swe). The arrangement also included two dance floors. I’d seen the three Swedish bands on other occasions and knew that each could deliver a great performance and I was eager to learn about Aslan Faction.
First out was Anders Karlsson’s one-man band The Pain Machinery, but with the live set of today were he turn knobs and are companioned by drumpads and vocals. A maybe strange choice of the organisers to pick as a starting-band, but the crowd was there so it was a right move to do in retrospect. The Pain Machinery delivered hard as steel industrial noise EBM with a razorblade sharp sound. The soundscape was energic and pumping with industrial elements and lots of delay and distortion on the vocals. With all that smoke, Jonas Hedberg’s great stage presence (and off-stage for that matter too, he was down in the crowd a couple of times singing/screaming) and the sounds, it was the best live performance I’ve seen with The Pain Machinery, and then, I haven’t seen any bad yet.
Sturm Café followed up with their old school EBM. They were the only act that haven’t released any album (that is about to change though), but still many of their songs are almost cult. With vocals, keyboard/mixer and graphical control, the three guys started up a bit nervously. However only for a short while, after the first song, the singer Jonathan started to move and soon enough he owned the stage. Sturm Café’s music can be described in a simple way as hard beats with single bass-lines a´la early Nitzer Ebb and DAF. Just like the mentioned bands, Sturm Café are a lot of intensity and sweat and combines that with a huge portion of humour in a playful naïve way. The band managed to keep the audience’s attention throughout the concert. They had some problem with an overheated projector that kept switching on and off (or maybe Philips sponsored them? ;) ), but that didn’t seem to bother them. The climax in my opinion was “Die Zombiejäger”, a song that by the way is going to be soundtrack in a forthcoming movie with the same title. If you have the chance, try to see the band at Arvikafestivalen this summer.
The third band up was Severe Illusion. It was an orgy in monotone industrial EBM and strobe light. Their line-up for this evening was vocals, bass-guitar, drumpads and weird rhythmic section (a type writer among other things). Fredrik Djurfeldt’s fiend-like appearance and his heavily distorted voice made an impression. What The Pain Machinery delivered with razor sharp sound, Severe Illusion met with punk. The punk attitude has become somewhat of a trademark for Severe Illusion and is not at all something bad, but this evening the punk got enhanced with a lot of beer that resulted in some misplaced arhythmical sounds and beats (a proof that it really was live!). Maybe they are a band that should perform early at this kind of occasion, but on the other hand I wouldn’t want to see them without the punk attitude.
The last band to enter the stage was Aslan Faction. Two heavy guys pumping heavy beats. Even a broken microphone cable couldn’t stop them, they just continued. The cable got replaced after a song or two and Anthony Mather on vocals could do the performance justice. After a while the pumping got tiresome and a lot of people took refuge at the upper dance floor except for a devoted core. I think that Aslan Faction would gain more if they could vary the show with some slower songs or with change of instruments (Lee Lauer played drumpads the whole set). Anthony is a great performer, but isn’t enough if your not a hardcore fan.
To sum up the whole, it was a great night both all the live performances and the club. One common thing that lifted the live experiences was that each band has a singer that fills the stage and gives everything he has to please the crowd.
/Robert Eklind
The photos are shown courtesy of Diktator. Here you'll find more photos from the concert.
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