Highest avant-garde tech death metal visit from Italy: the current genre kings Ad Nauseam occur under the When in Sodom-Jubilee edition in Bunker of the Vacuum on.
Although the line up of the in-house festival, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary, includes many great bands over two days (and the setting around Ad Nauseam with the really captivating Necrodeusthe brutal Kloppers erebos and the one that unfortunately doesn’t start until following midnight Demiurgon impressively demonstrated!) the focus at this point (primarily due to a lack of time preventing the detailed concert evening report) is solely on the band from Schio.
An exceptional position that is well deserved: After all, the exceptional quartet has following the brilliant debut Nothing But Emptiness Is Ordered with the instant masterpiece Imperative Imperceptible Impulse not only delivered the local album of the year 2021.
Especially with the euphoric fan glasses, however, it is simply irritating in front of what a really disappointingly manageable crowd Ad Nauseam appear as the penultimate act – especially since the bunker previously at Necrodeus was really well filled and also erebos large audience gathered.
Where this went before 11 p.m., instead of watching the two top-class Italian guests (at the possibly just too late hour?) remains open – and that in the potential catchment area of the two bands only a few fans might have noticed something regarding the performances in time, regarding it beyond pure conjecture.
Also Ad Nauseam himself would have expected more visitors, as guitarist and singer Andrea Petucco will admit following the almost 50-minute show, while he actually declares the performance of his band, who turned out to be quite likeable and approachable contemporaries, to be one of the worst in their history: serious sound problems (from which you as a listener only hear through a few rare hints of feedback, depending on where you are in the location also through the vocals that have turned out a little too quiet) would have made the guitar tracks on stage almost inaudible, which is why the band apparently sometimes over long stretches improvised by feel.
A circumstance that must have hurt the sound perfectionists – who subjectively, however, offer a fabulous perspective on the labyrinthine compositions and their conventional harmony habits attacking songs by Ad Nauseam releases: the spectacle of the numbers on the current record, which are not played entirely chronologically, connected by psychedelic ambient sound excursions, feels more intuitive and jazzy, precise as hell and yet more free-spirited, more intuitive, while the opening overtone chant from Inexorably Ousted Sente away from the mystical, shamanic side of the quartet, standing without exception in the red twilight, represents a latently more present facet.
There is no show, a few bows between the numbers and a final thank you before Human Interface to No God (as endless as it is much too short) in which noir jazz is caressed and blown are all interaction. But that fits: the music speaks for itself without distractions, is provided with perfect suspense even without an encore (although material from Nothing But Emptiness Is Ordered would like to feature prominently in the set list once more!) and an incredibly satisfying experience that also – and this is perhaps the most surprising finding of the evening! – is just a hell of a lot of fun live. So if that’s one of the weakest performances on this balmy February evening Ad Nauseam-History should have been….
The fact that the band is speculating regarding a tour starting next June is in any case already a euphoric prospect – but hopefully in front of a reasonable number of audiences.
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