The downside of the month had to be Padraich's hand injury, which is now recovering very well due to shock therapy and medication, but we weren't sure whether he would be able to make it to our gig on the 4th December alongside Volcanicore (more on that gig in a moment...).
We took the precaution of bringing in a stand in guitarist, a close friend of the band who played with us shortly in 2002 and has stuck by us throughout the years with advice, lugging gear and transport, Mr. Wilhelm Xavworth who had the set learnt in an amazing 2 weeks!
Padraich ended up playing the show anyway, showing us once again how METAL he is, you can tell the guy lives for being on that stage! We did however play a couple rehearsals beforehand with both guitarists together... and it sounds epic. It seems so right playing with them both, and I've never been happier with the overall sound of the songs. So, Vampyrouss will now officially be a 7 piece from today onward!
This new "guitar duo" sound has further taken us down the crunchy, doom laden path of UK Death/Doom acts of the 90's, but do not fear, we aren't going to standardize ourselves into the mould of any other Metal acts, the guitars are still rhythm based and won't interfere with the atmospheric style we have always had (and will always have) at the centre of our sound.
Onto the gig itself. Travel arrangements were tough once again, and we didn't get to soundcheck with the full band because of this, however we didn't sound too bad considering. The vocals were a problem, as is often the case in smaller venues, and the other band suffered with this problem too during their set, but thanks to the hard work of the sound guy we were all saved from too many problems!
Volcanicore are a live force, and should they be playing near you any time soon you should check them out! Very cool guys indeed. I spoke to their vocalist after the show and he revealed that he had only been doing the growling vocals since he joined the band and that he was normally a rock singer... incredible really, considering how brutal he sounded!
Our set was a little short, but we blasted through it, Christoph as eager and full of energy as ever driving us like a comet throughout the wintry December night! We debuted 2 tracks from the next album that we haven't played since 2007 (before we had live guitars and drums), so they were a little shaky compared to our usual selection of songs, but still contained our usual unrelenting force!
We should be swapping some songs from the set around next year, allowing us to air some of the other unplayed tracks from “A Dark Desire”. That's about all on the gig front, thanks to everyone for coming along to see us play this year! We have met some really great people with a passion for music that brings a swell to our cold dead hearts! We should be playing another gig with Volcanicore at The Inn On The Square in Barnstaple, but we haven't had anything confirmed yet, so we'll wait and see what happens!
So, until next time (around Merry Old Christmas I reckon...) keep rocking and thanks from all of us for the support, it's unstoppably encouraging!
Cheers,
- E.S.L. Kazraine Ruthven Maars -
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