I had only heard of Cleveland’s ETERNAL LEGACY by name, but I wasn’t familiar with their musical legacy (a 6-song EP and a couple of compilation appearances) to date. The band had been picked up by Auburn Records in the meantime, and their The Coming Of The Tempest debut full-length CD was released to coincide with this, their first ever European appearance. As I’ve enjoyed all bands on Auburn thus far, I wasn’t exactly worried that I wouldn’t enjoy ETERNAL LEGACY’s set. I was a little surprised to find out that the band’s material wasn’t only in the epic metal vein, but also pretty progressive. At least during the first four songs : Rise Of Daemon, Realm Of Wind And Ice, Time Out Of Mind and Cyberplague. All well above the 5’ mark, and including some interesting keyboard parts courtesy of classically trained 14-year (!) old Spencer Phillips. For the last three songs a change was in order : vocalist/guitarist Jason Vanek concentrated on the vocals only from Fires Wrath onwards. And for the last two songs (Metal Anvil and Shadow Of Revolution) bassist Josh Gatka became the second guitarist and Spencer became the bassist. All of this to enable the band to play some of their more metallic material as well. I can’t help but wonder which direction ETERNAL LEGACY will head for on future releases, but my first impression was more than positive.

I remember that California’s KAOS were already doing the rounds in the late 1980’s. In fact, I must have one of their demos somewhere in the attic… But I never really became interested in them back then. I know the band released two CD’s in 2000 (Vision Beyond) and 2003 (Kaos Among Us). A 2007 demo (Sludge) was available at the festival, and a new CD is said to be in the works. So far for the history bit, let’s move over to the present. The only familiar face in KAOS’ line-up for me was guitarist Keven Albert, son of the late killer vocalist Carl Albert. Vocalist Jason Darnell made quite an impression as well, turning out to be some kind of maniac on stage. Too bad that his vocals are the reason for me not liking this band. Jason’s vocals are more in the hardcore vein, while the music is more thrash orientated. It’s just not the kind of stuff (vocals) that I enjoy most … It just goes to show that not all bands from the Bay Area in the late 1980’s were in the vein of FORBIDDEN EVIL, LEGACY, EXODUS, … And maybe that’s just why KAOS never became such a household name either. Some people did enjoy KAOS however, judging by the small moshpit during Screaming In The Mirror. Although KAOS were only on stage for 8 songs (40’) it just wasn’t my thing …

And the oscar for having to travel the longest distance to reach the Metal Garden goes to … Australia’s RAVEN BLACK NIGHT. The band released their Choose The Dark CD a couple of years ago already, and it left me with mixed feelings. I definitely do enjoy most of the band’s epic doom related metal, but I’m put off by the inclusion of deathlike vocals on some occasions. Of course there was no way around this today. The clean vocals of guitarist Jim Petkoff I enjoy all of the time, while I could hardly care less for those provided by the drummer. Hey, you win some, you lose some … Musically RAVEN BLACK NIGHT managed to convince me all the way. If only they would get rid of those ‘inferior’ vocals, and go for a total epic approach … Allow me to dream on for another while …

Another band that I was totally unfamiliar with (except for their bandname) was Italy’s KALEDON. The reason why I never bothered to check this band out is that I pretty much knew what kind of league they’re in : the typical (one-dimensional) melodic power / symphonic metal vein, also known as Hollywood metal. Being a sextet, including the obligatory keyboards of course, the band’s playing ability was excellent, but their music did less than nothing to me. And obviously I wasn’t the only one in this case, as there was hardly anyone upfront, resulting in no ambiance at all. Probably just another case of being heralded to the max in Italy, but hardly anywhere else.

A band that I was expecting a lot more from was BEYOND FALLEN, a quintet that originated out of Pennsylvania in 2003. I was indeed familiar with the band’s 2004 selftitled mCD, as well as full-length follow-up Lost In The Shadows (2005). I somehow failed to get a copy of their recently released Mindfire CD (on Holland’s newly formed Melissa Records) prior to today. Thus being unfamilar with half of the band’s repertoire performed today. Indeed, five songs off Mindfire (six if you include the remake of 2004’s Bomb Inside Your Head) were displayed here : Blood On The Ice, Enemy Of An Open Mind, Fields Of Honor, Mindfire and Sniper. All clearly indicative of the fact that BEYOND FALLEN has improved their style once again. What a tight entity this band turned out to be. And what an expressive vocalist Joe Karavis is. Not the most metal looking vocalist around, but what a voice and overall stage presence. The band felt to be ‘on sacred ground’ and were obviously glad to be in Germany for the first time, that’s for sure. Anyhow, Lost In The Shadows was of course represented as well, by means of the titletrack, Fuel The Fire, Mask Of Deception and the inevitable encore The Rise Of The Fallen. Joe summed things up well at the very end : ‘The best (show) we had, ever’. And I couldn’t agree more, as BEYOND FALLEN’s 50’+ set marked my first absolute highlight of the day!

Hamburg’s PARAGON were up next. You could easily call them the in-house band, as they already made their mark here five times before. The last time was in 2003, so it wasn’t surprising at all that PARAGON would be present during this 10th anniversary edition. A couple of years ago I considered PARAGON to be one of my favourite German bands. In the meantime I more or less lost track of what they’ve been up to, as far as releases goes. And I sort of have lost interest in the band altogether as well, as they fail to progress. They simply just continue to rehash their older material, one way or another. Reason for me not to be so enthusiastic any longer … Besides the band parted ways with longtime bassist Jan a while ago, and by the looks of it they had a new drummer as well. After a couple of songs (necessary to take the obligatory pictures) it was thus time to move to the nearby eating area, in order to re-enforce ourselves. By the sounds of it PARAGON made this a best of performance, most likely covering all of their releases so far, including the likes of Warriors Of Ice, Dragon’s Flight, Legions Of Metal, Reign Of Fear, Thunderstorm, Army Of The Tyrants, Across The Wastelands, Breaking Glass, Impaler and a few more, the titles of which escape me right now. They even threw in their version of MANOWAR’s The Gods Made Heavy Metal at the end. Needless to say PARAGON went down a storm with their local audience. As for me, I was totally ready for the next band on the bill.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying that WARNING SF is my alltime fave Bay Area band (nobody will ever come even close to the mighty ANVIL CHORUS!!!), but at least they always did come up with more original and interesting stuff. This band first emerged onto the scene (as WARNING) in 1982, then vanished again a handful of years later already. Only to be resurrected in 2002, which spawned the release of the Aftermath CD. Which included a selection of mid 1980’s songs, as well as some re-recorded songs from that same period. Today’s WARNING SF line-up is a sextet and includes familiar faces Jon Torres (guitars), Will Carroll (drums), Torre Carstensen (vocals) and Joe Jimenez (bass). I have no clue as to who the other guitarist and keyboard player were on this occasion. Doesn’t really matter, as long as they fit in perfectly with the rest of the band. Which surely was the case here! The band’s setlist consisted of the entire Aftermath CD (minus Metal Maniac) plus two more recent songs : Neo-Nightmare and The Hammer. Altogether resulting in a variable 55’ set of Bay Area power metal. Cuts above the rest, in my humble opinion, were Thunderhead, Happy Doomsday and above all Fall Upon Your Knees and Not A Chance in Hell. Why they didn’t play Metal Maniac is beyond me, but they sure made up by incorporating their version of SAVATAGE’s City Beneath The Surface. Excellent!! Really, WARNING SF’s setlist left hardly anything to be desired and their performance easily matched it. In my opinion the best band I’d seen today up until then, just ahead of BEYOND FALLEN.

Holland’s VENGEANCE have always been more of a party hard rock band, more than anything else. I remember seeing these guys live a couple of times in the late 1980’s. Always coming up with a high energy show in those days already, I still tended to enjoy their very early material best, for it was heavier and more metal orientated. Eventually the band started to ‘wimp out’ and I lost interest altogether. I knew that the band had reformed a couple of years ago already, but I hadn’t seen ‘em live in recent times. Nor was I really familiar with their two most recent releases, Flight 19 and Back In The Ring. I decided to give the band the benefit of the doubt anyhow. They started out with Take It Or Leave It, Back In The Ring, Take Me To The Limit and She’s The Woman. By that time I had had enough already. Nothing personal, but this isn’t exactly the kind of music I’m interested in these days. Sure, singer Leon Goewie is still the same extravagant frontman as in days of yore. And announcing the songs in German sure wasn’t a bad idea either. The band turned out to have the biggest and most enthusiastic audience of the day so far, strange but true. Must be something in the German water … Midway through their set I ventured off backwards, in order to try and spend some more of my hard earned cash on metal memorabilia. Which is never a problem when Hellion Records is around ... I could still hear VENGEANCE go through the likes of May Heaven Strike Me Down, Rock ‘N Roll Shower and Arabia from the back. Not that I really cared … Then again, maybe I’d change my mind if they decided to include the likes of Deathride To Glory and / or Down And Out next time?

SINNER had toured with VENGEANCE earlier in the year, but I’m sure that that wasn’t the reason for them to play here as well. Just a coincidence, I guess. As well as the fact that they played straight after one another … Did it really matter? Not as far as I’m concerned, as I have even less affinity with SINNER than I ever had with VENGEANCE. I just never got the hang of this band. I always found them highly boring and thus hardly interesting, nor innovative. Sure, nothing could go wrong from the band’s point of view : playing in front of a native audience (for the greater part anyway), and hot on the heels of VENGEANCE, who had made sure people were in a good mood already. I for one had no joy whatsoever and soon moved back to our car, in order to get some rest, before today’s headliners would grace the stage at last!

After a short break we made sure to be up front in time, in order to check out tonight’s headliners HALLOWEEN from up close. Well, we were there for quite a while, as it took half an hour to prepare the stage. Mainly because vocalist Brian Thomas wanted to have the stage decorated by means of a couple of backdrop drawings. And yes, he had to take care of things by himself, as no other bandmembers were to be spotted anywhere near. A couple of minutes past 12.30 am the band was finally ready to commence. I had been lucky enough to have seen Detroit’s shock rockers twice before already, most recently when they co-headlined the second Keep It True festival in 2004. In the meantime the band had released another CD (Horror Fire) as well as a mCD (Evil Pieces), so there was more material than ever to pick from on this occasion. In fact, the song selection tonight turned out to be even better than way back in 2004. Some of the songs included were Welcome, No One Gets Out, The Battle, Tales From The Crypt, The Thing That Creeps, Crawl To The Altar, Hell, Don’t Metal With Evil, Busted and quite a few more. The encores were Wake Up Screaming and Nobody’s Home. Of course vocalist Brian Thomas turned out to be the master of disguise once again. Changing looks and clothes more often than Paris Hilton boyfriends … And just to go along with the song the band was playing. Luckily his vocal performance left nothing to be desired either! Guitarist Donny Allen, bassist George Neal and drummer Rob Brug did an excellent job as well, and as a result HALLOWEEN’s 85’ set was a worthy headlining one! The perfect ending for any festival Friday, although it was 2 am already when HALLOWEEN finally said goodbye.

In fine H.O.A. tradition the winners of this year’s Battle Of The Bands contest were the opening act on Saturday. The honour this year went to DECEPTIVE SILENCE, a regional doom metal outfit. Just to make sure people would receive a calm wake-up call around noon … DECEPTIVE SILENCE’s brand of atmospheric doom, with vocals varying from clean up till deathly, didn’t do much to me. Musically okay, but vocally not up to par, would be a nice summary of my point of view.

How often do you get a chance to see a band from Turkey live? It was my first one ever, for sure. And hopefully not the last, as I’d really like to see MEZARKABUL live one day as well. Obviously KNIGHT ERRANT had played at the Wacken Open Air festival in 2001 already, but due to an overall less interesting line-up, compared to both previous years anyhow, I didn’t attend that edition. I was only familiar with KNIGHT ERRANT’s second CD (Divan) and wasn’t entirely convinced. But fortunately the band made an excellent song selection today, with the emphasis on their heavier stuff. Speaking of which : the setlist included familiar (at least to my ears) tunes such as Lights And Shadows, Revolution and Ich Nicht!, as well as a bunch culled from their 1999 selftitled debut, including On The Green, Prince Of Lights, Gilgamesh, Nothing’s Like It Appears and Knight Errant. Due to the intense use of a female violin player, KNIGHT ERRANT’s music sets them apart from almost every other band, especially on this festival line-up. The band was in good shape and very much into it, especially the drummer and violin player. All resulting in a fair share of crowd approval.

Once in a blue moon dreams do come true … England’s HOLLOW GROUND were the band that I was looking forward to most of all today. Most of the old N.W.O.B.H.M. bands having played at the H.O.A. festival in recent years (GASKIN, FIST, GIRLSCHOOL, BLITZKRIEG, WEAPON, …) went down well, and thus HOLLOW GROUND’s performance was definitely something to look forward to.After all they released (only) six killer tunes in the early 1980’s but never achieved a lot as a result of it. Until a 10-song LP surfaced last year, and it was announced that the band would be playing here today. And with the entire original line-up, including killer vocalist Glenn Coates! Not looking any younger these days, I’m glad to say that Glenn’s voice has survived the test of time well. Which is an understatement! And he definitely seemed to enjoy himself on stage, as did guitarist Martin Metcalf. The band’s setlist included all six familiar songs, plus some demo-only songs dating back to the same period of time, such as Promised Land, Rock To Love, Easy Action and even more obscure stuff in Breaking Out and Poltergeist. Much to the enthusiasm of the audience, who called HOLLOW GROUND back for an encore : Don’t Chase The Dragon. Other cuts above the rest included opener Flying High (which literally managed to put gooseflesh onto my arms), Warlord, Fight With The Devil, The Holy One, … Man, I could as well name ‘em all! Without a shadow of a doubt my first highlight of the day. Some other interesting news : chances are that we’ll be able to buy a full HOLLOW GROUND studio CD after all, as the band has been busy recording some material already. And as a side-note : allow me to suggest MYTHRA for next year’s edition already!

THE BLACK are an Italian trio that are in the progressive / doom metal vein. These guys have been around for years already (I must have one of their early releases somewhere …) but never managed to convince a lot of people. And, by having a quick look around, not too many were interested in the band here either. THE BLACK’s songs are rather lengthy, including long instrumental passages, and not very accessible at all. Furthermore there was hardly any interaction between the band and the scarce audience. Although everything sounded excellent and was performed fine, I soon lost interest and went off to the nearby foodstands. Only to find out, while eating, that the band also included some heavier and faster songs towards the end of their set. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all …

The only TAUNTED stuff that I’m familiar with is a 7”, released on Doomed Planet Records a couple of years ago, and including two songs from 1992. By the way, TAUNTED is an early 1990’s Bay Area thrash band that reunited in 2003. They released a full CD entitled Zero in 2006. Being unfamiliar with the rest of TAUNTED’s material sure didn’t make things easier to judge them correctly during this first live encounter. Suffice it to say that TAUNTED made a positive overall impression. Led by an expressive and motived vocalist, and a hardhitting bassist, the band raged through a variety of songs, old and new combined. The ones I was familiar with (Taunted and The Masque Of The Red Death) were present on this occasion, as well as some tunes off Zero, such as Still Believe, Stereo Furniture, Dream Reality and Bloody Tears. Furthermore a couple of new songs were incorporated as well : Bleeding, Victim and Dead Buried. All of which undoubtedly will be included on the band’s upcoming next release. Should be worth the wait!

AVENGER were no strangers to the H.O.A. festival, having been part of the warm-up show two years ago already. And it clearly showed, as plenty of people decided to witness (and enjoy) their performance today. In the recent past AVENGER underwent two line-up changes (new bassist and guitarist) but this hardly had any effect on their live performance. Of course vocalist Ian Swift was the most obvious member once again, including his obligatory jumps into, and runarounds through, the audience, on two occasions! AVENGER’s setlist today included a bunch of old classics (but not enough as far as I’m concerned) such as opener Death Race 2000, Brand Of Torture, Run For Your Life, Hard Times, Revenge Attack and You’ll Never Take Me (Alive). No less than five new songs were incorporated as well : Fate, Lay Siege To Your Soul, In Arcadia Go, Shot To Hell and Midnight Mass Destruction. The latter turned out to be the encore, after Enforcer had closed down the regular set on a high. Some of these new songs will eventually land a spot on the band’s upcoming new CD. And although Ian’s voice wasn’t always completely convincing throughout their entire 55’ set, the band’s overall performance was very energetic and entertaining. Although I guess most people would’ve liked to have heard the likes of Too Wild To Tame, On The Rocks or Victims Of Force in stead of some of the new material. Maybe next time?

I had seen Sweden’s BULLET at the Keep It True 8 festival earlier in the year already, and they simply do nothing to me. Obviously that makes me part of a minority, judging by the huge amount of people in front of the stage, and how well they seemed to enjoy themselves! Then again : you can’t blame me for having a better musical taste … This band’s originality factor is non-existent; they just blatantly copy the likes of AC/DC and ACCEPT, and they’re not even ashamed to do so either. They act like they’re the ones that just invented hot water. BULLET sure may go down well with just about any audience, and they may well be heading for the top as well, I for one couldn’t care less!

Fortunately, after every period of rain comes shine again … In my case it came in form of Ohio’s WRETCH. One of those old Cleveland bands that have been resuscitated in recent times, indeed. And thus clearly in a true 1980’s heavy metal vein, influenced by the likes of early IRON MAIDEN and JUDAS PRIEST. The band’s 2006 Reborn CD easily managed to win my soul, and their performance today did the same hands down. Fronted by Colin ‘The Rock’ Watson, WRETCH’s nowadays line-up also includes bassist Tim Frederick, plus both ETERNAL LEGACY’s guitarists and drummer. At least on this occasion … Regardless of the line-up, we were in for 55’ of pure metal mayhem! Plenty of songs off Reborn found their way to the setlist (Mental Wars, Cry For The Young, Life, the titletrack, Eyes Of Fate, The Winners, I Am Storm and ‘Til Death Do You Part, to be exact), as well as a new one : I Will Defy. Plus a couple of others, the titles of which I don’t remember. The final tune was none other than Make This Garden Burn, a song the band wrote to celebrate this 10th anniversary edition of the festival. Colin even invited Thomas Tegelhütter and Jürgen Hegewald on stage, but they didn’t exactly have a lot to say … WRETCH on the other hand managed to convince throughout, and turned out to be my second absolute highlight of the day!

I had heard of Finland’s MOONSORROW before, but I wasn’t familiar with their brand of atmospheric Pagan metal, complete with Finnish lyrics. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be my cup of metal anyhow … And when they entered the stage, covered in (fake) blood, I knew I was right … Honestly, they looked like a poor man’s PRIMORDIAL … Very original!! They sure had their fair share of fans, most likely even including some that came over to this festival just to see them, but after the obligatory pictures I soon wandered off elsewhere.

From my point of view Sweden’s doom ensemble CANDLEMASS were today’s headliners. Having had to cancel their appearance last year, due to problems well known, they were sure about to make their mark this time. Besides, it was also the first opportunity (for most of us anyhow) to see the band with new vocalist Rob Lowe. Based on his performance on the band’s recent King Of The Grey Islands release and his previous achievements with SOLITUDE AETURNUS, nobody even doubted that Rob would fit in perfectly. Although, judging by the songbook in front of him, Rob may well not have been very confident in his own abilities. Suffice it to say that all went well in the end. Kicking off with the likes of Well Of Souls, At The Gallow’s End and Solitude is a safe bet on any occasion, but it did set the right tone straight from the beginning. Quality recent stuff (Emperor Of The Void & Devil Seed) followed, before it was time for a couple more oldies : Mirror Mirror, The Bells Of Acheron, Under The Oak and A Sorcerer’s Pledge, which marked the end of the ‘regular’ set. Needless to say that the masters of epic doom had to return to the stage, only to present two more recent tunes : Black Dwarf and Clearsight. And still it wasn’t enough. The band returned one last time with Samarithan! All in all well over 80’ of high quality doom that made us forget the long changeover that preceeded the band’s initial arrival on stage. As a result the sound was great and the band’s performance even better! And although Rob is a way more modest frontman, compared to his hyperactive predecessor, he fits in excellently. Thus completing my personal trio of fave bands of the day, next to HOLLOW GROUND and WRETCH.

Never having been a fan of Germany’s RAGE we decided to use a ‘raincheck’ today. After all it had been a long day (make that weekend) already. We didn’t even await the special fire show that preceeded RAGE’s set … Instead we drove off to our temporarily bed : tired, but satisfied!