At this year’s Pinkpop edition, Dool was one of the best bands in Landgraaf and now, half a year later, Raven van Dorst and Co. are guests in Maastricht. The hall is well filled, the stage looks sober but tight and immediately after the first chords of the three guitarists – Raven van Dorst, Nick Polak and Omar Iskandr, it is clear that the sound (nice and hard but crystal clear) is in any case more than fine!
Text and photo: Martien Koolen
Opening track is of course the phenomenal “Venus In Flames”, by now a crowd pleaser par excellence, and Dool immediately goes wild and performs this wonderful progressive doom/post-metal-like song extremely tight and sets the tone for the rest of this gig. “Self-Dissect”, also from the latest album “The Shape Of Fluidity”, is the next highlight, a very diverse song with beautiful vocals and razor-sharp, headbanging and neck-breaking guitar riffs. The sparse but oh so effective light show and the smooth dynamics of the band ensure that the audience’s attention does not waver for a moment.
Dool should get more appreciation
“The Shape Of Fluidity”, Dool’s latest album is of course central to the setlist and it must be said that it is a really great album; that should get a bit more appreciation and recognition…. However, Dool does not care about that and simply plays a super gig that is perhaps unparalleled in the Netherlands. For lovers of dark, melancholic, progressive metal/rock, tonight is a treat with songs such as: “Evil In You” and “House Of A Thousand Dreams”; that last song certainly gives me goosebumps!!
The ultimate Dool moment is probably the fantastic “Hermagorgon”, with emotional vocals from Raven during the verse and addictive headbanging riffs in the course of the song. The Killing Joke cover “Love Like Blood” is also on the program tonight and that track fits seamlessly into Dool’s repertoire; just a cool song! The unfortunately too short performance – in my opinion – was almost perfect and showed once again that Dool is simply one of the best (Dutch) live bands of the moment. So make sure you’re there next time!!!
