Ear-drum tearing loud and heartbreaking acoustic. The music of the Kortrijk band Amenra has different faces. On April 13, the hard side will be discussed in De Oosterpoort in Groningen. Igorrr, Der Weg Einer Freiheit and The Hangman’s Chair will also play that evening.
The decibel rains of Amenra have often left their mark in the North. The band from Kortrijk performed at the Groninger festival Eurosonic, and then a few times in Vera, in the same city.
Leeuwarden was not spared either, with an exceptionally poignant show at the Into The Void festival and a no less moving, but completely acoustic concert in Neushoorn.
That was also the case at the famous Roadburn festival in Tilburg. An evening of acoustics, with the musicians – including singer Colin H. Van Eeckhout – in a circle on stage. Stillness, but then crushing. The next night the band went electric, or heavy heavy as Van Eeckhout describes it. Just as crushing, but then very hard. Threatening rhythms, guitars that erect almost Gothic-architectural structures, a desperate primal scream that Van Eeckhout everything trying to say.
Part of the whole, also with the public
Invariably with his naked, heavily tattooed back turned consistently to the audience. Because he doesn’t want to draw all the attention to himself, because he feels part of the whole. Also with the public.
“For our children”, Van Eeckhout once said in the Leeuwarder Courant to the question of the why of this acoustic form of expression. “as a kind of comforting, healing words.” At least that gave him a good excuse to sing a beautiful version of Het Dorp – that of compatriot Zjef Vanuytsel not that of Wim Sonneveld.
But actually, he said on that occasion, both versions of the band don’t differ from each other when it comes to the essence. “It’s the same story. But with a different palette, with which we tap into a different emotional channel.” The Channel of Consolation.
You can say that it concerns two sides of the same coin, but on the last album The thorn the different facets of the band come together very nicely, where older work was either steely (most of it) or acoustic ( Alive ). Including Dutch, er, Flemish texts, perhaps inspired by The village – although fragments of Flemish spoken word did appear on older records.
Rituals and spirituality: more than spinning the riffs
The thorn is a break with a tradition not only in terms of language, but also in terms of title. The previous studio album had all of them Mass in the title – they got to number VI. Any religious associations are for your own account, but that thorn is on the cover in the form of a crown.
Most band members grew up in small West Flemish villages with large churches in the middle, and the rituals and clothing of that faith have really left traces with the otherwise not very religious Van Eeckhout and his buddies. If you want to use the term “spiritual,” it won’t hold you back.
,,If the stars are right, if everything goes as it should, we have more reach than just spinning our riffs. To be able to do that! That is very magical for us.”
Igorrrr, the other big name on the bill (the rest are supporting acts), is the brainchild, the alter ego of Frenchman Gautier Serre. He does not turn his hand to a ferocious mix of black metal, breakcore, opera, baroque, Balkan tunes, trip hop and even an elegant waltz (that is Nervous Waltz hot, from the latest, beautifully titled album Spirituality And Distortion ). One after the other, those style elements, or at the same time. A circus act in metal.
13/4, The Oosterpoort, Groningen