Festival Into The Void has earned its place on the calendar. The frameworks – stoner, doom, sludge – are narrow, but it works.
Yet such a festival only becomes really fun if those frameworks are tinkered with a bit. King Buffalo, from Rochester, New York, is one such band. No shouting or roaring at the microphone but clean vocals and clear melody lines, no tearing guitar but spatial figures drenched in effects, no one-dimensional drum pounding but a drummer who really has a conversation with his fellow musicians. It was like jazz at times, in that respect.
Not that there is anything wrong with shouting or roaring, tearing guitar or pounding drums. That is indeed what Into The Void is the festival for, and has been for ten years now. In addition to the edition in Leeuwarden, the festival now also has a branch in Eindhoven, the current residence of festival boss and Brabant Frisian Paul van Berlo. Who was concerned that pop center Neushoorn does not yet have a date available for next year’s festival.
It is a niche in which Into The Void operates, but one that people want to travel for. The spectators included large delegations from Nijmegen and Eindhoven, and you even heard German spoken. It came with about four hundred visitors during the afternoon and evening break-even point in sight , reported a beaming Wietze Meetsma, programmer of Neushoorn, at the beginning of the evening.
For sale: vinyl and T-shirts
The bands also included quite a few from the United States, and that is not so obvious in post-corona times full of rising costs. Now such bands also get the necessary income from the merchandise : the hall was full of tables behind which members of the crew or, more often, band members themselves were selling their vinyl and T-shirts.
The Groningen bands Onhou and Moan played early in the afternoon, at the front of a program of bands that increasingly refer more or less emphatically to rock history, with a good dose of American mythology. This then takes shape in denim and trucker caps. It often also applies if such bands do not come from that corner of the world, such as Samavayo from Germany and Fire Down Below from Belgium.
Tankzilla is a side project of Eindhoven rock hero Peter van Elderen, from Peter Pan Speedrock. An unsubtle name, Tankzilla, for a duo with an unsubtle, but all the more effective approach. With drums, guitars and little more (well, a track with some electronics), these decibel tanks create a sound with maximalist pretensions.
It is precisely that cleverly dosed bluntness, at high volume, that is an important factor in this type of music. It’s easy to get carried away and the beer tastes great with it. The Atomic Bitchwax, also from the United States and not for the first time in Leeuwarden, are masters at it. This was just about the fastest tire of the half day, and the tightest too.
Kudos to the rock trio
Moreover, this is a triumvirate, just like most of the bands on this bill: each one pays tribute to the rock trio, of guitar, bass and drums: the most basic form of band. Although it can always be even more bare, as duo Tankzilla proved.
Back to King Buffalo, the trio that dressed up that basic form with more electronics and expressive synthesizer sweeps. Compared to the majority of bands, this is more music from the head, but it doesn’t hurt to use that as well. A jewel in the crown that Into The Void is, on Rhino’s programming.