The Norwegian Taake is doing a 15-stop European tour, supported by fellow Norwegians Nordjevel and the Austrian Theotoxin. I thought it would be a great idea to start the week off with some good old fashioned Norwegian black metal.
The venue is called “De Kreun”, an is located right next to the Kortrijk train station. It has a maximum capacity of 600 people. For this Monday-show, I believe a little over half of the capacity was used.
The timetable was changed at the very last minute, causing Theotoxin to start 15 minutes earlier and resulted in all three bands having a slightly longer setlist.
As mentioned earlier, Theotoxin is an Austrian band that started out in 2016. They’ve been quite active though, having released four full-lengths in that timespan. The band came on stage with half of their face hidden behind a mask and with some splattered blood-like substance for good measure.
The five-piece kicked things off with a barrage of blastbeats which set the stage for the evening to come. Their black metal is infused with some death metal influences, a bit like country-mates Belphegor do as well. Even though black metal isn’t particularly known for its engagement with the audience, the energy the band brought was palpable and it certainly came across as a band having fun, and trying to prove themselves on stage. Theotoxin is definitely a bend to keep an eye on, and I’ll be checking out their discography as soon as I get the chance.
Next up was the Norwegian Nordjevel. The band from Askim, close to the Swedish border, has released 3 full lengths so far. The lead guitarist of the band is Destructhor also spent 7 years in Morbid Angel between 2008 – 2015.
Nordjevel’s flavour of black metal is akin to the Swedish Marduk, with a bit more added melodic passages. Just like Theotoxin, interaction with the audience was fairly minimal, but the band certainly succeeded in bridging their energy with the crowd as the bobbing heads slowly turned in to full on windmills.
Time for Taake. The Norwegian project by frontman Hoest started out back in 1993. In that time 8 albums have been released, of which ‘Hordalands Doedskvad’ and ‘Noregs Vaapen’ are personal favorites of mine. The 2023 ‘Et Hav Av Avstand’ displayed a more pensive and longer-form writing in the form of just 4 tracks, 3 of those being over 10 minutes long.
For this tour, Taake selected four songs off of ‘Noregs Vaapen’. One of those is the well known, and personally loved ‘Myr’, which incorperates a banjo into the fray. Joining those songs were 2 songs off ‘Doedskvad’, 2 from the new ‘Et Hav Av Avstand’, 2 from ‘Nattestid…’ and a cover of Darkthrone’s ‘Over fjell og gjennom torner’.
Taake’s music is an interesting blend of typical second wave Norwegian black metal, but intertwined with melodies akin to traditional heavy metal, with some more esoteric moments dropped in here and there. I was impressed at just how well the often intricate guitar parts were translated live. Frontman Hoest has always been quite charismatic on stage, billowing his cloak and at times almost dancing to the icy riffs. I’ve seen Taake before (even just last year in their hometown of Bergen) and even though I know what to expect, I always come back extremely impressed.
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