Reflections of Darkness - Music Magazine - Empire of Darkness, 10th Anniversary

Details: Written by: Sebastian Huhn; Published: 14 February 2010

Matrix, Bochum, Germany
12th February 2010
10 Years Empire of Darkness with Agonoize and surprise act Diary of Dreams

For the Matrix club in Bochum, this night was a special night, as they could celebrate 10 years of the very popular EoD party series the other day. For that, they’ve invited the blood lusty trio AGONOIZE and a then-unknown secret guest. But putting AGONOIZE on the bill already was enough to draw an incredible number of people to the club forming the longest queue I’ve ever seen lining up in front of that club.

Agonoize

The so called “Hellectro” genre has spawned many ascendants. In Germany, one of the most prominent ones is AGONOIZE who’re first appearing on the radar in 2004 with the debut album release ‘Assimilation: Chapter One’ with a couple EPs following shortly thereafter to bridge the distance between the first and the second album ‘999’ emerging in September 2005. Their next album ‘Sieben’ (Seven) was released in November 2007. A new EP ‘For the Sick and Disturbed’ followed on Halloween 2008 and in 2009; the limited single ‘Bis das Blut gefriert’ forecast the release of the newest AGONOIZE album ‘Hexakosioihexekontahexa’ in autumn 2009. AGONOIZE is Chris L (lyrics, vocals), Mike Johnson (synths) and Oliver Senger (synths). http://www.agonoize.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/agonoize

Music & Performance
The club was already packed good 15 minutes after the first people streamed into the tube and after a while of waiting, they would be treated with a set of songs that usually don’t fit at all into the frame of the respective event. It’s been jubilation all over the place when the three bad boys entered the stage to ‘Blutverlust’. Chris chose a captain’s outfit for starters and brought a woman on stage, rubbing under his coat all the time until it was revealed what she’s rubbing all the time. What else could I have expected, it was a rubber penis and she was helping him to jerk off artificial cum into the crowd that partly tried to escape and partly broke into ecstasy. Sorry, but that was low, even if it’s just a depiction of the lyrics. But what does that say about the lyrics? Let’s move on to ‘Schaufensterpuppenarsch’ which had the crowd dancing in no time, while Chris proved his stage hawk qualities like a dervish.

With songs like ‘Staatsfeind’, or my personal “favourite” ‘Femme Fatale’ followed club hit after club hit that kept everyone dancing and since a classic live show isn’t particularly AGONOIZE style, there’s been lots and lots of blood spilling into the audience - if they wanted or not. Apart from the typical wrist cutting, the guys had a new one for us. A stool was placed on stage and the girl from before in a different dress re-appeared with a knife. I figured already he might be sitting down on that thing eventually and would have his throat split open by the lady in white, and indeed she caused a bloodbath. ‘Koprolalie’ ended a much acclaimed show with another load of cum and a crowd begging for an encore.

Setlist
01. Intro/Earpain
02. Blutverlust
03. Schaufensterpuppenarsch
04. Alarmstufe Rot
05. Staatsfeind
06. Femme Fatale
07. I Am
08. Sacrifice
09. Blut, Sex, Tod
10. Bis das Blut gefriert
11. Koprolalie

Rating
Music: 3
Performance: 4
Sound: 7
Light: 6
Total: 4.4 / 10

Diary of Dreams

Since 1989, DIARY OF DREAMS enchants a still growing fan base all over the world with beautiful and at times fragile tunes. Already 1.5 years after ‘Nekrolog 43’, the latest album ‘(if)’ was released on 13th March 2009. In October 2009, the ‘King of Nowhere’ MCD including a brand new video clip has been released. Today, the band was the surprise act for the 10 birthday of EoD party. DIARY OF DREAMS is Adrian Hates (vocals, guitar), Gaun:A (guitar), D.N.S. (drums), Leandra / Ophelia Dax (keyboards) and Flex (bass). http://www.diaryofdreams.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/diaryofdreams

Music & Performance
Before the second act of the evening was announced, some well-known artists would have their say and congratulated DJ Mike for 10 years of EoD with video messages. But then the moment of truth had come and Mike proudly announced DIARY OF DREAMS would enter the stage now which caused excitement, as well as baffled and irritated faces. You even heard calls like “Who’s DIARY OF DREAMS, I don’t know them”. Whether you saw that as sacrilege or forgivable inexperience, they would come to know them know, even if some of them turned out not to like them and left the scenery early after goofing around a lot. This DIARY OF DREAMS show also had two surprises in the shape of two new faces on stage. For one that was a bass player named Flex and the other one was the lady on the keys who I recognized as Leandra or Ophelia Dax, if you like so. But let’s stop talking about the line-up because the set had just started with ‘Butterfly:Dance’ and with it the action took its course.

The audience participation wasn’t at its best, as I’m sure many of them had expected someone else, but others were excited about this pleasant surprise and started dancing and clapping, while dreaming themselves away. After ‘The Wedding’ had been celebrated it was ‘The Plague’ that came over us which at this point showed best the development towards a real band. With the energetic live instrumentation, the song mutated to a dark rock anthem. Though Adrian wasn’t satisfied yet with the participation, which made him encouraging the people saying “Come on, you can do more!” during ‘MenschFeind’. Never seen him doing that with such kind of verve if I think about it, verve that I also felt during ‘AmoK’ as a grown wealth of dynamics! Speaking of that, the new bass player Flex looked like he has always been part of the band and did a lot of interaction with Gaun:A and Adrian. Perfect chemistry it seemed!

‘Kindrom’ ended the set and culminated in an emotional outbreak as you’ve never heard or seen it from this band before, and which came quite unexpected with its force. But (luckily) it wasn’t over yet and short time later the band returned for one encore, introduced with the words “Did you all take your chemicals today?” While we certainly won’t ever get a clear answer to that question, the actual response out of the crowd to the very last song was quite mixed. The front rows had the most movement; decreasing the farther you’d look back from where I was standing. Measured against the different expectations the people must’ve had for the surprise act, and considering the entirely different audience AGONOIZE attracts the attendance and participation of many people was positively surprising and there’s reason to hope some of the attendees there found enough pleasure in the music to want to hear more. I’ll make it a short one this time: Great show!

Setlist
01. Butterfly:Dance!
02. The Wedding
03. The Plague
04. The Chain
05. MenschFeind
06. King of Nowhere
07. Traumtänzer
08. AmoK
09. Soulstripper
10. The Curse
11. Kindrom
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12. Chemicals

Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Sound: 9
Light: 8
Total: 8.9 / 10