Indra Club, Hamburg, Germany18th April 2019
Sector - North & South Fusion 2019
Sometimes there are days like this… It is Thursday evening before Good Friday and there are several great events one would love to go to. However, lucky me while the prior planned live performance with AMELIA ARSENIC, PRIEST and AESTHETIC PERFECTION at Kaiserkeller ended around 10:30 pm, just literally a few meters away at Indra Club, SECTOR were about to start at 11 pm at the “North & South Fusion” special. Unfortunately there was no chance to catch the other bands playing before, but at least I’ve made it pretty non-stressful for the headliner of the night.
The guitarist and songwriter Jannik Mewes founded the band in 2012. Finding other musicians to create first ideas of songs happened almost immediately, a year later finally the vocalist was found and Nils joined the project. The sound of SECTOR is a mix of hard Metal riffs and driving and dark Electro beats. A very surprising and unusual combination nowadays, however you might think here of bands like COMBICHRIST, 3TEETH or DIE KRUPPS to get a general idea of how the Industrial Metal might sound like. SECTOR released their first EP, called ‘Observation’, in 2015 earning a lot of attention by music magazines and generally speaking on social media, not just with the release but also with their first same-titled tour. Just a year later a successful gig at Wacken Festival followed. The full-length album, ‘Digital Voodoo’, was released a year ago, in April 2018 and the recordings for new material are underway.
Music & Performance
So, I literally walked like 100 meters to the next venue in this really warm April night through the typically crowded Große Freiheit and when I entered the venue - at that point Indra already felt pretty warm inside - the immediate craving for a cold beer came up and lucky me, it was a no brainer to get one here really fast. A cosy, alternative club, tonight filled with Metal & Alternative fans. The last band just finished and the space in front of the stage got emptier for a moment as everyone rushed to the bar to get another cold drink as I just did. But just in time before SECTOR entered the stage, the space filled again and after a really short adjustment time the audience showed a lot of enthusiasm and seemed to have a lot of fun.
SECTOR convinced with their refreshing mix of hard guitars, engaging synths and aggressive vocals. Head-banging or dancing - you decide. Or just do both, as some people in the crowd did not hesitate to. The first song ‘Bastard’ started with a haunting, dark and spooky intro dominated by an exciting synth and electro theme until the hard guitars, bass and drums joined in and finally the growling vocals of vocalist Nils made the infernal sound perfect. Somewhere in between mosh pit of hell and electro Doomsday - welcome to SECTOR, sweetheart. Also the next songs, be it ‘Voices’ or ‘Digital Voodoo’ convinced with thought-out details in the synth samples while punching directly in your face with the instruments and growls. Straight-forward, aggressively heavy and dark sounds beyond black.
Not “just” the music itself, also the performance was on point. The virtuoso guitar and bass play, enthusiastic drumming and the guys obviously having fun to head-bang and interacting with each other. However, vocalist Nils also left the stage a few times to disappear in the crowd visually, but not vocal-wise at all. The crowd liked it for sure. Though the guys spoke about some problems connected with the light set-up, it was still more on point than many other bands even care about. The lectern in the centre of the stage with the luminous “SECTOR” lettering on it, was just perfect for Nils to shout out all the anger and rage into the crowd, though he was not fixed to it.
While the vocalist is the frontman in the majority of bands, my general impression told me that - maybe beside of the drummer as he, of course, just did not have the possibility to move around - here it is the whole band, so there were many occasions when just all of them stood in line showing what they can on their instruments or moved around interacting with each other. There was immediately a thought on my mind, how cool and impressive this performance might look on a bigger stage. A really engaging & fun gig, professional skills, a whole lot of anger and extraordinaire Industrial Metal - an exciting combo to check out if you are into some harder crossover and haven’t heard of SECTOR yet.
Setlist
01. Bastard
02. Voices
03. Digital Voodoo
04. Warp
05. More Or Less
06. Observation
07. Burning
08. Millenium Ark Storm
09. Upon Request
10. In Summary [You Suck]
11. 2k95
Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Light: 9
Sound: 9
Total: 9 / 10
All pictures by Nastja Iz
Comments powered by CComment