Summer, sun, discoveries. Discoveries… even twice. I like ;) For the first time I grace the • Matrix • for the EOD – EMPIRE OF DARKNESS LIVE EDITION. I attended the EOD in the past, once or twice. It’s a disco taking place every second Friday at the Matrix. But the live edition was new to me. For 5 Euro one can discover one, two or three bands playing live before the disco starts. And tonight we got offered a live premiere!

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But business… erm… pain before pleasure. First I had to endure :: X-IN JUNE :: and that was definitely anything else than a pleasure. I experienced a lot in the music business but such terrible live band I did not witness for a very long time. And we don’t talk about a just founded band (or solo project to be exactly) doing its first steps in the music circus, no, frontman Marcus Bär is an active musician and singer for over a decade now and has just released his sophomore with X-IN JUNE, also playing this year’s Wave Gotik Treffen. Right from the start he was singing so badly and off-key, this was not only due to the unbalanced sound. And he did it through the entire set, singing terribly I mean. Most bothersome was his attempt to sound like Brian Molko. Admittedly he tried to vary his singing a lot, using different techniques and phrasings but whatever he tried, it just sounded bad. I was told that I pulled faces all the time. No wonder… Musically it wasn’t that bad at all, but nothing innovative or creative either yet the little spark of hope got killed by the keyboard player who couldn’t have looked any more bored, just retrieving the sounds at the push of the button.
Setlist: Heaven On Earth, I’ll Be Back, Sun Sea, Howling Creatures, What I Feel, Night Swim, Summer’s End, The Devil

Puh… ok, at least can’t go worse now. But to be honest, I did not expect that much from :: .COM/KILL :: too. That’s the new project of Diary Of Dreams masterminds Adrian Hates and Gaun:A, who “have broken their chains and expanded the borders of their musical works to make room for another creation…” Full-bodied words, followed by trivial first sound snippets, sounding like outtakes from the last DOD sessions. Yes, I was disappointed and refused to listen to the project’s debut album. And now .COM/KILL was about to play its very first live show…

…And I got blown away! Me ? stunned! With Dejan on electronic drums – he thrashed like a berserk - .COM/KILL developed such a powerful and driving sound one could not elude. And Adrian and Gaun:A had visibly a hell of fun performing here, playing all songs of the self-titled debut. Needless to say that the crowd was almost freaking out, welcoming every song frenetically. From a musical point of view it is still Electro, a bit harsher than DOD but far away from Industrial, Noise and similar genres. It is music made for dancefloors, mainstream so to say. I wish .COM/KILL would have been more experimental, different, gutsy, beyond of common trends. However, it was an awesome show of a record that sounds live much better than on CD (I finally listened to). Nice evening!
Setlist: Intro, Still Die Gier, Machines, Das Blendwerk, Com/Kill One, Knecht der Lüge, Who:Ah, Out Of Control, Monster Divine, Freaks Like Us

story & pics © Dajana