Whenever someone asks me why I listen to other kind of music while extreme metal is my main characteristic, I always show them some daring jazzy-blues, as I truly feel that the diversity is one of the best feature of music.
Opening act, BLANC, set the tone for the night. BLANC is a psychedelic pop trio from Bucharest that started in 2017. Their sound is limited to bass, drums, synths and vocals, drawing influence from Kraftwerk’s analog instrumentation and offering a compact, catchy and heavily rhythmic psychedelic mix. Their first single, ‘Head Alchemy’ will be out at the end of this year, followed by a 5-track EP.
ORKID-“These Psycho-Killer Whales define their genre as post-traumatic blues, post shoegaze and post dirge. They say they are on a continuous and never ending quest for improving the means of communication between whales, humans and extraterrestrial life forms.”
As soon as the first chords played by Orkid starts, I got the chills; I could hear every instrument crystal-clear and the songs translated perfectly in this live setting. Everything sounded perfect and Vlad Ilicevici vocals were great and on point; the whole experience was also enhanced by the addition of the new guitar-girl, Delia.
The atmosphere that Orkid builds is something many other bands try to match, and yet ultimately fail. Right from start to the very finish of this show, you can really feel the warmth, and the good-vibe that this band portray. It really is something else. The gig marks the release of ”Daily Extinction”, a single recorded at VdV Music Studio with Adrian Despot & Tanase Sorin.
The guitar playing used by Orkid is truly unique and serves as a bit of a break from the darkness of the rest of the songs. There is a lot of blues influence in the playing, not just in the acoustics, but also the electric guitar bits as well, some parts sounding almost like from the past. More notably, there is not too much distortion on the guitars as well, which gives the band a certain appeal, especially that the club has a good sound system.
Under a sharp beam of neon red light, Orkid set the room bouncing and receives such noisy applause that they seemed overwhelmed for a split second.
The setlist was long, and for almost two hours, Orkid thrilled us with songs from all their releases. Playing material new and old, all studio releases get a fair part on this show.
The band has a strong social implication; they support the “Help Me Be A Rockstar“ association by donating the merch money to this charity foundation, helping children with epilepsy.
It was an amazing night and definitely not a event to be missed.
Photos by Miruna Vitriol.
Full gallery HERE
