99-11-27 Congress – Solid – Lifecycle – Striker – Kalashnikov – New Innocence – Archaï

2 more “brand-new” bands were announced. On the poster there were 3 extra. The person who organised this was ‘xSchmitterSx’ (Stijn Desmyter from Oostnieuwkerke).

H8000 metalcore band ‘Striker’ consisted of Laurent ‘Lorre’ Peene (vocals; ex ‘Sorehead, R.I.P.), ‘Gerre’ Gerald Goedhart (guitar; later ‘Core of Anger’), ‘Tomme’ Tom Bordeaux (guitar; later ‘One Outta Six’), PJ Vandamme (bass; later guitarist of ‘Retaliate’) & David ‘Terre’ Termote (drums). They released a demo entitled High Hopes For Nothing in 1999. I believe they had already played the V.V. on 98-04-11 and came over a few times more…

‘Solid’ had already played the V.V. 95-08-18 with Dominiek ‘Dompie’ Denolf (guitar) and Frederik Denolf (drums), Kris Casier (bass) and ‘Sid’ Giovanni Debruyne (vocals). Their CD Darkside Moments (released in ’97 by the Danish label Diehard Music Worldwide) was recorded with Jim (from Limburg) singing. It was described as death-metal. I believe at some point they also had ‘Wulf’, ‘Deformity’s bassist, doing vocals. ‘Sid’ returned to the band after the turn of the century…

Being a local band ‘Lifecycle’ played the V.V. quite a few times (97-06-27 / 98-05-10 /98-08 / 99-06-25 / 99-10-31). They had quite a few different drummers and bassists over the years. Sofie Vantomme was the steady vocalist by then and together with guitarists Karel Deweerdt & Steve Noyelle she formed the core of the band.

‘Congress’ recorded Angry With The Sun (released in ‘98) with Michael Pintelon as second guitarist. Stake Through The Heart (2000) was with Clovis ‘Vez’ Segers (bass; ‘Natural Order’), Pedro Fioen (2^nd guitar; ‘Spineless’) and Tom Claus (vocals; ‘Family Of Dog’ – he played the first time live with Congress on the GoodLife Fest in July 2000). The split-CD with ‘Mindsnare’ (99) featured the original line-up (UxJx – Ilja – ‘Josh’ – Pierre).

‘Kalashnikov’ was a “H8000 metalcore” band from Diksmuide.

All I know about ‘Archaï’ is that they were featured on the Overdrive 20 Year Tribute Compilation (Midas productions 2002). Metal, I guess… The poster mentions they were from the H8000 area.

‘New Innocence’… anyone?

Brob

Jim was the 2^nd singer of ‘Solid’. Actually not a story to be proud of… We got the offer from the guy of the studio where all H8000 bands were reording (Tony [De Block] of Midas studios). He asked us if we were interested in releasing our first full CD on a sub-label of Nuclear Blast called Diehard (from Denemark), who had already approached ‘Liar’ before (but they didn’t do it). When they did the proposal to us, we were promised a decent promotion, wide distribution, a big studio-budget, etc. so of course we were impressed. When the recordings were finished the boss of the label didn’t approve of the vocals: if we weren’t going to do anything about it, the CD wasn’t goinng to be released. Then we chose for Jim, a guy from the Limburg scene who was touring with ‘Shaft’ as a roadie. The vocals for all songs were re-recorded and the CD got released: Darkside Moments. Jim was studying psychology in Gent so we would rehearse in West-Flanders. When he his studies didn’t work out, it became impossible to rehearse (him living on the other side of the country). So that ended. We continued ‘Solid’ with ‘Deformity’s bassist ‘Wulf’ [Kristof Dewulf] doing vocals and a second full CD was recorded. The guy of Midas studios was gonna release it himself but he suddenly blew the deal and ‘Solid’ broke up. Later we re-started the band with our original singer Sid and released that CD Total Rush on a hardcore label (RPP, Released Power Productions, ran by Alain [Herszaft] (singer of ‘Out For Blood’ [and of ‘Mental Disturbance’ in the 80s] from Brussels). That CD has 5 new songs who sounded ‘stoner meets New York hardcore’. Quite a lot of gigs followed but we had to quit after a year (because of my hearing-problems after 15 years without earplugs in front of loud amps). When I got used to playing with professional earplugs, we started ‘Blood Redemption’…

Dominiek ‘Dompie’ Denolf

‘Kalashnikov’ was started around 1995 by 4 schoolmates (Thijs Plovie – guitar, Dave Willaert – bass, Bart Gouwy – drums, Tom Verheecke – vocals), influenced by H8000-bands. A few months later we did our first gig supporting ‘Jigsaw’ and ‘Congress’ at the 4AD (Diksmuide). The following years we played together with bands such as ‘Congress’, ‘Liar’, ‘Vitality’, ‘Solid’,’ Sektor’, etc. At the Langemark Hardcore event in 1998 we got to know ‘Lorre’ of ‘Sorehead’ and ended up at the Vort’n Vis. A small venue and a super-enthusiastic audience, that’s what we remember. ‘Lorre’ sang along during our cover of ‘Liar’s Blade and there was some serious mosging going on (on stage and in the pit). ‘Striker’, ‘Lifecycle’ and ‘Solid’ also played, but ‘Congress’ ruled that day! We returned to the V.V. 2000-09-16. because we were still young and didn’t have a driver’s licence, we never made it to the Vort’n Vis to see other bands.

Thijs Plovie

‘Archaï’ evolved from ‘Minotaur’ (which was actually started as a metalcore band but went on to play more ‘real’ metal). There was’t actually 100% agreement about that within the band and that resulted in a kind of lack of direction aan richting in the end we quit. Soon after we started ‘Archaï’: the drummer, guitarist & bassist of ‘Minotaur’, guitarist of ‘Inside’ and female vocals. Metalcore was the intention. ;-)

Jeroen Algoet, ‘Minotaur’ & ‘Archaï’ drummer

Thomas Maeseele was the bassist of ‘Archaï’. I sometimes replaced him but I never played the V.V. with them.

Bram Algoet, guitarist of ‘Minotaur’, (occasionally) ‘Archaï’ & ‘The Curse’

Bram Algoet wasn’t part of ‘Archaï’ [He says he was an occasional stand-in.]; that was Brecht Algoet (guitar), Jeroen Algoet (drums), Liesbeth Meyfroid (vocals), Helmert Decavele (bass) & Dimitri Declerq (guitar).

I believe Bram is mixing things up (possibly with ‘The Seven Ride’); there were a lot of side-projects going on. My dad was janitor at the local primary school and many a band used its old garage: ‘Archaï’, ‘Minotaur’, ‘Inside’, ‘Powers Of Discipline’, ‘The Seven Ride’, projects with ‘Ringo’ & ‘Herre’ (Christophe Herreman). I believe the basis of ‘Amen-Ra’ was also laid there…

Helmert Decavele

 additions wellcome!…