Textures

Few metal bands ever earn the right to have all their guitarists head bang in time with each other, usually in a similarly over the top fashion as each other as well. Usually it looks utterly ridiculous but from time to time you get bands whose riffs are so potent, whose songs are so bludgeoning and who are in general so godamn METAL that the only reasonable reaction to it for anyone in a mile radius is to head bang that ostentatiously. The Netherlands’ very own Textures are very much one of those bands. If you were up there playing riffs like that, you’d be doing the exact same thing and you know it. They’re even metal enough to justify a keyboardist in the line up without playing Power Metal. THEY’RE THAT DAMN GOOD. Their mix of technical death metal and Pantera indebted groove metal goes over like gangbusters live. With vocalist Daniël de Jongh switching between powerful growls, piercing screams and legitimately gorgeous clean vocals just as adeptly and naturally as the rest of the band deals with the blastbeats, technical wizardry and monstrous grooves (sometimes all three in the same song) of their back catalogue. The metal scene in mainland Europe is one of the most fertile in the world now, and there are many quality bands vying for your time and attention, but Textures are still one of the bands that stand out on record, but especially live. See now, remember forever.