Steegmoord – Steegmoord

Steegmoord
Steegmoord
January 29, 2021
25:06

Instrumental metal? Yes, there is such a thing. Here comes a young band from Belgium who present just that on their debut EP. Steegmoord were founded as a studio project in the middle of the pandemic in 2020. Bands like Mastodon, Opeth or also In Flames are stated as influences. With one difference. Steegmond manage (so far) without vocals. Apart from the hometown Ertvelde, there is no information about the band. In January, the self-titled debut EP was released.

It begins darkly. On “Your Liberation” you can hear some sound gimmicks. You ask yourself, is this metal? It sounds a bit like ambient music. This overlong intro is quite dispensable. The Belgian guitarist shows that he can do things differently with the following “Breaking My Chains”. Here the guitars are blasting. Speaking of guitars, they are clearly in the foreground. With the drums, you sometimes think you hear a drum computer, although a drummer was named in the video. If you think instrumental metal is boring and monotonous, you’ll be proven wrong. At least the guitar playing is very varied, solos alternate with hard riffs. Again, and again, the tempo is turned up. This continues with “Man Made Mountain”. It sounds like a mixture of Speed and Thrash Metal. Unlike the song title suggests, “Ballad Of Bullets” is not a ballad. Here, too, the hard riffs gallop. Only at the end is a melodic resting point set. “Silent Hill” is also anything but silenced. Hectic synths are replaced by thrashy fast Blast Beats of the drums. I don’t want to count the bpm here. Records are surely being set. Dull guitar riffs sound again during “Poputchik”.  

The debut EP by Steegmoord is an extremely unwieldy piece of music. Blastbeats, stoner rock, techno-synthie borrowings in alternation. It is more a showcase of the work of guitarist Maarten Doumen. However, he wanders a bit off the beaten track of his main band “Six ‘O Five” (melodic metalcore). It’s nice to hear a different sound than the everyday metal monotony. But over the whole playing time it becomes a bit too predictable. But if you want a bit of variety and like the aforementioned idols, you should definitely listen to this disc. In any case, there is still a lot of room for improvement.

STEEGMOORD – Breaking My Chains: https://youtu.be/6sJSw3wfXCU

Lineup:

Maarten Doumen – Guitars, ?
Niels Wouters – Drums

Track list:

• Your Liberation
• Breaking My Chains
• Man Made Mountain
• Ballad Of Bullets
• Silent Hill
• Poputchik