Bellowing pride from local soil all collected on one stage

Over recent months there has been quite a turn up of talent in the harder music genres. That's why the AB thinks that the time is ripe for presenting 3 of Belgium's most impressive bands from that corner on one stage... and wouldn't one of those pleasant Sundays in the dark month of December be ideally suited? Yep, on December 18 we welcome to the AB's biggest stage:

teak Number Eight struck gold with ‘All Is Chaos’. A pounding but crystal clear production by Mario Goossens (Triggerfinger, The Black Box Revelation) and a mix by Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Pearl Jam) has already afforded them quite some praise. Just as a showcase in London did too. Metal Hammer – the metal mag - already came all the way over here especially to see ‘Belgium’s bright young hopes’. Their melodic post-rock/noise is acquainted with influences like Isis, Neurosis, Pelican, Red Sparowes and Deftones and, after Graspop, it will be bringing them to the AB at the end of the year.

Diablo Blvd is Alex Agnew's leathered musical outlet. In 2009 he made album ‘The Greater God’ together with the likes of Tim Bekaert (A Brand) and Andries Beckers (Born from Pain, the Setup). Their new CD ‘Builders Of Empires’ has just recently been released and was this time mixed by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Amon Amarth). It went down well by press and public alike and they'll be playing at Graspop this year too and also be present in AB on December 18.

With Drums Are For Parades we direct the spotlight to one of the AB Artists In Residence. This year the power trio from Ghent want to have finished an idiosyncratic E.P. on which you will find a number of new songs with surprising guest contributions. A first song with Chris Goss from Masters Of Reality, recorded in AB, is already to be found on the internet. Drums Are For Parades' debut album (‘Master’) was released in September 2010, made a big impression right away and resulted in concerts with Baroness and Slayer. ‘Master’ leaves you with whitened knuckles, bloodshot eyes and foaming at the mouth … a "master"-ful album’! (De Morgen ****)

Drums Are For Parades, Steak Number Eight, Diablo Blvd. and AB went in search of a support-act for the concert in AB on 18.12 via Poppunt's vi.be platform. Band Cloon managed to bag the most preference votes. They managed to rope themselves in as support-act for Clawfinger's European tour with their first EP from 2005. The band were finally noted as 'most promising' with the album 'Mostly Harmless'. Musical description? As if you put members of Tool, Faith No More and Primus in a band with Frank Zappa & Tom Waits.