Live review: Vektor + Cryptosis + Comaniac + Algebra @ Bóveda, Barcelona (October 13th, 2022)
We’re on a journey through the stars!
Vektor‘s tour is probably one of the ones he most wanted to see in our country after having discovered his seminal debut Black Future in that distant year 2009. Not even with his second album, Outer Isolation (2011), did they come to drop by our territory, and the desire to enjoy their live performance only grew with the arrival of what for me is their most complete work, Terminal Redux, from 2016. The simple fact that in 2015 they hit the road with the First Contact Tour with the missing Distillator and Angelus Apatrida made me regain a certain enthusiasm when in 2016 they confirmed several concerts throughout our continent that finally did not reach our country, and later that same year they announced that three of its four members left the band
With that thorn still stuck, and having tasted the brief but effective Transmissions of Chaos (2021), the appointment in Barcelona with Comaniac, Algebra and Cryptosis, it must be said, was a more than obligatory stop in a busy week full of great concerts. The band in charge of opening the evening was the Swiss band Algebra, who with more than a decade and a half behind them came to the peninsula for the first time to present their new and most recent studio work, Chiroptera, which had been released a few weeks before arriving in Barcelona under the Unspeakable Ax Records label
Algebra has been active since 2008, although it did not debut until 2012 with the notable Polymorph, from which we could only enjoy an energetic and direct cut like Crook. The Swiss quartet demonstrated to perfection their skill on stage with an enraged show that lit up the room from the first minutes, before a fairly small audience but very in tune with the adrenaline rush that the band offered in the seven songs they gave. life to his short but very intense setlist
The band did a good review of their latest studio album, Chiroptera, where we greatly enjoyed solid cuts such as the one that gives title to the album itself, the powerful Suspect with which they ended the show and a very dedicated Accomplice with which they put all their effort on the grill, returning to Pulse? (2019) solely to offer us a more than worthy Inner Constraints. That night we were not able to enjoy any Feed the Ego songs, but I am sure that the band will return to our country in the not too distant future and hopefully we will be able to enjoy an entire show.
Quick change and in just over fifteen minutes we were already enjoying Comaniac‘s first visit. The Swiss quartet also arrived to present us largely with their latest and surprising studio work, Holodox, on which they focused a large part of their setlist. They opened in style with the bombastic Coal from their second album, Instruction for Destruction (2017), quickly returning to their debut album with a powerful Secret Seed from Return to the Wasteland (2015). The band came out to take over the stage from the first minute, interacting with the audience at all times and presenting each of the songs, putting all those who did not know the band in situation.
The time has come to uncork their new album with Holodox, the title track of the album itself, linking at once with four songs from the same album such as Art is Dead, The New Face of Hell, Narcotic Clan and the very fast Head of the Snake to finally return to Return to the Wasteland (2015) with the impetuous 1, 2, Rage with which they ended their furious discharge. Quick visit to recruit new followers, including myself, and another change in fifteen minutes to make way for what was to come.
Distillator had already visited Spain in 2015 accompanied by Hitten presenting their debut album, Revolutionary Cells, but we never got to see them in Barcelona. In 2020 they changed their name to give their old-school thrash a twist, orienting it towards more technical thrash with progressive overtones, debuting in 2021 with the superb Bionic Swarm by Century Media that the band had been presenting in its entirety.
It would be too absurd to comment song by song on what the band performed since Bionic Swarm sounded from start to finish, but I can assure you that the band wanted to give a much more solid packaging to their proposal with a more than satisfactory image wash and with a much more raw and elaborate sound. Songs like Prospect of Immortality or Flux Divergence shone above the rest in a show of almost forty minutes with which they more than demonstrated that the band has a clear path. Laurens, Marco and Frank have been able to restructure an already interesting project with Cryptosis
And after many years of waiting, it was time to welcome Vektor with the explosive Charging the Void, an extreme cut with which the American quartet put the dots on the i’s from the first minute. The band has gone through bittersweet moments throughout its career and its first visit to the peninsula had to remain etched in the hearts of all those attendees who almost filled the Sala Bóveda on a wednesday night. The sharp and technical guitar solos, explosive melodies, killer drums, David DiSanto‘s iconic voice, everything fit together perfectly. The band chose to give a good review of their third studio album, Terminal Redux, the most complete of their discography for me.
After almost ten minutes of authentic ecstasy with Charging the Void, it was time to dazzle us with LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease) before taking us back to 2009 with Black Future, the title track of their debut album with which many of us were blown away head more than a decade ago. The public greatly celebrated the return to the origins with that combination of lights and sound with which Erik Nelson and David DiSanto showed off beautifully, without despising the enormous work of bassist Stephen Coon and drummer Mike Ohlson, the most recent additions in Vektor.
From their most recent studio work they gave us a calm Dead By Dawn that, in some way, caught on among the audience for its furious performance, although I personally would have chosen Activate as the single cut from Transmissions of Chaos (2021), to then give us a gem like Tetrastructural Minds from their second album, Outer Isolation (2011). The band gave their all at all times, but in Terastructural Minds they shone like never before, before an audience dedicated to the technique proposed by the American quartet.
The time had come to get the final stretch back on track by returning fully to Terminal Redux (2016) with the relaxed Collapse which, as in the album itself, they linked with the extraordinary Recharging the Void. The tremendous journey that Vektor subjected us to in the almost fourteen-minute cut was defended tooth and nail by its four members, demonstrating once again that his name must be among the greatest of the genre of all time. Absolute kings were crowned with the intense Asteroid with which they closed a magical, otherworldly evening. After their discharge, they left the stage and approached the audience to thank, once again, that we had celebrated their first visit to the peninsula. A total and resounding success.
