Belgian post-metal troup AMENRA have returned to Roadburn Fest on April 16th. The band captivated a full capacity main stage not once, but twice at this year’s edition of the fest. Showing the scope of their creativity across two very different sets, AMENRA had us in the palm of their hand.
AMENRA released Mass V, their fifth studio album in November 2012 through Neurot Recordings.
In 2009, Amenra released the beautiful and fragile EP Afterlife, meant as a musical testament for future generations. The acoustic tracks that made up this EP showed a very different aspect of the band, but also proved that in any incarnation Amenra connects on a deeply emotional level with its audience. The acoustic album kept on lingering in the background, and it was only a matter of time for the band to revisit the acoustic approach of the EP. In 2014 Amenra again showed their most vulnerable side on different stages. Their latest acoustic record Alive (2016) collects live recordings of old and new acoustic renditions of Amenra tracks, but it also harbors the collaboration with Belgian poet Sofie Verdoodt and two bone chilling covers.
“Amenra was not to be missed. One simply NEEDS an Amenra show every 18-24 months in order to scrape the residus of stale emotions and denounced whims off one’s soul. They reset your preconception of what is ‘pure’ and what is ‘real’. That shiver down your spine is real, that knot in your gut and that ache in your neck are real. Not your bloody sneakers or the braids in your smelly beard.
“Plenty people seemed to agree with me, the band got heads nodding and fists pumping all the way to the back. Amenra value simplicity over visibility, tone over virtuosity, impact over ego, but eventually boast enough of all six of those traits to have grown into a formidable force that has earned every shred of respect the hard way and gives every punter a hard time denying that. Since the first time I saw them in an abandoned chapel in Ghent every performance of theirs left an indelible mark, this one, once again, was brilliant” – Stijn Van Hees / Echoes and Dust.
