As gruesome an act as a Columbian necktie, in which a person gets its throat slit only to have its tongue pulled out of the gashing wound, was what the next band at Dark Mental Festival had found a proper source of inspiration.

This Danish quartet, which was established only a little more than a year before this show in the spring of 2011, play straight from the balls hardcore/metalcore, and do so to give the Danish scene a much needed kick in the butt.
Well, at least that’s a good intention, but with a less than small gathering of people in the crowd, where most were keeping to themselves in the back and with only a few headbangers keeping it real in the front, the young band had its work cut out for it.
While they are happy to display a sense of silliness on their promotional photo’s, on stage there was a much more direct and aggressive approach in the performance and sound, and it could be seen that they were focused and trying hard to deliver a grabbing show. They weren’t exactly lively enough to remember them as a bag of monkeys or anything, but both performance and delivery of music was what the genre of choice at least requires.

In this capacity, they did manage to get an ok amount of applause and even some shouts out of the otherwise still-standing audience, which apparently wasn’t afraid to at least show sort of support for the band. When vocalist Morten Kofoed tried to get an “aw” out of people after announcing the bands last song, Apathy, it proved to cross the limit however, and The Columbian Necktie was left with an awkward silence which was not quite soon enough filled by the bands fast music to go unnoticed…
For my own part, I’d give The Columbian Necktie a star in the lining for trying, but the show and music I found to be adequate at best, and highly forgettable in a genre which has been flooded over the last many years with similar sounding bands which have yet to truly find their own identity.

Setlist:

In Troels
Fragile Minds
Amnesia
The Equation
Flesh Toys
10x10
A Guide To Romance 2.0
Infected With…
United We Play
Apathy