The Answer Lies In the Black Void + The Fifth Alliance + Ineptitude.

A dark matinee with Jason Bong-Ra's band, the Hungarian-Dutch band The Answer Lies In The Black Void (TALITBV). Transcendental, the last album released on Lay Bare Recordings in 2025, takes doom metal and the menacing vocals of co-founder (and Jason's partner) Martina Horváth as its starting point. But ambient, folk, and electronic influences also make their presence felt, creating a unique and idiosyncratic sound. The band also impresses live, with a balanced sound and intriguing visuals. Jason and Martina (and band) form an exceptional duo that pushes the boundaries of doom metal and stands out, with Martina's beautiful voice and stage presence as absolute eye-catchers.

The second band on the bill is The Fifth Alliance, a band helmed by a powerful female frontwoman, just like TALITBV. The Fifth Alliance began in 2006 as a chaotic hardcore outfit in the bowels of Breda, but quickly found their true sound: an oppressive blend of suffocating doom, desolate post-metal, and hypnotic black metal elements. With the recent addition of Natalya Thelen (vocals) and Peter Scheffer (drums), The Fifth Alliance has reinvented itself as a band that forges doom, sludge, ambient, and black metal into a scorching whole, with a new release on Tartarus forthcoming.

Opening this afternoon is Utrecht's Ineptitude, a band that delivers post-hardcore, doom metal, and emo in a captivatingly beautiful way. Thomas van Neerven's project made a name for itself with the cassette release "Monologues op S/D" by Johan van Hattum (Terzij de Horde), a musical catharsis of slowcore, post-rock, and snippets of doom metal. And they're also incredibly intense live, so come check them out.