LAGÜNA – Charlatan, Ghent, Belgium – 10 May 2018

LAGÜNA is an up and strongly coming post-punk force who scored, recently, 2nd place
at Belgium‘s most renowned talent competition. A couple of months ago I checked them out for the first time to see if the hype was for real. Impressions: I saw a young promising group with solid musicians, an intriguing sound and some well-crafted songs BUT when closing my eyes I heard EDITORS anno 2015 . You know, those gloomy British rockers who’s 2005 debut LP ‘The Back Room‘ is still a haunting classic in my book, BUT (here we
go again) who became more and more a money-grabbing parody of themselves afterward, album after album.

That said, yesterday as part of the PSYCH OVER 9000 FESTIVAL in my hometown Ghent, Belgium I witnessed LAGÜNA again. Actually by accident, as another group on another stage cut their set midway due to technical problems. My, oh my! Holy cow! Was this the same band I wasn’t really excited about when I saw them for the first time. Obviously not! The Antwerp squad nailed it big time last night. Much nastier, filthier, sharper and punkier than last March with frontman Elsermans‘ impressive vox cutting like a Swiss knife, drummer Bravo pushing the pace like a hammering madman and guitarist Mauro Bentein doing what he does best: going completely bananas now and then. What a flaming performance that was! Like a sonic steamroller on a swirling mission. Yes, there are still Editors echoes, BUT this cracking Belgian 5-piece rocks harder, rolls heavier and roars fiercer than those mega-stars who lost their soul and energy over the years. Hail hail LAGÜNA! The future is yours! Here’s an idea of their live dynamics…

Click here to stream for, not yet released tracks

Picture this from yesterday’s gig…

Mental guitarist…

These boots are made for walking…

Hell yeah…

Trash…

In trance, in the back…

The drummer has left the building…

LAGÜNA: Facebook

(all concert pics by Turn Up The Volume!)