Saw a live clip of Gnome late at night. Three Belgians in red pointed hats, the rhythm section locked in like a Truckfighters outtake, the guitar work doing things the stoner genre does not usually visit. Forty seconds in, the riff doubles back on itself in a time signature the scene rarely touches. The musicianship is there. Plain as day.
Then the vocals come in. And the bottom drops out.
The band
Gnome are an Antwerp trio formed in 2016. Rutger Verbist on guitar and vocals, Egon Loosveldt on drums, Geoffrey Verhulst on bass. The red pointed hats on stage are not a one-off. Half the crowd at their shows wears them. Three albums on Polderrecords so far. Father of Time (2018). King (2022). Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome (2024).
Belgian stoner metal sits in a specific corner of the European stoner scene. Less doom-anchored than the Dutch Roadburn axis. Less Kyuss-worshipping than the German desert-rock revival. Belgian stoner tends progressive, song-oriented, and visually self-aware. Gnome plant their flag at the prog-stoner end of that spectrum.
Why it works musically
The trio plays like they have been together longer than ten years. The bass-drum interlock is tight enough that you feel it before you think about it. Rutger’s guitar work pulls from prog rock more than from Sabbath worship. Songs shift sections without losing the thread. Verumex Visidrome has riff progressions that bands twice their size in the European stoner scene cannot pull off.
You hear it most in the instrumental passages. The trio breathes together. There is space, control, and an obvious commitment to writing actual songs instead of stringing riffs into a fuzz-blanket the way lesser stoner bands do. Watch the bass during a transition. Geoffrey is doing more than holding root notes.
The vocal problem
This is where it gets uncomfortable. The singing on Gnome records is functional. The lyrics lean hard into the gnome-fantasy concept, and that bit, charming as it is on stage, sells short the music underneath. When the band hits an instrumental section, the room opens up. Then the words come back and the room closes.
It is not Rutger’s fault as a vocalist. The instrumental work is simply too sharp for the chant-style delivery the band has settled into. Either the vocals need to grow into the music, or Gnome should consider what an instrumental record would sound like. Verumex Visidrome already hints at that answer in its longer cuts.
Why now
European prog-stoner is having a moment. Elephant Tree from the UK, Lord Vicar from Finland, the Polish wave around Spaceslug. Gnome have everything they need to belong in that conversation. Possibly to lead it. The chops are there. The songs are there. Only the vocals are holding the band back from a tier they have musically earned.
Watch the live clip below. Listen for the moments where Rutger puts the microphone down. That is what the next Gnome record needs more of.
