tisdag 26 Maj 2009, 22:53
Crushing the Cenotaph: Maryland Deathfest 2009
Fri 22 May – Maryland Deathfest VII
(written and soon to be posted on www.post-rockist.com)
A couple friends and I drove from Chicago to Baltimore in a car with leather seats and no air conditioning, blaring metal loud so we can hear it with all the windows open while doing eighty down the Pennsylvania turnpike. We took turns plugging our mp3 players into the tape adapter and playing songs from bands we were going to see that weekend that not all of us were familiar with ("What?! You really haven't heard the new Cattle Decapitation?! Fuck, dude!") and by Friday afternoon, we were all pumped to watch some bands. A lot of bands, even.
Friday took off running, with a solid but unremarkable set of twisty metalcore from recent Relapse Records signees Hero Destroyed. The first band to blow me away was the second of the fifty-four (!) acts scheduled to play that weekend, Baltimore's own grinders Triac, who were one of the best surprises of the weekend with their super-fast shrieking mayhem. Jig-Ai from the Czech Republic have a gory anime porn theme and their set was dumb and unenjoyable, apart from the silly faces they made, but Sweden's Sayyadina came up next and delivered a fast and relentless performance, setting a high standard for the rest of the grind bands to follow. Gnostic's progressive death metal sounded weird, wanky, and dated, despite their just forming in 2005. Cattle Decapitation opened the outdoor stage with a set of bloody death metal that highlighted the antics of their maniacal frontman and their guitarist's nutty shredding. Pigsty, also from the Czech Republic, had my favorite set of the day, cranking out grind that was sometimes dementedly fast, sometimes totally groovy, and always fun and upredictable. Cephalic Carnage played a nice selection from their catalog of weed-fueled experimental grindcore and afterwards Norway's black metal fundamentalists Mayhem disappointed me by playing lots of their older, more samey stuff and neglecting their recent, more atmospheric and weird material, though I'm sure that's what most of their fans wanted them to do. Reunited Dutch doomsters Asphyx provided a climax for the evening, playing an all-too-brief set of mostly mid-tempo tracks that made headbanging a physical necessity. My friends and I skipped out after that, missing the two final bands in order to get some sleep to prepare for the next next 13-hour day of metal.
After stopping to get some crab cakes before the show (believe the hype), we took our place in the line that snaked around the venue. The line unfortunately made us miss the first act of the day, but we made it in time to watch Florida's Maruta tear it up in another nice surprise. Texas' Pretty Little Flower played some charming old-school grind that got a nice circle pit going, including a number of guys who'd trekked up from Texas to see their hometown heroes. Unearthly Trance was a snoozefest but Sweden's Crowpath picked things up a bit with some hard-to-categorize heaviness. New Orleans' Flesh Parade ground me to a pulp and their vocalist's deranged screech was one of the most memorable vocal performances of the weekend. The overhyped Weekend Nachos bored me with their goofy vocals and baffling short, slow songs. All that nonsense was forgotten when my personal favorites Rotten Sound absolutely obliterated everything in sight and levelled the building to the ground, their drummer almost tearing a hole in the space-time continuum with the speed of his blasting. Outside, Hail of Bullets played a great old-school set of WWII-themed death metal, with vocalist Martin van Drunen providing some of the best stage banter of the fest ("Have yourself a cold beer - we'll do the metal!") Back on the sweaty indoor stage, Misery Index played to their horde of followers with a punishing set of political deathgrind. Having to decide between the last few songs by veteran Christ-hating discordant death metallers Immolation and the beginning of giddy Swedish cartoon grinders Birdflesh was like my own personal Sophie's Choice, except way more brutal. I caught the majority of both sets and neither let me down. However, Florida's Atheist disappointed with their jazzy progressive death metal sounding even more dated and cheesy than their Gnostic side project and fellow old-schoolers Brutal Truth's set was marred by a poor sound mix and sloppy performance. Pig Destroyer destroyed whenever they weren't squandering their short set time by having their new "band member" press buttons that triggered long, pointless samples between minute-long songs. The one-two punch of the grandfathers of grind Napalm Death and the this-is-why-death-metal-rules pummeling of Bolt Thrower left the whole crowd with sore necks and satisfied grins on their faces. I took a breather outside while Phobia blasted inside and came in to catch medical monstrosities General Surgery perform gory musical operations and somehow manage to keep me banging my head despite my entire body begging for sleep. It was a tough decision to skip Wolves in the Throne Room's 12:40 AM set but we needed to rest up for the next day, so we did. I hope to catch them on tour in the future since both of my companions assured me they are a righteous live act.
As I woke up Sunday morning, I could not believe I had another whole day of this. After our wonderful hosts made us pancakes (thanks Martin and Katy!), we slammed some Red Bull and dragged our weary bodies back to Sonar just in time for a lackluster several opening hours. Complete Failure were the exception, playing a nice tight set of passionate, experimental grind. Agenda of Swine were competent but generic, The Endless Blockade tried to be provocative with lots of noise but failed, Lair of the Minotaur and Magrudergrind were fine but whatever. "Fine" doesn't cut it. After the non-stop excellence of Saturday evening, bands needed to be pretty exceptional to get me excited on Sunday. Kill the Client stepped up to the plate and finally gave me something to get enthusiastic about - their intense frontman leapt off the stage and screamed his head off from the pit while the band was flawless and blistering onstage. Splitter was like Rotten Sound Junior - they were definitely solid and if they would have played Friday afternoon when I had lots of energy, I'm sure I would have loved them. The Red Chord are always a blast live, and their technical prowess and cavernous breakdowns got me all worked up. I watched a few songs of Despise You but left after they tried to play the same thirty second song three times but repeatedly screwed it up and couldn't get to the end. Inexcusable! Shame on you, Despise You! Amateurs. Yakuza, Catheter, and Absu were all uninspiring in different ways, but a major highlight of the weekend arrived as experimental black metallists Krallice hypnotized me with their unconventional harmonies and epic song structures. As Abscess was playing some gory old school death metal outside, experimental Polish grinders Antigama (whose name I discovered I had been mispronouncing for years - it's an-tee-GAM-ah, not an-TIG-ah-ma) were blowing minds inside with some of the most creative and out-there drumming and unpredictable songs of any band of the weekend. Lots of people were outside and missed out on a truly stellar performance. Aura Noir thrashed old-school and made me wish the schedule didn't have any conflicting sets so I could have seen more of them. Trap Them was another highlight of a very back-loaded day, playing a hybrid of grind and passionate hardcore that really got the crowd into a frenzy. Australia's blackened death warriors Deströyer 666 played furious battle-ready hymns of anger and indignation and I'm sure their set pleased the guy I saw with their big, bold logo tattooed across his chest as well as all the other death metal fans in the house. Sunday's main stage headliner Pestilence canceled due to visa issues, so Bolt Thrower played a second set indoors to their diehard fans. We took a break and walked to 7-Eleven for Slurpees. We got back in time for Texas brutallists Devourment's brand of dumbed-down slam death, which somehow managed to be amazing. Listening to their music is like playing with those oversized Lego blocks for preschoolers but their crowd-pleasing brutality suprisingly got us all very excited, even eliciting cries of "hip, hip, hooray!" from some slap-happy fans near where I was standing. The final act of the fest was Japanese black-metal funderground saviors Sigh, who played a song that sounded like metal video game music and held my interest until my body hit a brick wall sometime around one in the morning and I had to go sit down.
As it has been in years past, Maryland Deathfest was an endurance contest, and it sucks to have to fight through pain to watch bands play. When it was all over, I was driving back to the Midwest with a neck sore from headbanging, arms sore from fist-pumping, throat sore from yelling "YEAAAAH!", and a refreshed feeling of camaraderie with all the world's metal fans. We blared grindcore all the way home.