My Atonement - Live thrash and Day Two at Maryland Deathfest

In the hellish moshpits of Waylor, there are no survivors. Ever. Moshing amongst this warrior people is a noble if brutish way to commit ritual suicide. Their battle jackets adorned with razor studs and and armed with Kerry King style gauntlets, this is how they act out there warrior ways in the slow periods between mega-wars. So the bands had better be fucking brutal, lest they be thrown into the bloody pits! Demon Scourge and myself scoured the late 80's for these bands, testing their thrash meddle, to see if they could summon a wall of death worthy of the suicidal hordes of Waylor.

Sodom-Mortal Way of Live certainly lives up to and exceeds the standards of Waylor. This album captures the janky, loose, yet evil feel of their early stuff (compliments of the furious but sloppy skin work of Chris Witchhunter), but improved upon by the exacting axe work of Frank Blackfire. His more precise axework interprets the old riffery in new ways with out sacrificing the  weirdness essential to the enjoyment of early Sodom. Tom Angelripper's bass has a quite prominent place in the mix, making him sound like the Lemmy of German thrash. This power trio bashes them out in brutal succession and this is quite the worthy live album and was the winner of the night. Except Demon Scourge doesn't think so cuz he's teh ghey.



Dark Angel-Live Scars is another worthy live thrash album. This is a brutal affair that showcases this band's mix of German thrash evilness and Bay Area mosh readiness. I should say brutal but brief, as fatigue.this album comes in just under 30 minutes. But it also features some of this band's longest songs, which comprises their greatest weakness. Every thrash band wanted to make the next ....And

Justice For All in the late 80's, and Dark Angel is no exception. The first song is nearly 10 minutes long and is simply a mishmash of riffs and ideas that could have been condensed into three songs. It's vicious hammering, though, and that saves the long songs from causing


 Death Angel-Fall From Grace suffers from a flat production. Comprised of songs from its first 2 albums, the mix is a trebly mush that inadequately captures the band at full force. But fortunately, the songs, furious thrashing, and the relative eclectics of the set still makes this an enjoyable album. The

live feel gives the songs from 'Frolic In The Park' a kick in the ass, and the classics from the first album are reliable chuggers, worthy of Waylor moshing.



Lastly, we heard Bulldozer-Alive...In Poland. These crazy bastards are ready made for Waylor. They give Sodom a run for their evil money. I'm pretty sure that the hordes of Waylor would not pull them down from the stage and cut them to bloody pieces. This is a good sampling of the band that gives ferocious neck wrenching to the listener. Demon Scourge decided he liked this album better than Sodom cuz he's gay for Bulldozer right now. But it not hard to fag out for this band. Check out the crazed lyrics. Come taste the band! Check out some fucking Bulldozer.

MDF Report - Day Two

  

I was up early on Saturday and began to prepare for the second brutal day of my journey into the darkside. Sitting in the dreary hotel lobby and munching on dry biscuits and rubbery sausage, I reflected on the chaos of the previous night. It was interesting to see the multitude of representatives from each of the galaxy of subcultures that make up heavy metal fandom today. From the sludge metal rednecks and skinny metal nerds who looked to still be in high school to the crustiest, pack traveling peace punks, we were all trapped together in that fenced playground. Spanish speaking headbangers with exquisitely designed battle jackets rubbed shoulders with serious looking black metal totalitarians who wore neatly buttoned black shirts, their favorite band's illegible logo sewn on to the pocket or sleeve. The guy with his kids, the individual in the chicken suit, who would continuously crowd surf for the next two days. My own presence in this time and place was wraithlike and fleeting, a lone traveler with a blasphemous baby doll in a sea of black t shirts and unkempt hair. I passed unnoticed through the crowd, an outsider in this festival of outsiders, gathering observations for the Jenkabala court in my pocket notebook.

I arrived early to snag a spot in the cheap lot that adjoins the festival grounds. The sun was shining brightly in the brisk Maryland morning as I made my way through the remote and half abandoned highway commerce zone where my unwholesome looking motel perched upon its hill to the belly of the beast, Baltimore. Having a couple hours to spare, I set out on an expedition into the surrounding area. Wandering through the twisting alleys and steep hills of this venerable city made me wish I had more time to familiarize myself with this mysterious titan, but duty called. When I arrived at the entrance I got the disappointing news that spikes on jackets were verboten, so in addition to not being able to get Necro Baby in, I was now short a battle jacket. At least I still had my notebook and pen, that was all I would really need to get me through the day. 

The first band of the day were a local doom metal outfit, Asthma Castle. Their hardcore tinged doom/sludge had a definite D.C. flavor, complete with tough guy shout vocals. The guitar players were excellent, spicing up the proceedings with some classic twin guitar harmonies. I walked out from the tent after their set into the bright sun and meandered through the vendor area where merchants from around the world were trading in obscure band t shirts and patches. CD's, tapes and records from the most exotic underground bands were there along with bands and labels, hawking their latest offerings. After drooling over some crazy expensive NWOBHM singles, I hit the tent again to catch Kommandant , who after an unbelievably long intro, filled the stage in their leather and gas mask gear and proceeded to pump out some raw black metal in the Swedish mode. The first of many blackened bands I was to witness over the weekend, they were one of the most grim and hateful in the bunch. The wait for Anhedonist to play was mercifully much shorter. The riffs lurched across the barricaded street, the band sorrowfully churning out their hybrid death/doom metal to a captivated crowd. They reminded me of a doom metal Celtic Frost with singer, "V.B." belting out some great death grunts to accompany the morbid music.

The day was really getting underway at this point. It was three pm and a steady trickle of concertgoers continued to fill the yard. The chicken suit guy was back along with a youngster in a banana costume. I was starting to see the first drunks of the day, bumbling about helplessly, looking for a place to sit down. From the tent there was a slow guitar riff and Loss began playing their set. Drawing heavily from their sole full length, Despond, they reminded me a bit of Shining or Forgotten Tomb with blackened vocals married to agonizingly slow riffs, grinding like tectonic plates that inch inevitably to disaster. In some strange way I would consider what I heard a heavy metal analogue to Joy Division's Closer. After this set, the show finally moved out of the tent and to the far outside stage, where the Danish DM band, Iniquity was about ready to start. It was pretty exciting to finally see some real Death Metal at Deathfest. Despite them getting shafted with a loud, distracting buzz (a big problem on this stage) they were pretty exciting to watch. I was starting to get fatigued from standing, but the brutal blasting coming from the stage would not let me sit. The hyper fast rhythms were a welcome change from the mournful artistry of the first part of the day. By the time they played their last tune, Son of Cosmos, I was ready to take in the first of tonight's round of sludge and doom, Weedeater. Mr. Collins and company were already pouring molten lava from the stage when I made it around to the main stage area. The heavy ass sludge that surrounded the audience was indeed impressive, if not fully my cup of tea, but I was intrigued by their straight ahead blues approach, as much Jon Spencer as Black Sabbath. Fittingly enough, they covered Lynyrd Skynyrd's Gimmie Back My Bullets (featuring Pepper Kennan on vocals.) The sun was sinking lower in the sky as The Obsessed took the stage. I have always been a big fan of Wino's Ozzy like drawl and his band pushed the night into doom metal overload. I found them to be more palatable than Weedeater (perhaps because I'm more familiar with this band's catalog) but they also struck me as a highly blues based band. Wino and his band treated the audience to a show that was heavy with songs from the first album but Streamlined from The Church Within was the highlight of the show for me. As the applause for The Obsessed's last song was fading away, I heard the sound of another band from around the corner and rushed over to try and get a good view.

Broken Hope are famous for their outre sex and gore lyrics and their late singer, Joe Ptacek, who was said to have one of the lowest voices in all of death metal. The band was tight and former Gorgasam singer, Damian "Tom" Leski did a good job of replicating the former singer's hellish growls on material from their early-entry classics like Hobo Stew, Into the Necrosphere and Pitbull Grin, witch they dedicated to their fallen comrade. I enjoyed seeing more death metal, even though Broken Hope, as I would notice later, is a love it or hate it proposition among true fans. Dusk was setting in as the Melvins took the stage. I have seen this band perform a number of times and they are always good. I thought their inclusion on this particular bill was a little weird. I would have preferred to see more death or black metal, but I can see why they wanted to include them, as the festival's mission seems to be a presentation of all heavy music, without regard for genre. Their slot was filled with tunes from the early days. I loved hearing them play this material and was pretty surprised to see a bunch of people you would never expect to be Melvins fans singing along with the twisted jams emanating from the stage. My wait for something more extreme ended when Canada's Revenge started shredding faces behind us in the tent. Luckly for me i was in the back of the crowd for the Melvins, so I got to see this band from a better vantage point that I had all day and I was ready for some war metal. There were no slow parts in this portion of the evening, no dynamics to speak of and no mercy from the canucks before us. They started out at full bore and devastated the canvas enclosure for an hour then walked off the stage with no fanfare. I thought it was perfect.

Seeing Down was one of the things I was least excited about at Deathfest. I have tried a few times to really sit down and get into this band, but they just don't do it for me. The other five thousand people there definitely did not agree. From what I heard, they played a kind of shortened version of the Diray Of A Mad Band setlist. I was relived when I heard Vinterland, whose position was moved from five to ten, blasting the fuck out of the tent behind me. They played almost all of their legendary Welcome To My Last Chapter album and it was not just off the chain, but down the street gnawing on a jogger's leg. I was picking my jaw up off the ground after they finished off with a glorious Wings of Sorrow and I picked up my aching feet and headed back to the car to weave my way out of the confusing streets, now filled with drunken bumblers, spilling from the festival gates to downtown hotels. 

 

Until next week, brain thrashers, 

Horns