Jun 022016
 

Wombbath at MDF-photo by Bryan Zakala

Wombbath at MDF – photo by Bryan Zakala

 

When I started this recap of Maryland Deathfest XIV a couple of days ago (here), I explained that I didn’t intend to report on the festival day-by-day, as I’ve done in previous years, but instead decided to focus on the best performances I saw, grouped into four loosely defined categories. In that introductory post, I only wrote about one band (Dragged Into Sunlight), because their set was the best one I saw at this year’s edition of MDF.

DIS happens to be in one of those four categories, but I’m going to leave that one for another day. Today I want to focus on one of the others, which I’m labeling Swedish (and Dutch) Death Metal Supremacy.

But first I want to publicly thank these four dudes:

 

Brutalitopia1

Left to right: Mick, Durf, Jack, Tom.  (Not pictured: Godzilla).

These guys have been friends for a long time, and have collaborated in creating the Brutalitopia metal blog. On the Saturday morning preceding Day 3 of MDF XIV, they put on a hell of a metal brunch and played host to about two dozen friends (most of whom are fellow metal writers), including me and the extended No Clean Singing crew who congregated at MDF this year.

Intrepid and inventive partiers that they are, they booked an apartment through Airbnb in a building that had a spacious rooftop deck, laid in copious supplies of food and alcohol, and then cooked up a breakfast storm (using a range with an apparently defective ventilator — the only way to get the bacon smell out of the apartment they rented will be to demolish it).

Who knew that the apartment building didn’t allow Airbnb rentals? We sure as fuck didn’t — until the building manager arrived and so informed us. She had kind of a horrified look on her face upon discovering two dozen mainly black-clad metalheads beering it up at mid-morning on the rooftop deck and pounding DEE-licious breakfast sandwiches coming out of the Brutalitopia kitchen assembly line. But our hosts sweet-talked her down off her mental ledge, and after half-heartedly asking us not to make too much noise, she told us to have a good time. Which we fucking did.

And that wasn’t the only time.  Basically the same group of people also had another (beer-fueled) brunch at Alewife on Friday and a hell of a dinner break on Sunday night (beer-fueled) at The Brewer’s Art, plus some epic carousing after the festival’s final night (yeah, astonishingly, that was also beer-fueled). Most of the photos I have of these events probably shouldn’t be posted for the world to see, but this one from the Sunday dinner seems safe (and shadowy) enough:

 

Brewers Art dinner1

 

Thanks to Aaron, Alexis, BlairCorey, Dan, DaveKevin, Jordan, Matt, Matti, Max, and Steve, plus the Brutalitopia brothers and my NCS comrades, for making the long weekend in Charm Motherfuckin City such a fuckin’ great time. (I’m going to mention some other people I loved seeing, but that will come tomorrow.)

 

Now, where was I?

Oh yeah. I was about to start babbling about Swedish (and Dutch) Death Metal Supremacy. Most of the bands I’m highlighting below play old school Swedish death, a genre that has been one of my consistent favorites for many years, and most of them also themselves contributed significantly to the birth of the genre in the early ’90s. So I was already prone to eat this up, but even though I’m not entirely objective I still thought the bands brought this old strain of metal vibrantly to life. Not all the bands mentioned below are in this vein (Horrendous, for example), but every one of these sets proved to be festival highlights for me.

I’ve interspersed a few of my photos in the following text, and a lot more are collected at the end of this post.

 

Wombbath08

WOMBBATH

I’m going to start with Wombbath because for a lot of the people I hung out with, they proved to be one of the best and brightest surprises of the festival. They originally made their mark in the early ’90s but then dissolved not long after releasing their debut album Internal Caustic Torments in 1993. More than 20 years later the band re-formed, with sole remaining original member Håkan Stuvemark joined by a collective of talented new bandmates who together released an excellent comeback album last year, Downfall Rising.

Not all of the people in the new line-up were able to make it to MDF, and so Stuvemark, vocalist Jonny Pettersson, and bassist Johan Momqvist were joined on stage by guitarist Taylor Nordberg (Scab) and drummer Jeramie Kling (The Absence), both of whom had also contributed to tracks on Downfall Rising. It was a hell of a set that opened a lot of eyes, and the band’s enthusiasm and joy in their performance communicated itself to the audience, and was reciprocated. Jonny Pettersson was also a charismatic (and ferocious) frontman, and his between-song banter helped endear him and the band to the crowd. I enjoyed the hell out of myself.

 

 

Horrendous1

HORRENDOUS

These dudes have made quite a name for themselves in a very short space of time, but I was very curious whether they could pull off on stage anything resembling what they’ve done in the studio. And the answer is… hell yes, they can. The fact that most of these guys barely look old enough to drink made the electrifying performance even more impressive. I’ve obviously stretched the boundaries of today’s category pretty far to include Horrendous, but I needed to find a way to highlight their performance, and so here they are.

 

 

Centinex2

CENTINEX

Centinex, like Wombbath, is another prominent name from the early ’90s Swedish death metal explosion. They had a much longer run than Wombbath before calling it quits in 2006. But they, too, have re-formed, discharging the Redeeming Filth album in 2014 and now on the verge of releasing Doomsday Rituals this year.

Their set was powerful, decimating, and a complete blast to hear. I especially enjoyed the fact that they chose to end their performance with a song from Redeeming Filth that I included in our list of 2014’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs — the magnificently putrid, made-for-singing-along “Moist Purple Skin”.

 

 

Interment2

INTERMENT

Like Wombbath and Centinex, Interment’s roots go back to the early ’90s and they also dissolved (in 1994), only to re-form and release a split with Funebrarum in 2007. Their 2010 comeback album (which was also their full-length debut!) Into the Crypts of Blasphemy was excellent, and so is the second full-length Scent of the Buried, which came out a couple of months ago.

Interment was supposed to play MDF in 2012, but couldn’t make the trip. They more than made up for lost time with an absolutely vicious performance this year.

 

 

Hail of Bullets09

HAIL OF BULLETS

And now you know why I included “Dutch” in parentheses for this grouping of outstanding performances. Though I guess I probably should have written “Dutch and English”.

Hail of Bullets’ set undoubtedly would have been very strong even without the presence of their new frontman, but for me he made it a truly stand-out moment of MDF 2016. Yes, I confess that the chance to see Dave Ingram (ex-Bolt Thrower, ex-Benediction) in the flesh, and in his first gig in 10 years (as he said), put me into mindless fanboy mode. But though my objectivity may again be suspect, I thought his growl was distinctive, bestial, and spine-tingling. And although he seemed almost skeptical or even reluctant at first, he clearly warmed to the experience (he also commented about the warmth of the temperature — which was indeed like a steam bath when HoB played), buoyed by the highly enthusiastic response of the audience.

And the rest of the talented people in this band were firing on all cylinders, too. For me, a top 5 performance for MDF 2016.

(And yes, based on stage comments at the end of the set, it appears that Ingram is now HoB’s permanent vocalist… pretty damned good way to replace the esteemed Martin van Drunen.)

A lot more photos of these bands can be found below.

Complete MDF 2016 coverage:

A MARYLAND DEATHFEST RECAP (PART 1)

A MARYLAND DEATHFEST RECAP (PART 2)

A MARYLAND DEATHFEST RECAP (PART 3)

A MARYLAND DEATHFEST RECAP (PART 4)

A MARYLAND DEATHFEST RECAP (PART 5)

MDF 2016: HAZY HIGHLIGHTS AND FUZZY RECOLLECTIONS (BY ANDY SYNN)

 

WOMBBATH

Wombbath06

Wombbath03

Wombbath04

Wombbath05

Wombbath10

Wombbath12

Wombbath11

Wombbath07

Wombbath13

Wombbath19

 

 

HORRENDOUS

Horrendous6

Horrendous5

Horrendous4

Horrendous3

Horrendous2

 

 

CENTINEX

Centinex5

Centinex4

Centinex3

Centinex1

 

 

INTERMENT

Interment3

Interment1

Interment9

Interment8

Interment6

Interment4

 

HAIL OF BULLETS

Hail of Bullets10

Hail of Bullets13

Hail of Bullets12

Hail of Bullets08

Hail of Bullets06

Hail of Bullets05

Hail of Bullets03

Hail of Bullets02

Hail of Bullets01

  18 Responses to “A MARYLAND DEATHFEST RECAP (PART 2)”

  1. That Taylor Ham smoked apartment is the equivalent of a delicious meth lab. Btw the owner is more than happy to have us back next year if we want to repeat.

    • No shit? I figured they’d be in a deep hole after violating their building rules. I guess the persistent aroma of ham and bacon has left them drooling so copiously that they’re embraced No Rules No Masters as their personal motto now. Sign me up!

  2. Did you guys not make it out for Demonical…they were definitely top tier as well, and watching Sverker on the mic was a trip…thought his eyes were going to bug out of his head a few times

    Really loved that Wombbath was so pumped to be there, Jonnys enthusiasm was completely infectious

    Centinex was great, one of the best bands to play on Friday

    I think Interment was my favorite of the Swedish death bands that weekend…that set was crazy strong

    Hail Of Bullets, I was right up front for that and they did do great, but man it just dosnt sound right without MVD on the vocals. Thats not to say Ingram didnt do a fantastic job, he was killing it, but its going to take a while to get used to (Also, in regards to the sun “What the FUCK is THAT!…hahaha)

    Horrendous sounded really good, and I liked it, but they really got stuck with a shitty timeslot…first band, first day…the crowd is always dead for that

    • The day Horrendous played was the only day we got to Edison on time. I dearly wanted to see Demonical, but they had the same early time-slot problem — that was the day of the rooftop brunch, and we were just having too much fun to leave.

      • Nah…I know that feeling well. My groups missed plenty of bands over the years because we’re up in the parking garage drinking beers and laughing our asses off. This was the first year we made it in right away, and that was usually for the first couple of bands, then we would leave again for a bit.

        Seeing bands is fun, but hanging with friends, and sharing that whole thing is the best part of MDF

        • Agree completely — sharing the experience and hanging out with friends is the best part, and the main reason this was my favorite MDF so far.

  3. Insanely jealous on pretty much all of these, but especially Horrendous – I’ve kinda become a fanboy of theirs recently. Finally nabbed Anareta on wax recently – definitely worth the extra cash, and sounds even better with the vinyl dynamic range.

    • I assume they borrowed Noisem’s bass player? That kid was really good for his age, and he really seemed to be enjoying himself as much on stage as just hanging out at their merch table. They should just not return him.

  4. I really wanna hear about that Craft performance.

    • D.I.S. ran over their time…Craft had no time for a sound check. Craft was pissed, sounded like crap for a bit, never quite got over their initial anger, had no energy, and generally acted like they didnt want to be up there.

    • ^^^ I think that sums up what I would (and will) say, except I don’t think everyone in the band was acting like they didn’t want to be there — though that was kind of the general sense of the performance as a whole.

  5. Oh and for the record, up on that top picture of Wombbath before the article starts…I can see Islander and his hat and me with my sunglasses out there in the crowd

  6. Wombbath? More like, WombBEARD, amirite?!?

  7. Wombbath damn near stole Sunday for me. Brilliant, lights out performance. Interment were also fantastic, as were Denouncement Pyre.

 Leave a Reply

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.