About an hour ago the organizers of Maryland Deathfest announced another round of bands confirmed to appear at the 2017 edition of the event. Here they are:
Batushka (Poland) (exclusive U.S. appearance)
Birdflesh (Sweden)
Chepang
Cognitive
Die Choking
English Dogs (UK)
Exhumed
Genocide Pact
Gorgasm
Malevolent Creation
Stormtroopers of Beer (official S.O.D. cover band featuring Dan Lilker and Jocke & Adde/General Surgery)
Suppression
UxDxS (Denmark) Continue reading »
Ten days have passed since the last time I put together a round-up of news and recommended new music, which is an unusually long gap. Perhaps needless to say, trying to catch up is out of the question. What I’m going to do instead is just pull together some big news announcements from the last 24 hours in this post (plus one related recent song), and then collect a few more recent music streams in a second part that I’ll post a bit later today.
MARYLAND DEATHFEST ANNOUNCES SECOND ROUND OF CONFIRMED BANDS FOR 2017
On June 30, as we dutifully reported, the organizers of Maryland Deathfest announced the first round of confirmed bands for the XVth edition of the festival, scheduled to take place on May 25-28, 2017, in Baltimore. Just minutes ago, MDF announced a second round of confirmed bands — plus some surprising news about where the festival will, and won’t, take place next year. Here are the new confirmed names: Continue reading »
About 20 minutes ago the organizers of America’s finest metal festival announced the initial slate of bands confirmed to appear at next year’s installment of the festival — Maryland Deathfest XV. And here’s the list, pasted from MDF’s Facebook announcement:
Acid King
Akercocke (UK) – Exclusive U.S. appearance!
Autopsy
Behexen (Finland) – Exclusive U.S. appearance!
Brodequin
Decrepit Birth
Dopethrone
Embalmer
In The Woods… (Norway) – Exclusive U.S. appearance!
Iron Lung Continue reading »
It’s time for me to bring this five-part reminiscence about Maryland Deathfest 2016 to a close and try to get back to more typical NCS activities this week.
I said when I started this recap that I wanted to give a round of applause to the best bands I saw at MDF, organizing them into four categories. The first three categories I nicknamed Swedish (and Dutch) Death Metal Supremacy, Shades of Black, and The Black Death. However, there’s no common denominator among the five bands grouped together today, so I’m calling this collection Divergent Delights.
I was thinking about Mixed Martial Arts, but much of the music here isn’t martial. Assorted Ass-Kicking was appealing, but I don’t think “ass-kicking” really fits everything either. Maybe Variegated Victories would have worked. Continue reading »
Friday beer/brunch at Alewife with friends.
For those of you just now joining this series about Maryland Deathfest XIV, I’m in the process of highlighting the bands whose performances were the best of the ones I saw and heard in Baltimore beginning on Wednesday of last week.
Rather than doing a day-by-day recap, I’ve organized the bands into four somewhat loosely defined categories. Yesterday’s feature was a “Shades of Black” collection of black metal bands, and before that was one under the heading “Swedish (and Dutch) Death Metal Supremacy”. I’m calling today’s celebration “The Black Death“, not only because that describes the general style of music performed by the following six bands, but also because they all spread a lethal kind of auditory plague.
Presented in the order in which I witnessed the performances over 5 nights and 4 days, and I’ve again included my photos of each band (most of which are gathered at the end of this post). Continue reading »
MDF merch
For those just now joining this series about Maryland Deathfest XIV, I’m in the process of highlighting the bands whose performances were the best of the ones I saw and heard in Baltimore beginning on Wednesday of last week.
I’ve organized those bands into four categories (not rigidly defined, mind you). Yesterday’s feature was about “Swedish (and Dutch) Death Metal Supremacy”, and for today’s collection I’m borrowing the title of one of our long-running series about new music — Shades of Black — because I’m spotlighting six black metal bands of varying styles whose sets I really enjoyed. I’ve again included photos of each band (most of which are gathered at the end of this post). Continue reading »
No one is going to bitch about not getting their money’s worth at MDF XIV. Today, the organizers of Maryland Deathfest announced the names of 45 more confirmed bands for the 2016 edition of the best metal fest in the U.S. (and one of the best in the world). This humongous list of new entrants swells an already impressive (and impressively full) list of previously announced bands. Here are the new names:
The Afternoon Gentlemen (UK)
Buzzov*en
Centinex (Sweden)
Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin (Italy)
Crypt Sermon
Dehumanized
Demonical (Sweden)
Demonic Christ
Deranged (Sweden)
Discharge (UK)
DOOM (UK)
Dopethrone (Canada)
Dragged into Sunlight (UK) Continue reading »
Yesterday the organizers of Maryland Deathfest announced the first group of bands for the 2016 edition of North America’s best metal festival. They also released 350 “early bird” passes for on-line sale — which sold out in approximately 15 seconds. Your humble editor wasn’t quick enough on the draw to get one of those. But more tickets will be released for sale after MDF finishes announcing the bands for next year’s event. For now, let’s talk about the first group of 30 bands revealed yesterday.
There’s a lot to talk about.
About three weeks ago, NCS contributor KevinP rolled out his own wishlist for MDF XIV (here), and that led lots of readers to roll out their own lists in the Comments. There were tons of good bands in those lists, and many people got at least some of their wishes granted yesterday. KevinP, for example, is a happy camper because his Number One pick — Hail of Bullets — were included in yesterday’s announcement. On the other hand, none of the rest of his wishlist of 10 bands was included. But of course there’s still time. Continue reading »
(Maryland Deathfest 2015 is in the history books, but the organizers already lining up bands for next year’s edition of MDF. Here’s KevinP’s wishlist of bands for next year — and we want your ideas in the Comment section, too.)
2015 is in the books and we have a date for next year already (May 26th-29th). Bands usually start being announced in a month (or so), so let’s get the discussion going! Who do you want to see and why? For the sake of reasonableness, I’m keeping my list to 10, even though like many of you I could easily do 20+. Also, a few rules I applied: if a band played in 2014/2015, they won’t be playing next year, just accept that as near fact. Even bands who played in 2013 seem far-fetched. So no Bolt Thrower, Dark Angel, or Bloodbath. The most recent year I’m pulling from is 2012. So here we go with my list (in order of importance) along with my infallible logic.
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1. Hail Of Bullets – their last appearance was 2011. I think a five-year gap is more than enough time. Who doesn’t like this band? If you don’t you should get your head examined (or you may be a Finnish guy named Markku). I would like an Edison Lot show, though. Since I would bring my 12-year-old daughter, who loves HOB, the shows end earlier and there’s more breathing room at the lot. Would be awesome for her to finally meet Ed Warby and Martin van Drunen. Continue reading »
When I ended yesterday’s installment of my poorly organized reflections on Maryland Deathfest XIII, I had made it through the last performance of the festival at Edison Lot, the killer show by Amorphis. I will soon be moving backward in time to fill in a few gaps from my impromptu posts about the earlier days of the festival, but first a few words and photos about what happened after Amorphis said goodnight.
My friends and I shambled out of the Edison Lot along with hundreds of other people and found cabs that would take us to Ram’s Head (which was not difficult). Yes, we could have walked, but after three-and-a-half long days and nights of standing on hard surfaces, my feet had swollen up like rotten fruit — plus, every minute lost was one less minute of music to hear on the final night of MDF. When we arrived at Ram’s Head, that photo up there shows you what greeted my eyes. Continue reading »