Sick Fest 2012 Battle Report

Some time in late June I went to one of Denmark's few metal festivals. Sick Fest 2012 is the first year of this brand spanking new death metal and grind festival set up by Club Sick in Odense, Denmark's third biggest city.
My first immediate concern with a festival like Sick Fest was whether or not it would even be possible to attract enough people to a three-day show of what is essentially a niche genre. My second concern was if it would be well enough organized to succeed. To the last of my concerns I was surprised to find that it was very well organized and felt very professional in most aspects. They kept a ruthless schedule and didn't fall behind even once, but unfortunately the amount of bands resulted in very short sets for some of the bigger bands. That said, in the world of death metal most sets need to be short in order to not become boring.

Sick Fest, according to the promoters, is a death metal and grind festival. When it comes to metal, death metal is probably one of the genres with most sub-genres, so I was rather surprised to find that most of the bands were either brutal death metal bands or slam bands. I had hoped that they had hired bands of greater diversity, as many sub-genres were represented by only one or two bands. As an example, Panacea was the only melodic death metal band, and the two headliners Rompeprop and Cliteater were both gore/porngrind while VxPxOxAxAxWxAxMxC was the only "true" grindcore band. Most of the other bands were brutal death metal bands, which in every nature of the genre gets incredibly boring when you listen to 10 bands each day where 7 of them sound pretty much alike.

I would like to talk a bit about some of the bands that I felt stood out, not necessarily by genre, but by general effort.
The first day DPOS!! and RazorRape, two bands consisting of roughly the same members, stood out as bands that had great contact with the audience. With a lead singer that understood how to talk to a bunch of shitfaced metalheads, both bands got through two great sets peppered by a Cock and Ball Torture cover of Kamikaze Incest.
Amagortis, the weed-lovin' Swiss death metal band, was also among one of the highlights of Friday. Their great energy and presence resulted in a pumped audience, and Amagortis were probably one of the most well-visited shows of the day.
The band that, to me, delivered the best show was one of the biggest bands on the festival. It was obvious that Condemned from San Diego was one of the bands that people had been looking forward to, and they were met with an engaged audience in spite of their short setlist.
On Saturday the first band to play, the Danish melodic death metal act Panacea, had a limited audience, probably because of severe hangovers. In spite of the lack of attendence Panacea delivered a great show with catchy tunes and lots of energy. Sick Fest's softest band was also among one of the better ones.
The third band of Saturday was one that I had looked forward to as they have been featured before on my blog. Back in April 2012 I reviewed their first demo EP "Dehiscent Abdominal Viscera", and getting to see them live was very interesting. Having two lead singers made the show stand out and they showed Sick Fest why slam is great live music.
It goes without saying that both Cliteater and Rompeprop were out of this world. I won't even begin describing their shows. But that said I feel that the best band of Sick Fest 2012 was the German band CYTOTOXIN. I had never heard of them before, but their ultra-fast brand of technical brutal death metal was so well-performed and well-executed that they receive my vote as the best band. The imposing and threatening attitude and demeanor of their lead singer, who looked most of all like a German Frankenstein, took us over the edge and when he would once in a while get off the stage to stomp around in the pit it made the show perfect.

Summing up Sick Fest 2012: The festival was well organized and had great stands like a  horror stand supplied by Phantasmo DVD and some wicked distro stands by Ancient Darkness Productions and others. With around 30 bands I wish they would've gone for a more varied approach as Sick Fest featured little more than a slew of brutal death metal bands in the vain of the old Mountains of Death lineups. I could also have wished for a larger turnout as one quickly grew familiar with most people on the festival, and most of the bands only got around half of the audience inside. I was hoping for some serious headbanging and moshing, but apparently in the world of slam every pit must be degraded into 3-5 drunk germans walking in circles at a steady pace whilst waving at the band. Occassionally when things got wild this would escalate into 6-7 people stomping angrily around and mimicking taking their hats off and throwing it to the ground in sheer fury repeatedly. It's great that most death metal bands and fans don't take themselves or the genre super seriously, but it was hard taking the festival, the shows, the bands and the "fans" serious when they were strutting around like displeased chickens.

Dark Entropy - 2011 Demo [Demo] (2011, Self-released)

In genres such as thrash it's hard not to compare every new and modern band you listen to with the fathers of the genre back in the 80's. For example it's obvious that Suicidal Angels have taken a lot of inspiration from Slayer, while Trench Hell take a lot from Celtic Frost and the like. But with Dark Entropy there aren't any obvious inspirations from the 80's bands, and they're one of the few newer thrash bands that aren't revivalists. In short Dark Entropy, who formed in Chicago in 2008, is a modern thrash band with some minor groove influences.

But this does not speak for itself. A band obviously isn't good just because they don't sound exactly like one of the big four. Their hitherto only release, the 2011 Demo, offers some fairly low-tempo thrash metal with a few mildly enjoyable, but ultimately mediocre, Testament-ish riffs. They basically took the Thrash 101 and followed it to precision, making for some very predictable groove-infused thrash metal with simple verse/chorus/verse structure.

Alas, I cannot push back this subject any further. I have to talk about the vocals. When I started listening to the demo, FEAR comes on with its ponderously chugging guitar leads and I thought this was gonna be "just another thrash band". Instead I got "just another thrash band, but with terrible vocals". Not only are they poorly done in general, the singer is completely out of tune and, to me, sounds tonedeaf. I don't think he hit a single note right in the first song.
Whenever the vocals just follow a simple roaring pattern in just a single tone the vocals aren't half bad, but when he tries out some melodies and stuff like that it just falls through completely and ruins any enjoyability the track might have had.
Lyrically Dark Entropy have a long way to go. The lyrics are just so completely dull and typical that I would've preferred unintelligible, mindless groaning and screaming. The 13 year old me would probably have thought stuff like "Marching side by side, no where can you hide" was witty and intelligent, but nowadays material like that just doesn't cut it for me.

Dark Entropy is a 5-man band, but to be honest it doesn't really show on the demo. Only once or twice could I tell that there were two guitarists, and I feel that if you're gonna have two in a band you might aswell utilize it better. The quintet just don't reach the full potential of having two guitarists - They could've had a lot more variety by playing harmonics or other stuff I won't even begin to talk about, but instead it's completely indiscernable and unnecesarry.
Instrumentally Dark Entropy have their moments with some fairly powerful parts in tracks like Sins of our Fathers, but listening to their 2011 demo won't feel like the first time you listen to Sepultura or Metallica, and it certainly won't recreate the same feel of empowering invigoration. 4/10 guitars for unoriginal boredom.

Tracklist:
1. FEAR
2. Broken Night
3. Enlisted in Suicide
4. Sins of our Fathers

DARK ENTROPY official site

Denial of God - Death and the Beyond [Full length] (2012, Hells Headbangers)

Black metal is often, if not mostly, affiliated with satanism and anti-christianity, so believe me when I say I was surprised to find that Denial of God, despite their ungodly name, has very little focus on those subjects.
Denial of God is a Danish band that is locally well known. They've released one album and a slew of EPs prior to Death and the Beyond, but I never really got around to checking them out. For those unfamiliar with the Danish trio, they have surprisingly little in common with your typical, garden variety black metal band. They seem to be more inspired by King Diamon and Mercyful Fate than other bands in the genre, and their sound and structure certainly aren't as chaotic and tremolo-based as many others, and lyrically "Death and the Beyond" leans alot less on the typical satanic material as I had expected, especially because their previous album had satanic themes.

Death and the Beyond boasts a wide variety of material. Starting out with the mood-setting piano-piece Veni Spiritus and ending with the 15 minute black metal epic Pendulum Swings the 45 minutes in between features everything from the melancholically uplifting and almost ballad-like Behind the Coffin's Lid to more traditional black metal tracks like Black Dethe and The Cursed Chamber.
Of Denial of God's second album can generally be said that it relies heavily on holding single notes rather than shredding away at 200 BPMs aswell as atmospheres that can mostly be described as cemetary or crypt-like. Their focus on sombre melodies like in the tracks Funeral and Bones Turn to Dust makes for a truly alternate take on Scandinavian black metal in 2012.

In regards to musicianship it goes without saying that Denial of God may not be the most technical band around, but their particular style of black metal suits a more simple songwriting much better. Death and the Beyond is a simple and effective album and is easily one of the better black metal releases I've heard this year so far. Ustumallagam's sepulchral vocals in conjuction with the despairing guitars of Azter and the great drumtracks of Galheim makes up a recipe for brilliant and different black metal. What can I say, finally a black metal band that doesn't just ape everything their Norwegian counterparts do. 9/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Veni Spiritus
2. Funeral
3. Behind the Coffin's Lid
4. The Cursed Chamber
5. Bones turn to Dust
6. Black Dethe
7. Spectral Lights
8. Pendulum Swings

DENIAL OF GOD official site
Hells Headbangers official site

Total Desaster - Warfare Noise [Demo] (2011, Metaltifus Productions)

Black and thrash metal have always seemed to go well hand in hand, and the Colombian trio Total Desaster (named after the Destruction song) takes this old kinship and combines it, making for some fairly uninteresting blackened thrash metal. Right off the bat I could tell it would be heavily black metal inspired, but Total Desaster (formerly known as Devastation) aren't reinventing the genre.

First of all the riffs, catchy as they may seem, are incredibly short which results in incredibly monotonous and repetitive song structure. In all honesty it's just boring to hear the same three riffs over and over for the duration of a song. The drums aren't exactly helping in that regard as they're slight variations of the same d-beat over and over and over.
One thing that has a little appeal about the Warfare Noise demo is that it's raw as fuck, but unfortunately having only one guitarist this also results in some solos that completely ruin any flow they might have put forth.
I've gone rather slavishly over all aspects of the 2011 demo except the bass and the vocals. The vocals are pretty uninteresting when you can even hear them. They're just too low in the mix making them little more than background noise, and the bass really varies in quality. It fits alright in Dive Bomber, but on Armies of Death it sounds terrible with its almost off-beat picking. It could probably be compared to having your face slapped repeatedly with a limp dick.

In closing Total Desaster's Warfare Noise is a demo that just has too little work put into it. It doesn't feel like a proper effort and probably won't anytime soon dethrone bands like Deströyer 666 as the top bands of the genre. The production, while gritty, has too little warmth and sounds too much like Burzum's earliest recordings. That said, the drumset actually sounds pretty good compared to the rest. 4/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Intro
2. Dive Bomber
3. Hell Attack
4. Devastation
5. Armies of Death
6. Antichrist (Sepultura Cover)

TOTAL DESASTER official site
Metaltifus Productions official site

Centurion - Serve No One [Full length] (2012, Wydawnictwo Muzyczne Psycho)

Centurion takes inspiration from a great variety of bands, but once in a while something shines through, like "Cut the Throat" which has a certain Cannibal Corpse feel to it in the verse parts, mainly because of the really fast vocals. In general it seems the Polish band's focus is on speed maybe rather than riffing, and this results in a very uniform and even album. Come to think of it, it seems many moderne death metal bands are this way. While many of the original death metal acts were also rather fast for their time, I can't help but feel that these bands were superior in the way that they didn't sacrifice listenability and sweet riffs in order to go all-in on speed.

One of the things I have against Centurion's otherwise very good album Serve No One is that it's sort of a one trick pony. Sure, they mix things up from the blast beat powered death metal with the occassional sinister riff now and then, but unfortunately it's not enough to create a varying and diverse album experience.

Serve No One is a phenomenal album if you enjoy fast-as-fuck death metal with a shit-ton of blast beats and well-executed vocal sections, but ultimately those factors, in my book, aren't quite enough to create a great death metal album. This second album from the Polish deathdealers comes ten years after their first one, and from the lack of variety on Serve No One I'm going to assume they didn't use all those years on refining the riffs or polish their sound. Make no mistake, Centurion aren't novices in the terms of death metal music and Serve No One is a text-book example of modern death metal. And maybe even a little too text-book example for me. The band show little personality and doesn't stand out from the crowd enough, and I only hope that they on future releases will be more distinct from the hordes of other bands in the genre.

In closing, Serve No One is a good and fast death metal album. I've heard a lot of death metal since I started listening to metal, and Centurion are certainly above average. Just not sufficiently so to be excellent. 7/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Total Terror
2. Ego Ultimus
3. Sacrilege
4. Gateways to Condemnation
5. Cut the Throat
6. Desecration of the Holy Kingdom
7. Thy Portal
8. Under the Black Banner
9. Ritual Massmurder
10. No One to Serve

CENTURION official site
Wydawnictwo Muzyczne Psycho official site