Wacken Open Air 2012 Battle Report

This years Wacken Open Air, the 23rd of its kind, is over and hangovers are upon us. While WOA 2012 is by far the muddiest and most wet festival I have ever had the pleasure of attending, it wasn't all bad.
Many fans feel that the quality of Wacken's line up has been steadily declining for years, but this year's festival featured several great metal acts (mixed in with the horde of talentless german gimick-bands ofcourse) such as Overkill, Testament, Six Feet Under, Kamelot, Saxon, Machinehead and others.

Sadly I was forced to skip Overkill because of a very sudden and beyond extreme rain storm. Suffice it to say, I couldn't have been any more wet if I had jumped in a pool fully clothed. Overkill was one of the bands I had been looking most forward to, and I can't imagine them putting on a bad show.
Kamelot, who played right before Overkill and right before and during the torrent of rain, I witnessed however. Having seen Kamelot fronted by Roy Khan only two years prior I had to see (and HEAR) their new frontman Tommy Karevik in action. I was immensely surprised and pleased by his performance, which indeed was more or less an exact copy of Khan's previous Wacken performance with Kamelot, but vocally Karevik was superior to the efforts of Khan in 2010. Armed with a solid setlist, a well-balanced sound and a stage routine that was pretty much exactly the same as last time Kamelot gave a great performance worth withstanding the weather for.

Another outstanding Wacken performance was that of the stoner metal band Red Fang. I was somewhat worried that their show wouldn't meet my previous expectations as I have friends who saw their show at Roskilde Festival 2012 who described it as not up to par. But as I entered the tent that is the split stage "WET" and "Headbangers" I was blown away by a warm and mighty show. Only two albums into their carreer it leaves little room for a varied setlist, but the songs they played seemed well-picked and were more than appropriate for the crowd's state of mind.

The last positive show I would like to highlight is Testament. Playing on Saturday means that some of the crowd is already hung over and tired from the previous days of partying, but that didn't bother Testament and their completely awesome show didn't leave much room for sitting down and feeling sorry for yourself. The power of Testament simply demands vicious headbanging. Musically it sounded like everyone was in their prime. Especially Chuck Billy's unique singing, which range from old school thrashy vocals to more groovy roaring vocals, was nothing but spot on, which meant they could easily play both the really old stuff and a couple of songs from their brand new album The Dark Roots of Earth.

Some of the less positive experiences, other than the oceans of mud (seriously, I have never ever seen so much mud in one place before), were the cancelling of Electric Wizard's show, who I had looked very much forward to seeing, and the performance of Six Feet Under. As I stood and waited for Electric Wizard at the WET and Headbangers stage, which was at the same time as Six Feet Under's set, we were informed that Electric Wizard was "stuck in traffic" and wouldn't be playing WOA 2012. Even as my disappointment was extreme, I realized I could instead go see Six Feet Under, of which I'm also a fan. When I arrived the show was already in full swing, but their performance was in all aspects really boring and uneventful. Even the setlist was incredibly predictable, and though the new lineup of Six Feet Under is comprised of highly talented musicians, Six Feet Under's music doesn't really leave much room for them to show their musical prowess.

In closing Wacken Open Air 2012 was a wet year, which made it really hard at times to fully enjoy the music and the festival. I know I saw fewer bands than in my previous years due to the mud making it bothersome to get around. The metal market was as always worth a visit or five, and the food was equally alright. I wish for next year that they will bring in more extreme metal bands, as these always seem to be left out, making room for shitty brass-band covers of metal songs, medieval covers of metal songs, german covers of metal songs and other gimicky german bands that none but the germans (who are indeed numerous on the festival for obvious reasons) will enjoy.

Outliar - Provoked to Anger [Full length] (2012, Self-released)

Let's get things straight. Outliar, a four-man band from North Carolina, play groove metal with an emphasis on GROOVE. When the subject falls on groove metal you can't go without the grand old bands of the genre like Pantera, Anthrax, Sepultura, Exhorder and the like. Groove metal, though it didn't really come around until the early 90's, is still massively popular today with bands such as Lamb of God, Machine Head, Soulfly and DevilDriver being some of the most popular bands of the genre, and Outliar takes a little bit from every aspect of the genre.

Groove metal is more or less thrash metal played at a slower pace, making it very listener-friendly and easy to go nuts to, and this American band make it very easy to enjoy their groovy tunes. However it feels like they've listened a bit too much to the classics, meaning that they pretty much follow the trends of modern groove metal. While this has a tendency to make Provoked to Anger a rather predictable album it also means that it's very easy to enjoy listening to because they follow the trends so well. The debut album features all the givens of the genre, which means everything from semi-progressive heavy riffs that pump you up, to almost power ballad-ish tracks like Another Surrender.

Like I mentioned earlier they borrow elements from more or less every well-known band of the genre, but some times one small part shines through; Like in A Loss of Sincerity where the vocals once in a while take on the aspects of Randy Blythe from Lamb of God, especially when vocalist Jason Ford lets out a groaning "You'll have to walk alone". At other times Low-era Testament comes to mind in terms of structure and riffing, but facts are that Outliar do their thing with convincing power. Provoked to Anger will satiate the listeners thirst for both brutal thrash riffs like the one in Faceless Enemy and crushing songwriting like Rod of the Shepherd, while yet leaving room to more melodic pieces. 8/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. The Procession
2. It's Time to Bleed
3. Faceless Enemy
4. Coffin Text
5. Another Surrender
6. A Loss of Sincerity
7. Rod of the Shepherd
8. Dozer
9. Vendetta

OUTLIAR official site

Seeds of Iblis - Jihad Against Islam [EP] (2011, Legion of Death Productions)

The Iraqi (yes, you heard me, IRAQI) black metal band Seeds of Iblis is one of very few bands around the world who dares critisize Islam in their lyrics. Considering how much shit many NSBM bands got, and in the light of the controversy surrounding Taake's lyric about "killing the Mohammedans" and the Muhammad-case from Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper I find it quite remarkable that a band such as Seeds of Iblis are dealing with that very subject in their lyrics.
Black metal has always been about Satan and other personifications of evil, but black metal has almost exclusively dealt with Christianity and only rarely in the case of some NSBM bands have they made an exception and dealt with Judaism or Islam. I guess a band like Seeds of Iblis can get around much of the controversy because they are FROM an Islamic country and was likely raised with it as their religion.

Seeds of Iblis isn't just an anti-Islamic band. Well, actually they are. With highly blasphemic song titles like Inverted Hilal, No Islam and especially Sex with Muhammad's Corpse they really aren't about anything else. But in regards to their music, the quintet offers some incredibly gritty black metal with surprizingly precise drumming. Among the more interesting tracks are In the Name of Iblis, which features near-constant blast beats, drowned-out guitars and most of all a vocal-track that alternates between roaring black metal vocals and what I assume is some sort of muslim prayer. It works surprizingly well in the same manner as depressive and atmospheric black metal with the grim soundscapes and atmospheres.

I would be lying if I said Seeds of Iblis would interest me if it wasn't for their theme. Well, one thing is their choice of theme, another thing is that two of the four band members are FEMALE! Women aren't exactly the predominant sex in metal as it is, but I don't think I can recall a single black metal band with even one female member.
Seeds of Iblis, while their main strongpoints are the fact that they deal with unusual subjects in their lyrics, also delivers in terms of black metal. They may not have outstanding riffs like Satyricon or Darkthrone, they may not have the artillery-like drums of Marduk and 1349, they may not have the characteristic vocals of Legion, Varg Vikernes or Gaahl, but with what little they have they make it work as minimalistic black metal tunes enjoyable to fans of depressive black metal. 7/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Inverted Hilal
2. No Islam
3. Sex with Muhammad's Corpse
4. In the Name of Iblis

The Blame - Born [Full length] (2011, Raven Records)

The Blame is a Turkish metal band formed in 2006. For a band that has only previously released a demo, I'm going to have to say that I'm severely impressed. "Born" from 2011 is a heavy, groove-ridden album with just a teeny tiny bit of power metal in the mix, and everything just comes together in one big explosion of nicely varied and powerful metal.

Coming out of nowhere it's not often you see a band's first effort be completely breathtaking. While the vocals struggle a little with the higher notes and the music in general lacks a bit of memorability, the album certainly isn't lacklustre and with the amount of variation The Blame put forth "Born" just didn't get boring.
I sensed a lot of Pantera and Machine Head in their songwriting and especially in the drumming, but it isn't overdone or even very noticable. The Blame's lead singer Enver Yilmaz has some pretty cool Phil Anselmo and Joey Belladonna-ish things going on with his vocals, and in general the album could probably best be described as a mix between early Anthrax and Pantera with some tendencies towards more high notes and epic melodies in the vocals, only a few times peppered by raw growley vocals. Obviously I'm over-simplifying things, but in order to just boil it down a bit that is generally the feel I get from listening to The Blame.

Reading about the band online I saw them described as progressive thrash metal once or twice, but in all honesty I can't quite put my finger on in what way The Blame is progressive. They certainly aren't your typical garden-variety thrash band (probably because they aren't trying to be Slayer), but bands like Artillery, Kreator and Megadeth are proof that modern thrash has moved in a more melodic direction with a wholesome and heavy production rather than the gritty, lo-fi production of the early 80's.

The Blame's debut album features both the close-to-mandatory soulful songs and highly melodic but great groove and energetic playing and drumming. There's something, however, about Born that I can't quite put my finger on. Sometimes the vocals are just a bit over the top, and the music lacks hooks. While Born is a great album to listen to while doing other stuff, it's not something that I would sit down and listen to closely, at least not very often. 7/10 guitars.

Tracklist:
1. Another Stolen Life
2. Beyond the Wind
3. Deserted Nation
4. Exile
5. Fading Day
6. Guiding Light
7. Lost in a Rabbit-Hole
8. Made of Stone
9. Sacred Souls
10. The Scarab
11. Valley of Trade

THE BLAME official site
Raven Records official site

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.