Kadaverine Zine

After two long years away from the festival Kadaverine was seriously awed by the 2020 line-up the second it was unveiled. How could Hellfest possibly have made themselves even more badass? 

Having watched the festival grow in leaps and bounds after over a decade of attendance, it’s time to go back and have our faces melted off by Electric Wizard, Om, Opeth and pretty much every band on this incredible roster. 

On paper, Summoning do not work. Painfully slow song progressions, cheesy keyboard/symphonic parts and programmed lo-fi drum patterns. Yet they remain massively revered and respected despite very little musical variation since the icy Black Metal Helcaraxe that was Lugburz back in 1995.

Two words: Songwriting and conviction. They take all these aforementioned rustic elements and blend them into something that is genuine and captivating. Whether it be sombre tracks such as The White Tower (From 2013's Old Mornings Dawn) or a heroically Rohanese battlecry like The Glory Disappears from 1999's Stronghold. Their albums ooze with authenticity and sincerity which is impressive considering the band draws massive lyrical inspiration from the works of high fantasy progenitor J. R. R. Tolkien.

Carving a niche in a sub-genre as divisive as Black Metal is an accomplishment in itself. Never ones to be swayed or influenced by the rapidly evolving metal scene, in 2018, have Summoning been left to wander in the great void of irrelevance?

Unequivocally not.

With Doom We Come lights the beacon previously lit by their 2013 effort Old Mornings Dawn. The album is almost entirely mid paced and is heavily anchored by the creeping buzzsaw riffs that drive the majority of the 8 tracks on offer. Opener Tar-Calion starts with what sounds like war drums and it isn't long until your senses are enveloped by the familiar Summoning hallmarks. Mid-paced Black Metal riffage coupled with beckoning horns and synths are all present as the track's only vocals come in the way of what I assume is Tar Calion aka Al-Pharazon the Golden declaring his plans to invade Valinor (Spoiler alert! It doesn't end well for him). The album boasts Summoning's cleanest production to date and this is accentuated by the mournful synths which are far less bombastic than earlier efforts.

This decision to further this battle weary atmosphere opposed to the grandiose splendour of times past will not come as a surprise to attentive fans of Summoning's discography. This is the first Summoning album which feels like a spiritual successor to the previous one and this is perhaps best represented in the closing and title track With Doom I Come. Closing tracks on a Summoning album are typically the most epic and With Doom I Come is no exception. Protector once again displays his semi-clean vocals first heard in Old Mornings Dawn closer Earthshine. It works well within the track and is a refreshing alternative to the dual gnarled Wraith-like shrieks and wails of both members. Towards the end of the track, which has the strongest synth work on the album, a choral passage reminiscent of Oath Bound's Land of the Dead does enough to captivate you in the closing minutes.

My personal highlight on this album is without a doubt the fourth track Herumor. An ode to the Black Numenorean of the same name, the track is layered beautifully and features an impassioned vocal performance which can be heard when Silenius roars "And all I loved, I loved alone". This track is an encapsulation of every emotive nuance that Summoning manages to drag out of my cold, apathetic musical heart. The horns and keys are at their morose best while still maintaining enough melody to infer a glimmer of triumph.

Overall, With Doom We Come is most certainly still a Summoning record. The fundamental components are all in place yet presented as perhaps the most brooding and subdued offering yet. This does also give the record's songwriting and album flow a more consistent and focused feel which may leave some listeners ambivalent as it isn't a great departure nor a return to roots that a portion of most artist's demographic yearn for. I personally feel this album is more than a worthy addition to the band's mostly stellar discography. Only time and repeated listens will indicate whether or not it ranks up with the best (Stronghold is currently sitting above Caradhras) but at the very least this album is a reminder that Summoning are fervently relevant and necessary to the current age of extreme music.

On the first evening of a bitter December the Camden Underworld bloomed with Londoners in search of desert riffs and covert spliffs.

Steak warmed up an audience that tripled in size by the end of a set filled with strong hooks and energetic renditions of their back-catalogue, which includes a recent  7” split with Greenleaf and a full length album “No God to Save” released earlier this year. The band have jolly album names such as “Corned Beef Colussus” and comic art themed covers, but to see them live you wouldn't think that their sun-tinged desert rock had song names such as “Coke Dick”.

The bassist played a bass with three strings no fourth machine head, the singer looked like he had never had a chip in his life, the drummer had only been a member for three weeks and the guitarist forgot the riff of their last song – resulting in a mortifying breakdown of the introduction and the bassist having to re-teach the riff to the guitarist on stage whilst the singer pulled at his hair and make jokes to a laughing audience. The band made an impressive recovery despite several false starts at the song and soon had the entire Underworld enthralled at a new, disturbingly catchy riff and beautifully composed song.

“London are you ready to have fun?” smiled a chubby American guitarist into a microphone at a packed out venue. The venue was ready to have fun, and they had fun for a full hour. The room grinned, laughed and danced with abandon as Atomic Bitchwax churned out a huge setlist of fast, groovy songs packed with riffs and catchy vocals. 

War Claw, It's Alright, Coming in Hot, Birth to the Earth, and Shitkicker had the crowd writhing and singing along as the band gleefully hammered away at their instruments. Kosnik plucked impressively complex basslines by hand and wove them expertly between the fast, fat riffs being expelled by Ryan. Atomic Bitchwax have just released a new album, Force Field on Tee Pee Records, go check it out.

Greenleaf played to a slightly less packed venue, but they rode the wave of energy generated by Bitchwax and threw themselves into their set. Current singer Arvid Jonsson bored into the crowd with mad, wide eyes and made faces as he threw himself around the stage. He described guitarist Tommi Holappa as “the happy teddybear”of the band before launching into songs consisting of numbers from Trails and Passes and Rise Above the Meadow. 

Greenleaf left the Underworld ready for their next sonic offering as the curfew rolled in and the cold London night devoured the crowd.

A pert condom drifted on the breeze, framed against the blue sky like a damp translucent cloud until it popped with a wet thwack on the branch of a newly planted sapling. Slivers of torn latex thwapped onto the iron hot pavement and sizzling plastic grass that carpeted the freshly landscaped VIP area.

Bands, journalists and a select few fans bathed in the 30 degree heat. Sweating beer and dining on strawberries and cream, tattooed bodies and bared flesh babbled around a cool fountain housing a black skull being consumed by enormous butterflies as hooded white figures perched on a sculpted platform looked on from above with dark faceless stares.

Hellfest was burning, burning like the desert fuelled power prog coming out of Myrath on the main stage as the midday sun branded a bellydancing audience. Their unique fusion of prog, power metal and middle eastern instrumentation and polyrhythms was catchy and as intense as the African heat they had brought with them. The Tunisian band was formed in 2001 when the guitarist was just 13 years old, they now have four albums and a bellydancer who shimmied around the stage to the beer-eyed delight of France.

Animals as Leaders defied physics by performing Tosin Abasi’s impressive oeuvre live, with a real human drummer (Matt Garstka) and some other guy on guitar (Javier Reyes) who made absurdly comic faces in time with the djenty chug of the music.

Tosin looked completely unfazed by the complexity of the quantum math rock he was casually burning into the neck of his many-stringed guitars. Their set started and ended with songs from the first and eponymous album, and then branched into a well rounded mix of their albums. People watched in awe at the technical mastery of the band, who manage to make virtuosity entertaining in a way that technically gifted bands can sometimes struggle to do.

Baroness bring enormous energy onto the stage, and new bassist Gina Gleason has integrated into the band beautifully despite having to fill the enormous void left by the recent departure of Pete Adams. Gleason has worked with Jello Biafra, Brendon Small, Perry Farrell and a host of other big names. She and John Bailey were grinning wildly as they stomped through a set that drew heavily from “Purple” as well as “Yellow & Green”. The crowd in the Valley tent was impenetrable and overflowing into the main arena by the time the band had finished their set.

As the sun set over a gathering dust cloud, Deep Purple emerged to play their timeless music, despite few people really being sure who, if anyone, was an original member or just a stray Dad-rocker who had made it into the band. They clearly were having a fantastic time being on a stage but the energy and force with which the other bands of the day had exuded like nuclear reactors was non-existent. The band had no stage presence and played a lacklustre set that ended with Space Truckin’ and Smoke on the Water to the pleasure of those audience members who had not chosen to find other bands in the shade of the tented Temple, where Obituary played after Belphegor mounted the Altar, or the blazing dustbowl of the Warzone stage as Les Ramoneurs de Menhirs prepared the resident punks for Rancid.

A band who specialise in sex, drugs and the nameless terrors of rock and roll emerged into the shrieking darkness of the Valley as the legendary Deep Purple limped through their set. Electric Wizard had emerged from their Dorset lair to plumb the depths of low frequency distortion and hurl it at thousands of people while vintage porn played behind them and dry ice whirled around a stage drenched in red flickering light.

The band played a Witchcult Today heavy set, including the title track, Satanic Rites of Drugula and Return Trip, alongside Black Mass and Incense for the Damned from their two most recent albums. The Chosen Few and Funeralopolis rounded off a set that was filled with weed smoke and stoned sing-alongs. A plump dude with enormous curly hair stood in the centre front row with a full sized transparent green bong held aloft and lungs full of weed as the first night of Hellfest rolled over Clisson.

Elder’s first European tour since the release of Reflections of a Floating World rolled into London on Wednesday. The band sold out the Camden Underworld well in advance and the capital’s stoner scene was ready for a wild night of intimacy with Sedulus, King Buffalo and Elder.

Sedulus kicked off the night with driving heavy-psych and drew in the embryo of what would become one of the wildest crowds to grace a stoner show in the pits of the Underworld.

The London based band flirted with drifting vistas of guitar before building into pounding stretches of heavier distortion and drums. The band often shot wide grins at each other and communicated with knowing looks before musical transitions, allowing them to give their first full length album, The Sleepers Awaken, tightly executed airplay to the appreciative Underworld crowd.

“Where are you from?” screamed someone at the back of the Underworld after King Buffalo’s first song. “Rochester, New York” the singer intoned bashfully. Their drummer had spent the first minute of the set hurriedly tying his shoelaces on one of the toms and then had to sprint backstage for a towel, but this did nothing to interfere with the sudden expansion of space and time that emanated from the drifting guitars and stirring bass that was gradually building up into a volcanic climax that dwarfed the sonic vistas of Sedulus and launched King Buffalo into another dimension. It’s hard not to compare the band to Samsara Blues Experiment, but with a heavier, bluesier edge to temper the psychedelic jaunts into drifting spaces and rich, echoing vocals.

Drummer Scott Donaldson tickled the symbols on a kit that sounded crisp in the mix as Dan Reynolds’ bass lines rumbled ominously yet melodiously over psychedelic reverberations from Sean McVay’s guitar. He raked his pick frantically across the strings and stuck the headstock onto a screaming Fender amp during his solos.

The band sound great, but should remember to credit photos they share on their page, especially if they’re taken by people who will be writing reviews of the band. 

This is Elder’s first tour as a four-piece and it was fascinating to watch the evolution of the band take them from a power trio on stage into the complexity of their current state. The beauty of Elder’s discography is the display of intense growth between each album, and the unique feel of each one. Adding Michael Risberg to their live line-up allowed the band to dextrously tackle the intensity of their most recent album: Reflections of a Floating World.

So effective was the addition of Risberg that the venue immediately plunged into chaos. The crowd shifted and threw themselves at the stage, arms outstretched and screaming so loud that during lulls in the music you could hear their shrieks. Even minor shifts in guitar tone were met with frantic appreciation from the crowd, who launched into a pit during the second half of Sanctuary.

Nick’s guitar rang out like a siren amidst the tumult of drums and thick distortion, the entire floor moved like a deadly ocean current and every face in the crowd seemed to be smiling with the kind of unbridled ecstasy rarely seen at London stoner metal shows. Elder were clearly having a good time too, with bassist Jack Donovan crouching over his bass and making eye contact with as many people in the audience as he could, stirring them up even more. He would often turn to Risberg and make wild faces while holding up his bass as they locked in with eachother.

Nick’s vocals have become stronger between albums and his voice was more powerful live than ever as he bellowed into the microphone. Their progressive heaviness often fell away into scintillant guitar work and drifting valleys of calm, until they came towards the end of their set and finished with the earthiness of Dead Roots Stirring to an audience that confirmed Elder as one of the most exciting active bands in the stoner scene right now.

Setlist according to setlist.fm

Sanctuary

The Falling Veil

Compendium

Lore

Thousand Hands

Gemini

Dead Roots Stirring

Blaakyum have been playing metal in Lebanon since the 90s and despite having had their frontman arrested for the crime of “listening to Nirvana music” and survived numerous crackdowns on the metal community, the band have plenty to say about freedom, creativity and loudness in the middle east. 

My Sleeping Karma modestly insist that they are hobbyists, but on stage you would not know it. Their latest album is a live compilation called “Mela Ananda”, which translates to “gathering of bliss”. The band exuded bliss as they smiled on stage and embraced in a heartfelt a group hug before launching into a set that transported them and the audience into an intensity that had one fan sobbing as she raised her hands into the air with tears streaming down her clenched face. The band often fist bumped each other between songs and were so ecstatically happy that it infused the audience with cheer.

The band drew on almost all of their albums in a set filled with instantly recognisable riffs, motifs and projections of familiar images such as the stop motion eyeball creature from Vrithi. Their signature fusion of eastern sounds intertwined with expertly played drums and psychedelic offerings from the keyboards and strings. 45 minutes with My Sleeping Karma and the crowd of a sold out venue will show you that Mela Ananda is a masterfully chosen album title.

Colour Haze look like the science department of a 1950s comprehensive and they sound just as they look. The band had returned to the very venue where they had played a legendary three hour set years before, and they had packed out the room with ears that were ready to be gently assaulted by a fug of drifting melodies and disjointed riffs.

The crowd lit up as security looked on helplessly at the chimneys of weed smoke rising above the audience. Colour Haze played with the ease of studied carelessness that suggested they were exploring the physics of another plane in tweed jackets and skinny flares while they happened to be striking chords and sticks on their electrified instruments.

The sound quality was muddy at times, but this was soon sorted and the audience eased into a schizophrenic mix of frenzy, surfers and those lost in trances swaying with the rise and fall of the set. By the end of the night the crowd was screaming for more, and despite a double encore they shouted and begged for another song until the lights came up and all were ejected into the night.

A man wearing large black headphones jumped on stage and started smashing at the drums. People took no notice and continued to sit on the floor of the small hall, talking amongst themselves while they waited for the night to begin. But the night had begun, and it was not until a stern faced security guard who was probably called Vladimir grumpily hauled every man, woman, and beard in the room to stand up while the man in headphones pounded at the drums.

There were six guitars on stage, no one came to pick one up. No one came to play a bass, no came to play at the two tiered keyboard in the corner.

The man in headphones continued to pound at the drums while the whole room stared, waiting for something to happen. The man in headphones played faster, louder, quieter, slower. He played with focus, precision, an intense knowledge of his instrument and the scintillant rays of synth emanating from an electronic sampler of some kind fitted snugly around his expert stickmanship. Some voices in the audience quietly described this as a 45 minute drum solo, others compared the experience to public masturbation.

This was Majeure, one man with a synthesiser and a drumkit.  A serious love for Goblin, Can and Argento are immediately apparent, especially if you consider that Majeure is one half of Zombi. Anthony Paterra supported Goblin while playing drums in Zombi during their 2013 tour, and the 80s sci-fi/horror soundtrack sound is a strong part of both Majeure and Zombi’s identity. Majeure makes you feel like you maybe can have a little dance with Zardoz on the set of Suspiria while some witches conspire to steal your SNES. If that sounds like a good way to spend a Saturday night then check them out.

The sold out hall in Hackney filled and filled even more until Grails smiled onto the stage and excited the room with the rarity of their presence and the alchemy of their atmospheric music. A lap harp began and ended the set with delicate melodies and a sea of pedals blinked and twirled at the multitude of instruments resting on the stage. A 12 string Rickenbacker, two Stratocasters and a Fender bass accompanied a strange piano-kazoo, an enormous Korg and of course Emil Amos’ kit.

Amos switched his kit for a guitar and the bassist hopped behind the drums for one song that was decorated with the southern twang of fingerpicked and plucked guitar laden with bent notes and a mantle of synth. Songs from the new album Chalice Hymnal appeared alongside heavier old classics in a set that crescendoed into a crashing vortex of energy. Grails don’t create a wall of sound like most bands that specialise in atmosphere, they weave a universe of heaviness embroidered with rich instrumentation, layered samples and masterfully controlled dynamics.

[All photos by Nina Saeidi]

Hellfest keep doing this thing where they announce a lineup that manages to be perfect every single year. There’s a reason it always sells out, and this announcement encapsulates the expert musical curation that the organisers always provide. 

Just look at it. Every line has a band that any music fan would recognise and want to see. Electric Wizard, Coroner, Baroness, Hawkwind and the Slo Burn reunion will be among the hundreds of bands blowing the three-day-old cheesy socks off everyone in the gorgeously wrought arena. 

Last week we went to the historic Prince Charles Cinema for the premier of Realm of the Damned. Tucked away in a corner of Leicester Square and within a stones throw from the lizard stare of Tom Cruise gliding down another red carpet in his latest cinematic excursion out of his alien scale-suit, we discovered this latest offering of metal, art and film.

After titillating sci-fi fans with Pandorica, Tom Paton has released an animated film version of the eponymous graphic novel Realm of the Damned. Writer Alec Worley and artist Pye are behind the luscious style and scripting of the film, which at points made the Prince Charles cinema chuckle, snort and raise quizzical eyebrows.

Dani Filth, Jill Janus and Dave Vincent studded the cast with stars and drew rounds of applause when their voices first appeared on screen. The deep fry voice of Morbid Angel’s Dave Vincent drawled out amusing observations and attempted to colour in the post-apocalyptic gothic world of zombies, werewolves, vampires and vans with black metal logos. Cliches would occasionally bleed through the script, and sometimes a line would fall clumsily into the fray of constant action, but that didn’t obscure the dark humour or tongue-in-cheek gore of the world that Paton, Worley and Pye have created.

“Which hole should we fuck first?” rang out across a Vatican littered with moaning naked ladies as they were pleasured by the undead and overseen by demonic priests. “Cuuuuuunt” was the only acknowledgment and greeting that the main bad guy, Balaur, gave to his sister, who appears to have been written in an attempt to add greater complexity to the plot, self-describing her and the metamorphosing Van Helsing as the least bad of the bad in a world racked by injustice and evil.

Van Helsing, the ever-drawling protagonist of the film, draws the plot together with his constant struggle and eventual transformation away from the expectations of the audience. The apotheosis is quite possibly unintentionally sexual and steeped in a Freudian outburst that will remain unspoiled in this review.

Sons of Balaur provided a classic black metal soundtrack and shared their name with the baddest of the bad guys in the main plot of the film. Mayhem, Behemoth and Emperor make appearances during the film and the audience took much delight in the references to the bands.

Overall the artwork is lush, sprawling and filled with gore. But the animation at times fell short of audience expectations. The soundtrack worked fantastically, casting a dark atmosphere over the even darker narrative. This film will certainly appeal to the audience that it has been aimed at, and this has the holy horror trinity of vampires, werewolves and zombies to itch every scratch of the dark film fan.

Below is an image created by the talented Toki, who rendered his impression of the film and the audience by literally drawing himself (and I) during the film. 

We interviewed Steve Grimmett and this is what he said:

For the first time since 1987, Grim Reaper have released new material, and to celebrate the occasion they played the Underworld last week with The Darker My Horizon and Neuronspoiler.

The Darker My Horizon had a new drummer to debut and the results were decent at best. On tape the band are listenable, with singer Paul Stead having an almost operatic head voice, though in a live setting his vocal quality is somewhat lower, and he started to struggle with vocal strain from the middle of their set. The band produced some good riffs, but they were lost in a mud of sound lacking in dynamic range and variation.

Neuronspoiler were a significant improvement to the night, hitting the Underworld with high kicks, swishing hair and elaborate hand movements. Their classic metal sound has a virtuosic lilt, with Bach inspired inventions in their guitar solos and a singer that captivated the room with his presence and solid vocal range.

Their lead guitarist faced a minor setback with a broken string and no spare instrument, leaving the rest of the band to improvise as he sprinted backstage to change his string. Neuronspoiler recovered well and showed an impressive level of thoughtfulness with their setlist choices as they rolled out a surprisingly catchy ballad toward the end of their set.

Steve Grimmett’s Grim Reaper emerged on stage to a frantically happy Underworld and the band immediately launched into a set that kindled an intense excitement for their new material. Grimmett interspersed their songs with amusing tidbits of information in a studied deadpan tone that produced laughs most frontmen would be envious of.  

“This song was in a movie, more of a porno really. It had lots of lesbians in it…in prison” was a particularly good way of introducing “Lust for Freedom”. Grimmett’s sense of humour extended to the content of the new Grim Reaper material as he revealed that “Caught in the Morning” was about his ex wife, whom he assured the audience “was mental”.  This was followed by “From Hell”, which was originally going to be the title track of what became “Walking in the Shadows” and is quite possibly one of the catchiest responses to Jack the Ripper yet.

“Fear No Evil”, from the band’s second album, threw the crowd into rabid excitement from the first riff, and had Grimmett reaching out to grasp the hands of audience members during one of their best recognised choruses. “Suck it and See” was the sexiest song with the sexiest riff that night, but it did not prepare the room for a cover of Dio’s “Don’t Talk to Strangers”, followed by a storming “Waysted Love” before they brought out “See You in Hell” as an encore that filled the room with frenzied adulation.

An incredible display of atavism took place on Sunday morning. An uncontrolled descent into the absurd was staged by one of the strangest bands of the weekend: Lecherous Gaze.

The singer of Lecherous Gaze is a cross between Jazz Coleman of Killing Joke and Mr Bean. He lurched on stage clutching a bottle of alcohol and a cigarette in hands that were encased in black rubber gardening gloves. He had stuffed his shirt with some kind of filler material over the left shoulder, and as the set progressed it became increasingly dislocated looking as he swung his arm around limply, like some kind of drunken ape. After their third song, the singer casually walked off stage, having emptied his first bottle of drink. The band continued to play sludgy punk infused with some very talented guitar licks as the confused audience looked on, wondering if the broken microphone stand that the singer had been throwing around had ended his set prematurely.

They were wrong. The singer re-emerged from the wings encased in gaffa tape. His hair, hands, body and face were tightly wrapped in the black, clinging tape. He stumbled, retched and screamed through his self-imposed gaffa cage, flailing and falling into pools of spilled beer as he intermittently sucked on his cigarette, occasionally stopping to nearly throw up as he clutched his stomach. Lecherous Gaze contained one of the best guitarists of the weekend and one of the technically worst singers, and they will be preserved in the memories of Kadaverine Zine like a mysterious cigarette burn on an old favorite jacket.

Municipal Waste have updated their stage banner to depict Donald Trump blowing his brains out. Waste pulled the trigger hard on their set and blasted through 18 songs, including “I Want to Kill Donald Trump”, before their sound was cut at the beginning of their last song (“Born to Party”), due to the band playing over their allotted time. Tony Foresta threw down his microphone in fury and stomped off the stage along with the rest of the band while the arena screamed and booed.

Five minutes later Orphaned Land changed the mood completely, emerging on stage enrobed in positivity and enlightenment. Their crowd waved the flags of Israel and Lebanon while people crowdsurfed in turquoise niqabs and the band called for peace and love between nations.

Vintage Trouble made everyone in the arena even more happy. All but the singer looked like clones of Jamie Lannister and Viggo Mortensen fused into a single, swarth, suited supergroup. The American rhythm and blues band admitted to having reservations about playing a metal festival, but they were blown away by the cheering, dancing, high-fiving crowd by the time their set was over. At one point, half of the arena was doing the “wave” and singing backing vocals for the band.

Singer Ty Taylor executed gymnastic dance moves on his vintage microphone, detaching himself from the stage and moving with its impossibly long cord into the enormous crowd, where he wandered and sang for half a song before being crowd-surfed back to the stage whilst he belted the song perfectly. Ty is one of the most powerful, talented and strongest entertainers I have ever seen. There is no exaggeration here, Vintage Trouble are going to be huge. The band have been around since 2010 and have toured with Bon Jovi, Brian May and Paloma Faith. Catch them live while you can!

Blind Guardian cast further magic on the festival with their impressive display of power metal. Hansi’s vocals were on point and the crowd sang onto his every word, with songs such as “Tanelorn (into the void)” and “Mirror Mirror” being met with particular fervor.

Rival Sons put on a rather lackluster performance in the Valley tent in comparison. After seeing the band perform at High Voltage Festival several years ago, our ears were expecting a much stronger performance.

Jane’s Addiction lowered the tone and raised the pitch with a show consisting of hookers dangling from the ceiling, rubbing themselves onto the band and Dave Navarro looking inhumanly beautiful.

Ghost are a Hellfest favorite, having steadily climbed up the line-up throughout the years. They put on such a popular show that we couldn’t get anywhere near enough to see or hear them. We assume this means that they were pretty good.

After some strategic crowd penetration, we were able to find a spot to almost see Sabbath over the completely full arena. It was worth all the urine-stained beer-grass in the world to have seen the band that night. Having seen three incarnations of Ozzy sing, expectations were very low in the Kadaverine camp. As the first chords of “Black Sabbath” struck, every hair on our unshowered bodies stood on end. The creeping darkness of the band filled the arena and Ozzy’s voice shattered the air like breaking glass. It was perfect. The entire show was a glimpse at what Sabbath might have been like in their prime.

The band played all of the songs you could possibly wish them to pay. Fairies Wear Boots was followed by After Forever, then Into the Void, Snowblind, War Pigs, Behind the Wall of Sleep, N.I.B, Rat Salad, Iron Man, Dirty Women, Children of the Grave and then Paranoid as an encore. Every time the band announced a new song, people would clutch their heads as their brains melted through their noses with the excitement of hearing Sabbath play their best songs. Their setlist indicates that this may actually be their final tour, for real. Go and see them before one of them get’s afflicted by the merciless passage of time.

After Sabbath had reduced everyone into gibbering pulp, 98% of the arena left and the remaining music fans struggled towards the main stage for the King. King Diamond appeared, screeching through a sea of dry ice, wheeling his afflicted Grandma toward an audience of terrified adults. Clutching a microphone made of bones and shaped like an inverted cross, the King performed a flawless set and made our souls ache to feel Hellfest coming to a close.

Everything that needs to be said about Sleep has already been said. So I used the setlist from their incredible London show and wrote a verse for each song until a wanky beer-stained poem was born:

The sleeper awoke and the sky turned red

A crimson eye opened overhead

Dragonaut ignited and men cried out,

At their reptilian master they were heard to shout:

“Look toward the sign of the Holy Mountain,

The rays of the sun rain down like a fountain

Casting fire on the figure riding faster

Toward the spectral caves of his evil master”

Through vaporous riff he saw the way

In the smoke he had followed from the dawn of day,

Parting the sands with bong in hand

Until at last he reached ancestral lands.

At the foot of the temple all was clear,

The burnt offering smoldered and drew the man near,

Fields of weed stretched into the mystery of space

Answering the question of that Iommic place

Into the eye of the reptile he gazed

Blinded by the darkness of the planetary haze

Reality fell like scales to the ground,

The Titan had awoken and made such a sound

That a world under oceans heard and despaired

To the emptiness of space they could not fare

At the touch of the sun they fell into the void

Saturday. The day dawned like a stale baguette and sweat infused bodies marinaded in beer shuffled back into the arena.

Loudness are the happiest people I have ever seen. They smiled through their entire set and made their beautifully constructed 80s metal bring cheer to a very roused morning audience. “Crazy Nights” is a darned good song that will have you cracking out your finest air guitar should you ever encounter it live or otherwise.

The singer of Crobot looks like a premium version of Russell Brand and moves like a lithe edition of Keith Richards. His powerful vocals have often been compared to those of Myles Kennedy, and they fill out the slightly modernised classic hard rock feel of their music well. Their stage-show involved the bassist carrying the gyrating singer on his shoulders in an impressive display of energy and upper body strength. Crobot are a fun-fuelled hard rock band that will almost certainly be rising through the ranks in the future. We’d like to give a special mention to the front-man of Crobot for sporting a double paisley jacket/shirt ensemble in the arena for the remainder of the day. Exceptional dressmanship.

The sheer fun of being at a festival had tired us to the bone at this point, so we went to the very best part of Hellfest – the bakery. The bakery is where you fill up your stomach after you’ve filled up your soul at the stages. A 20 minute trek out of the site and to the little oasis of carbohydrates next to Leclerc supermarket will cure you of all the weariness to be found after 24 hours of mud and madness.

After pizzas, macaroons, almond pain chocolats and iced teas, the route back to the festival was populated by two men breakdancing in dresses, stickering everyone and thing that walked past them with mysteriously acquired supermarket labels. Shortly after this, a hoard of very normal people by the bridge handed out white roses, free hugs and muffins to everyone who walked past whilst telling them that they love them and Hellfest.  

Back in the arena, David Draiman barked onto the stage, stoking the suspicion that he is actually a small dog trapped in human form attempting to communicate with us all through his primate encasement. As someone who never enjoyed the reptilian squawking and cheese laden riffs of Disturbed after the age of 15 and ½ I can tell you that Disturbed played a fantastic show. Not only did the play a fantastic show that, as someone who does not like Disturbed, I liked very much, the band performed a cover of “The Sound of Silence” that filled the arena with goosebumps. Not content with making everyone suddenly a Disturbed fan, Draiman pulled out Sixx am and Glenn Hughes for a cover of “Baba O’Riley” by The Who and “Shout at the Devil” by Motley Crue. A very fun cover of “Killing in the Name of” also made its way into the set, which obviously finished with the infamous “Down with the Sickness”. To conclude: Disturbed were disturbingly good.

The appearance of Hermano at Hellfest had sent fans of John Garcia wild with excitement. Garcia is an almost regular face at the Valley stage, having performed there in numerous outfits such as Unida, Vista Chino and as himself. Garcia’s signature Elvis-inspired dancing and the unmistakable sound of the timeless desert riff. The rarity of the spectacle that is Hermano was highlighted by Garcia when he stopped to introduce the band, telling his audience the names of the towns and states that each of them had journeyed from “just to be here with you”. The band debuted a new song, which means that a new Hermano album draws ever closer. Check out a fan video of the new song here.

Fu Manchu brought Saturday to a one hundred mile per hour finish with a set that accelerated through a selection of classics. The band gave the Melvins a nod by playing a snatch of “Zodiac” at the end of their opening song, “Hell on Wheels”. Things got heated as “California Crossing” and “Mongoose” whipped up the crowd into a surf of flailing horizontal people and ecstatic stoners. “King of the Road” was a shout-along classic and by the end of “Saturn III” everyone was reluctant to trickle out of the tent and into the damp fields of the night.