Sudbury Metal Feast V (1st night)
So I attended Sudbury Metal Feast V's first night tonight. What a show. Almost had some major problems right from the beginning when the PA system was not delivered in time for the show. It managed to get started about 45 minutes late.
The first band on was Biile, a death metal band from The Valley. Nothing overly remarkable about this band, musically. They covered Lamb Of God's "Laid To Rest" and played a mix of originals and old school death metal tunes. What WAS remarkable about the band was the youth. Their drummer was a mere 11 years old, and he could blastbeat like the rest of them. He must have the best back-to-school assignments.
Next band to come on was Tormented Unborn, another young band from North Bay. This was their first show in Sudbury. Their music was kinda technical death metal with occasional breakdowns, and keyboards. They were excellent. I can't say enough about this band, they had quite a bit of energy and their chops were impressive. And it was the only time I heard true clean vocals the whole night!
After that was Catharcyst. Their sound kinda suffered from horrible setup, but their music was pretty awesome. I couldn't stand the black metal vocals, but their guitar leads were impressive shit. They also exuded the most "metalness" of any band that night. While every other band was made up of teenage -core hacks with short hair and jeans hanging down below their butts, these guys were more like metal gods <3. Wonderful stuff.
After that was Empyrean Plague, a Sturgeon Falls black metal band. After the disaster in sound that was Catharcyst, it felt nice to be able to hear guitar and bass riffs properly! These guys were surprisingly melodic and fresh. Kind of like Emperor's last couple albums or something. Plenty of clean guitars. Not a lot of stage movement, but they commanded the crowd's attention pretty well. A lot of their lyrics are about Canada. They're just awesome.
The next band after that was In The Act Of Violence, from Oshawa. Their guitarist and I hit it off pretty quickly when I first showed up and watched them set up. They were kind of a hardcoreish band, loads of extremely low-tuned guitar and shouting action. They were pretty eccentric. The guitarist had this weird "running" dance on stage, played guitar while lying on stage, and for the finale of their set, laid his guitar on the stage and beat it with his shoes. They obviously don't take themselves very seriously.
Interestingly, their bassist has the exact same model of bass that I just sold. Different finish, though.
This dude was the most impressive drummer on a pure technical level that I saw tonight (still doesn't beat the 11 year old).
Suck it, Trebek!
After that was Darkness Rites. Kind of a generic deathcore band except that they have a pair of shredtastic guitarists. Seriously, there were more guitar solos in this set than there were in the rest of the bands' sets combined. Nothing really amazing from them. Pretty much the only band that didn't do much for me on a "i have got to mosh to this shit" level.
lol pants rip
Lastly, came Beneath The Massacre. Sadly, I was not able to stick around for their whole set, because the concert starting late and bands being slow at setting up meant they started an hour later than they were supposed to, and I had a 12:30 AM bus to catch. I was lucky enough, however, to catch them during "Society's Disposable Son" and "Reign Of Terror". I joined the mosh pit for the first one (after handing camera over to a friend of mine), and during Reign Of Terror's breakdown, there is a lyric that goes "Your reign of terror ends as mine begins", and everyone in the front row decided to shout along with it so the vocalist stuck out his mic at various people. I happened to be one of them :D I wish I had caught more of their set, but it doesn't matter, they were wonderful. So much energy and musicianship. Enough that I can get past the breakdowns.
