THE METALBREW FESTIVAL
LONDON, MILL HILL RUGBY CLUB 26/07/08
Apparently last year this festival saw about 30 people coping with a downpour as the bands played on. Not so today, it was glorious sunshine and on arriving I was both pleased and surprised to see so many people sitting on the grass and waiting for the next band to come on. One day events like this are great and a huge horns up to the organisers for putting on such a great day of metal. Naturally being outside a rugby club there was a good well stocked bar inside with real ales, lager and even snakebite and black flowing freely. It more than made up for the torturous public transport bus trek getting here.
I was just in time to catch Xiphon a local band from Barnet. Speaking of barnets the singer looked like a blonde bumpkin and he was not content with the stage, climbing up the tent stage structures rafters and singing clutching the roof. Stonerfied blues was the name of the game and it was a bit like a covers band playing their own songs, which had a group of us playing spot the influences. Starting off I was thinking Kyuss with a splash of Acrimony in the vocal department and this was perfect stuff for a sunny day. “Yee-haw” went the crowd after the first number. The sound was great, no doubt lack of breeze helped although it had us wilting a bit. After a while I was thinking of The Black Crowes and expected a harmonica to come out. Then we were in Lad Zep territory and finally although having gone around the houses, the enthusiastic crowd were rewarded with a cover of The Sabs classic ‘War Pigs’ a great start to my day.
It was a bill of NWOBHM and NWOBTM on the whole today and heading up the thrash side of things next were Dr Death. I really do like this lot and find them both a fun band and one who with songs like ‘The Passion Of The Corpse’ wear their influences on their Bermuda shorts and play it fast and with style. The speed of the songs made those with youth on their side forget just how hot it was and bomb around on the grass opening up the pit and moshing away. The Dr was well and truly in! Scything guitars screamed away and I noticed even some of the older members of the audience were finding themselves caught in a mosh and enjoying themselves to this onslaught. A special guest called Bill Taylor (and we do not know who they were) joined in on a song instantly recognised by Paul as being a cover of Tankard’s ‘Empty Tankard’, speaking of which…. Toxic Death saw a medical deviant joining them on stage and throwing gory water melon into the crowd, kind of reminding me of the stage exploits of another Dr band, Dr And The Crippens. Dr Death are a damn sight better than euthanasia that’s for sure.
Dead Existence were another new band to me. They quickly dispelled any happy go lucky sunshine feel to the festival with their brand of gnarly bummer sludge. This could have made the sun go in and hide and had Paul again commenting that they reminded him of Sally and Mistress. Vocally bearded mountain dweller look alike Jake (Cunt) Harding (whose mum should be severely chastised giving him a middle name like that) had a pretty gruff growl about him. This was stewed up uncouth sludgy noise with Sabbath bound stoned up bongwater grooves about it. With song titles like ‘Swarm Of Bastards’ rather speaking for themselves they brought the doom but somehow it all seemed wrong as this was the sort of sound one is used to hearing in the foul smelling London toilet venues rather than in a nice grassy field. It got us drinking and conversations going on about who we wanted to punch so I’m guessing this redneck stomp did just what it was meant to.
More speed vicar! Damnas were next up and just as well, we needed waking up (words written which proved prophetic later). The riffs flew out with gay abandon and the crowd who had slunk off to the bar for the last set quickly stormed the front again. Headbanging was de-rigeur for this performance and this went down well with the crowd again. I have to admit that vocally I find this lot and singer Donny’s other band Nebukadnezza for want of a better word somewhat deadpan; there really is little diversification to be found in them. This personal observation is no doubt something that really didn’t matter to those tearing around on the grass but I did find that occasional gang shouts helped add a certain much needed versatility. Joining them for one song we had that cunt of a singer from Dead Existence and with numbers such as ‘Corrupt Mind’ from the band’s new EP they went down pretty smoothly along with all the ale that the bar was selling, speaking of which I have to wonder how bar takings were compared to a rugby event. I reckon the metal community certainly held their own. (PW)
And now we have ‘Dark Forest’ travelling from the Black Country. I have to admit to being an avid fan of this band and I was sure things would go ok. All things are thoroughly British, the clothes, the twin guitar lead breaks, throwing shapes and the vocals. ‘The Wizard of Alderly Edge’ shows that raw edge that the NWOBHM movement was all about, and moments of errors did appear, but it turned out the snare drum was not fixed to the stage properly and kept moving like as if on ice, the sound was good if you were stage front, but to the side of the stage it sometimes got lost in the wind, a typical curse of the outdoor venue though. Still, they all battled on triumphantly. ‘Dyed in Crimson’ from their demo ‘Phantoms of the Sea’ got things kicking again and it was another great performance. Look out for their new full length album due to released in a few months, hopefully with some band merchandise too. (PM)
It was back to the thrash next with the arrival of the ever exuberant Mutant and the boys didn’t disappoint. The lightning riffs and wickedly catchy hooks provoked headbanging and moshing in equal measures and the usual good humoured atmosphere that radiates from the stage at any Mutant show put smiles on many faces. The ever popular ‘Zombie Holocaust’ was a real highlight but perhaps most impressive was new song ‘The Rauncher’ which closed the main set. The future looks bright indeed if this is any indication of how Mutant are developing. The band returned to the stage for an energetic run through of Destruction’s ‘Eternal Ban’ and left us all looking forward to seeing them again at The Purple Turtle in Camden on August 23rd. (CK)
‘Pagan Altar’ being true veterans of the scene and a band that most of the crowd had travelled to see. Once Terry Jones got on stage, the theatrics began with the trenchcoat and top hat not seen by myself in recent live shows. This gave them a more ‘cult’ feel. Minus one guitarist (Rich Walker) they battled on through a long set, but bear in mind, most tracks are over the 5-minute mark for these guys, so it was expected! ‘Pagan Altar’ sounds fresh and doom-laden just like it had just been released this year not some 26 years ago. The sound is perfect, a lot louder and their stage experience showed in abundance, it looked effortless. ‘Sentinels of Hate’ and ‘March of the Dead’ are classic tunes and the crowd sing-a-longs proved this. This went down well as singer Terry was grinning from ear to ear even though he was battling a stinking cold. ‘Lords of Hypocrisy’ and ‘The Aftermath’ complete a perfect set. When the stage was in darkness, it made much more sense to be listening to these wonderful British legends like this than in the blazing sunshine. (PM)
It was certainly all darkness when I (ahem) woke up and I blame the very long PA set and comfortable grass. Unfortunately with things well over schedule and due to the tricky location Paul our resident NWOBHM enthusiast had run to the hills and I only had 30 mins or so of Cloven Hoof’s set before I had to catch public transport connections. I had been informed that the groups drummer Jon Brown was lucky to be there somewhat recovered from some hip and shoulder injuries that had caused him to cancel some live shows last week.
Once I got over the fact that Russ North really reminded me of Blake from cult sci-fi programme Blakes 7 (a series actually older than even this legendary band) I started to get to grips with the music which kicked off with ‘Inquisitor’. The thing that was instantly clear were the vocals, boy they were powerful roof hitting (if there had been a roof) croons unleashed by singer North here and the band were utilising the stage with Lee Payne striking as particularly enthusiastic as he raced around the place. Perhaps it would have helped me if I had picked up new compilation album ‘The Definitive’ prior to this show as many of the tracks here were from it and I seemed a bit lost compared to other audience members who obviously knew classic songs such as ‘Nova Battlestar’ and ‘Kiss Of Evil’ far better than me. Sticking around for ‘Gates Of Gehenna’ it was one of those annoying situations when I knew I should really go or end up sleeping in a field so had to leg it. Guess I am cursed when it comes to NWOBHM, never touched it first time round; being a snotty punk it was music for hippies and now perhaps I should re-evaluate things a bit as what I heard here today was most enjoyable. (PW)
Review by Chris Kee, Paul Maddison & Pete Woods
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