What happened at Maryland Death Fest?

While Halloween is ultimately the most metal holiday and always will be for numerous reasons, Memorial Day is a close runner-up. Now in its fifteenth year, the glorious Maryland Deathfest is traditionally held on every Memorial Day weekend. As the name implies, the festival specializes in death metal, but still offers up something for every metalhead to enjoy each year. For some bands, it was just another stop on the tour, but for others, it was a rare opportunity to play in the U.S. that needed to be seized. When fans are conversing with other headbangers, buying all sorts of CDs and memorabilia at the merch tables, drinking, etc.; everybody is going to miss out on a few of the bands. I am guilty of that myself, but still wanted to share my thoughts on many of the bands that I did watch at MDF. As you’ll find in this article, many bands just wanted to put on a brutal show, but a few stood out with something to distinguish themselves from everyone else. Skeletal Remains - When it comes to recent death metal acts that want to re-capture the oldschool spirit, Gruesome now has serious competition with this Los Angeles quartet! SR was clearly disinterested in incorporating as much blast beats and technical riffing into their songs as they possibly could. Instead, these young death metal hopefuls served up aggressive, crunchy death metal with the kind of sick, Martin van Drunen-esque vocals that can delight you and simultaneously make you want to throw up. My biggest mistake was walking into the venue a few short minutes after they started, while the band’s only flaw was that their live sound could have been better. Morbid Saint - I had been warned by friends who already witnessed them recently that new vocalist Cliff Wagner was essentially Morbid Saint’s version of Rob Dukes. It’s true that Wagner does have a voice more suitable for metalcore, but he did promise the audience that, “Keep showing [your energy] to us, and we’ll show it to you.” The rest of the band was in top form, executing their songs with unrelenting fury. The new songs that they treated the fans to definitely still possessed the harsh quality of their old days. This was truly the moment when MDF came to life. The mosh pit became a circle of chaos, despite a sign displayed in the venue that prohibited moshing and other forms of rowdiness. The moshing continued during other performances, but was particularly wild during Morbid Saint’s show. The overwhelming passion that ensued demonstrated that festival attendants were no longer watching some opening act that they knew nothing about, or browsing through the vendor tables. However, when talking to the band members about how crazy the audience went, they had different perspectives. Bassist Bob Zabel explained that, “We love watching you guys go nuts moshing. You’re more entertaining than we are!” while guitarist Jay Visser humbly stated, “I couldn’t see s**t, but I’ll take your word for it.” Highlights included “Scars”, “Assassin”, and “Beyond the Gates of Hell.” Gost - Once this one-man act took the stage, it was easy to see why the name wasn’t recognizable or noticeable from the metal scene at all. Gost is essentially a mystery man in a skull mask performing some kind of dark electronica music on two mixing boards. Sure, he jumps high in the air, moves his head in a circle, and has other stage antics to keep attention on him, but Gost is just musically unnatural. One can respect the fact that it was bold of MDF to book him for the show, and it did help prevent the festival from getting monotonous and excessive. Gost, ironically, won over some of the crowd. Some people found that they were able to mosh and headbanging to his music. Macabre - This Chicago trio’s brand of music, which has been self-categorized as “murder metal” offers lyrics more disturbing than your average gruesome death metal tale, because they are based on real-life events! Of course, those familiar with Macabre know that the two things that Macabre are known for are their fascination with serial killers and the fact that their original line-up has remained intact since their mid-‘80s formation. Their sound is unique and not easily comparable to anything else, but if their lyrics are too much for you, don’t worry. Guitarist/ vocalist Corporate Death always takes the time to introduce each song by summarizing the serial killer that inspired it and his cruel deeds with the most graphic details possible. During opening track, “The Zodiac”, somebody dressed up as the Zodiac killer pointed fake guns at the audience. They also performed odes to other infamous murderers like Richard Ramirez, Albert Fish, Ed Gein, and several about Jeffrey Dahmer. One of their lighter moments was a twistedhumored parody of Harry Miller’s “The Cat Came Back”, and a few other happier (at least musically) moments gave them their originality. Vader - Polish death metallers Vader happened to be the first band of the night to use their logo as a backdrop on a projected screen. On a more significant note, Peter and company performed the entire “The Ultimate Incantation” album to commemorate its 25th anniversary. Performing with the right amount of intensity, headbanging, and excellent lead work made them an entertaining band to watch. Vader also played a cool new song called “Send Me Back to Hell”, but the entire debut took up most of their stage time. Autopsy - Drummer/vocalist Chris Reifert offered up some dark humor with remarks like, “Is everybody out here to kill each other and s**t?” or “Are you guys still alive? Well, we’ll fix that!” Despite releasing a few new albums out since their 2009 comeback, they did not make much room for those songs. They played a nice helping of material from the first two albums, concluding with “Ridden With Disease”. Reifert’s vocals sounded very close to what’s on the studio recordings, and his departing statement reminded everybody that, “We are Autopsy, and we play death f**kin’ metal!!” Like Vader, Autopsy had a consistently brutal and entertaining pure death metal show that kept a larger-than-they-might-be-used-to crowd deeply enthralled, satisfied, and active in the pit. Both bands made a strong finish to the Friday night show. Exhumed - Overall, this was one of the most straight-forward death metal performances from Saturday night. It seemed like most of the best death metal took place during Friday night’s set. Guitarist/vocalist Matt Harvey pointed out that while many other bands on the bill were promoting a new album, new video, new line-up, or new Ray-Ban ad; Exhumed did not have anything new going on at the moment. They were just there to play Exhumed songs, making it one of the most unambiguous performances of MDF 2017. Exhumed mascot Dr. Philthy made an appearance wielding a chainsaw that read “gore” on one side and “metal” on the other side. At the end of the set, his intestines were pulled out by a female doctor and tossed into the audience. Exumer - Morbid Angel and Morbid Saint on the same bill is one thing, but when you have Exumer coming on right after Exhumed, isn’t that a little too weird? In any event, these German thrashers delighted the fans who were there to see them, and surely must have won over plenty of new fans in the process. Mem von Stein had to be the most commanding and intimidating singer to ever perform at Maryland Deathfest. His facial expressions were fierce, he pretended to strangle Marc Brutigam during a few of his solos, but he never failed to acknowledge his love for his ecstatic audience. “Catatonic” was the song that was meant for headbanging; while “I Dare You” was the moment when Mem encouraged the audience to split apart then slam right into each other in the pit. The band opened with “The Raging Tides” and closed with “Possessed By Fire”, but there’s no need to discuss highlights. Exumer was the highlight. Root - Although they are from the Czech Republic, they preferred to introduce themselves as “Root from Hell”. Blending traditional, doom, and black metal with the operatic vocals of the creepy-looking frontman Big Boss, their dark and melodic style was definitely their own sound. They were very talented, original, and Big Boss has a genuinely evil presence about him. Grave - Grave was another one of those bands that captivated the MDF audience by simply playing a show that was consistently pure death metal. They played very aggressively, too. They played many of their staples like “Into the Grave” and “You’ll Never See…”, particularly towards the end of the set. Morbid Angel - With one of the more unique stage set-ups, Morbid Angel displayed two beasts facing each other that looked like giant, demonic chess pieces. Bassist/vocalist Steve Tucker was clearly excited to be back in the band, and the audience was glad to have him back. It wasn’t until after I had left town that I had started to hear talk of Morbid Angel committing the unthinkable crime of not playing any early material, which proved to be a reality. They played many of their sludgier songs like “Nothing is Not” and “He Who Sleeps”. They also performed a new song for their fans called “Warped”, which was another slower track. Azagthoth’s guitar playing was incredible as always, and “Covenant of Death” was my personal favorite track from this set. Still, going away from a Morbid Angel gig without hearing gems like “Fall From Grace” or “Chapel of Ghouls” left me unfulfilled. What was different this time was that, unlike in the past, the entire festival was being held indoors. This was not a very good move, and not just because you don’t get to enjoy that sunny weather with all of your black, death, thrash, and doom metal needs. You can’t hear the music as much in the background while browsing the outside vendor tables when the music is inside. However, the biggest problem was that it consistently took a long time to set everything up, even when most bands were using the same amplifiers and cabinets the entire night. Some bands came on later than expected and a few had to cut their set short. I would love to see the main stage return to the Edison Lot in the future, but no matter where it is held, you know Maryland Deathfest is always going to be the most fun you could possibly be having on Memorial Day weekend.

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Tags:  Morbid Angel, Maryland Death Fest, Tyranny Enthroned, Gost 

Nick Statudo    June 13, 2017