Day 1 – And the battle lays before you!!!
After a well-deserved rest, we were up and ready to go to lunch to usual haunt, a Casa dos Rojões, with our usual crowd. We were also waiting for our friend Mauricio from London, which was debuting at SWR, and he was camping near us!! After a very decent meal, we went back to the festival grounds, to mingle some more, drink some more and await the festivities to start!!
As this is the actual first day of the festival, bands started at five pm and the first band to do the honours was travelling from very far away. Godless arrived from India and unleashed a whirlwind of Death Metal, that took many for surprise, yours narrator included!! I’d heard some of their stuff but wasn’t expecting the fearsome set these guys delivered. Old school style but with plenty of groove and chunkiness, and a hell of a growler. After them, and also debuting in the festival, was something very different, not just from the previous band, but pretty much from the rest of the fest. Our friends in Dolmen Gate, dwell in the world of traditional epic Heavy Metal, which is quite different from the extremer bands showing up in the fest. But they draw their swords and brought their epicness which conquered the ones that were already at the fest. Big riffs, plenty of lyrics, a very good female voice, and the stamp of quality these guys have been showing with their works. Hope, they conquered a few more souls!!! Then time to open the big tent and stage, and again the task was to a band which we consider friends!! Phenocryst, fronted by DS from Caverna Abismal Recs, unleashed a hell of a set, with a very cavernous (no pun intended) Dead Metal, in the vein of Dead Congregation and so on!! They brought to Barroselas “Cremation Pyre”, their debut album from last year, and they delivered the goods, with a wall of sound to make the village tremble!!! They have a bright future, that’s what I want to say!! We were still shaken from that storm, when we got to the outside stage and Razorvoid from Sweden was already agitating the place!! They have a very addictive Crust Punk which made the bodies move and fly!! Good d-beat, fast riffs, a blast of a vocalist and hearable bass lines!! First time seeing them and became a fan!! Had the chance to talk with quite a bit in the next few days and they are awesome people!! Next was one of my favourite bands: Ahab!! And the German quartet did not disappoint all that were present. Their sound has evolved from the early days of Funeral Doom to a Death/Doom, which has as much heaviness as melody. They played 4 songs in the 45 minutes they were in Barroselas and went through pretty much all their albums with exception of “The Giant” but my favourite piece was “The Maelstrom” from their latest record “The Coral Tombs”. What majestic riffs, the melody of the clean vocals, the thickness of the rhythm section, in one word: perfect!!! Next would be Malphas but we needed a space time to have dinner, so we chose them as we had seen them a few months back in London. So, when we got back to the venue it was time for the Kings of the Sidewalk: Gehennah!! And it was what I expected!! Debauchery and rock’n’roll from start to finish!! From “Hardrocker” to “Metal Police”, they delivered a set of Black/Thrash Metal that made the audience frenzy and mosh!! And has they say, “Piss Off, I’m Drinking”!!! Next from Greece arrived one of the bands I had quite high expectations to see, Kawir. And they delivered a very heartful, atmospheric and pace varied Black Metal. It’s one of those bands, that when you listen to the music, you say “they are from Greece”, especially in the mix between brutality and atmosphere. The only thing I missed was the live keyboards as it did seem to me they were sampled. Next was the living legend known as Repulsion, or how you create a band, disband, release a groundbreaking album and then just play it live once in a while. “Horrified” is as simple and primitive as original and ground breaking and it was excellent to see the duo Matt Olivo and Scott Carlson on stage going full speed ahead. They played a couple of covers from Slaughter and Venom, almost the entire Horrified album in order (I think they didn’t play “The Lurking Fear”, but can be wrong) and told stories about the old days, like for example, when they were both in Death in 1985 and wrote some of the stuff would be used in the album. Fucking legend!!! Next back to the outside stage and some more Black Metal, courtesy of the French horde Merrimack!! They leaned heavily on the new album “Of Grace and Gravity” but did not forget some old jewels like “Horns Defeat Thorns” from their debut album from 2002!! They brought to the table a fairly standard Black Metal with no gimmicks or bullshit!! Back to the main stage for a performance from the Steelharmonics, which is an orchestra playing some heavy tracks like “Fear of the Dark”, “War Pigs” or “Agent Orange”!! It was quite fun and nice to see the interaction between audience and the orchestra. There was singing, mosh pits and lots of cheering. They ended playing more than one hour which was a reward for their dedication and hard work. Last band of the day (at least playing on a stage) was the Italian Golpe!! Because of the encore on the Steelharmonics show, this one started a little later than expected. Then between that and the anti-fascist speech the frontman gave on stage, they ended only playing around twenty minutes of a very fast and chaotic Punk/Hardcore, just what the doctor had ordered for the end of the night!! A shame it was so short as their music is quite energetic!!! Then we moved to the SWR Café for the Rebellious Delirium after party and it was quite interesting 2/3 of the time with plenty of old school tunes and some good Hard Rock, unfortunately in the end there was some Hip Hop and shit, and you know what I think about that in Metal festivals!!! While the DJ set was happening the Brazilian Test played in the roof of the ticket booth but we didn’t see it as we were in the café!! Around 5am we departed to our mansion in the woods for a bit of rest!!!
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