Haserot, Sacrocurse, Trenchant, and Sammath Live in Houston (February 24, 2024)

Some shows define an era, and the assault of Sammath on Texas revealed where underground metal is going now: doubling down on what made it great, injecting new creativity, and fleeing from the dual pitfalls of three-chord nonsense and elaborate “progressive” stylings.

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Concert Review: Metalmania 2018

On  7th  April, another edition of a long standing Polish festival Metalmania took place. One day, two stages, twenty four bands. It was the second one organized after a recent reactivation. The original Metalmania was an early big metal event in that part of the Europe – quite a feat given Polish Communist and post-Communist realities. Then, due to various reasons, the festival was gradually losing its relevance, dwindling and finally went into hiatus for 8 years. There is no sense, however, to cling to its bygone local importance or whatever glorious past. So how does it look now? 

While too much reliance on more mainstream gothic and heavy contributed to a collapse of previous incarnation of the festival, and now it was death and black oriented, the music on the big scene is rather consistently aimed at straight metal through all of its generations and styles, ending with bands like Dead Congregation or Blaze of Perdition and with some of the more modern sounds on a small scene. On a downside, the fest resurfacing mainly as a stage for classic bands may be reflecting the actual state of metal, indicating that the newer bands are unable to fill the void with something equally strong to their predecessors. 

The festival was obviously rough around the edges (and surprisingly violent – I almost got caught into two different fights just from where I was standing) and the sound was uneven and average overall. It was organized better than in the past, but still perceptibly within Polish standards, that is crudely and with lack of imagination or simply negligence in some areas (although Martin van Drunen said on stage that the organization was great!). Perhaps a very fortunate by-product of these characteristics, which may contribute to the positive reception of this festival, is how – I dare to say – conservative it is, both in terms of lineup and general spirit. With Napalm Death and (I suppose) liberal speed metallers on one side and sort of crypto-nazis on the other, who always find a way to show up in some form, the fest also covered broadest ideological spectrum that is possible for a mainstream event. 

As of 2018 this festival is yet to experience types of modern degeneracy, often coming from outside, which can be seen on festivals elsewhere. There were some obligatory side attractions, like exhibition of works of Christophe Szpajdel (who actually speaks Polish fluently), meet-up with the bands and lots of merch, but nothing delving too much into a fan idiocy or really not related to metal. Very few freaks, zero exotic people, no random participants, just fairly traditional metalheads, mostly in the 90s style, as it should be, world without end. However, those spoiled by abundance of propositions and by big festivals in Germany or Czech Republic will probably miss out on some of these modest qualities. 

And then there’s the surreal, sci-fi sight at the arrival – a monumental, Communistic “The Saucer” occupied by nothing but a tribe of long haired, black clad drunks… 

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Immolation, Azarath, Melechesh Live In Poland On September 27, 2017

Immolation fiercely maintains its reputation as both innovator and creator of a long run of relevant albums in the death metal genre. The band appeared in Poland on September 27, supported (besides opening bands Sincarnate and In Twilight’s Embrace) by Melechesh and Azarath. In every case the sound was at least good and with their performances they all have made great impression.

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Master’s Hammer – Live in Prague, 13th June 2017

Master’s Hammer played their first live show in over twenty five years recently at the Futurum bar in Prague this June. Most of the set, which entirely consisted of tracks from Ritual, was filmed by Tomáš Havránek who uploaded it to his Youtube channel. The performances are excellent and energetic so fans of the band should watch it. Word of warning, the presence of nude models makes this not safe for American workplaces in contrast to the Cronenbergian imagery our staff loves.

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Graveland Live In Poland On April 29, 2016


by Max Schoenbach

For metalheads who have listened to the studio output from Graveland over the past twenty-five years, experiencing a live version feels odd and uncanny, and definitely “new.” That the band will be struggling with unattainable heights it established for itself is obvious. When seen in Poland on April 29, 2016, other dimensions of the experience revealed themselves as well.

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Mayhem Tour, Washington, DC Stop Review


Article contributed to Death Metal Underground by Mike Alexander’s friend who is a Bill & Ted type of guy, you know.

I saw Mayhem play De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, the only album of theirs that actually counts of course, last week at the Howard Theater in Washington, DC so I wanted to tell my fellow Death Metal Underground readers what’s happening inside the ANUS of this tour. That was surely an ironic choice of venue the band made there. Playing a black theater in a historically black city was strange for a band whose drummer, Hellhammer, is a badass drummer who hits like a fucking beast like a German in a tank trying to conquer Africa back from his historic racial enemies, the Polish and the Africans and Hellhammer is Greek or something so how can these losers with nothing better to do claim he’s even racist you know? Also practicing under their swastika banners and shit like that they shouldve brought out to steam roll all the drunk hipsters instead of comic book covers to hide behind onstage. I had to check this shit out to see if some shit would go down. I wanted to see if the gig would rule or if any crazy shit from hipsters, communists, or any other idiot life forms that could come out of a UFO or something would be real you know and prevent Mayhem from pounding my face in you know.

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La Naranja Metálica Online Radio Show

Spanish language black metal webzine El Negro Metal has started hosting a downloadable monthly online radio show/podcast called La Naranja Metálica, which I have been told is a play on A Clockwork Orange‘s Spanish title La Naranja Mecánica. Most of the tracks being spun are from releases that Death Metal Underground and The Dark Legions Archive have endorsed in the past with many appearing on our recent best of lists. Hopefully La Naranja Metálica will help bring the best of the underground to a Spanish-speaking audience.

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Kaeck Prepare to Play Under the Black Sun

Under the Black Sun schedule

Kaeck, the creators of Death Metal Underground’s 2015 Album of the Year Stormkult, are playing the upcoming Under the Black Sun festival outside of Berlin next Saturday. Kjeld are opening right before Kaeck,  making a €35 Saturday only day ticket a good opportunity for German fans to catch some of the best Dutch black metal bands live while avoiding most of the beer metal, funderground festival atmosphere. Kaeck posted a rehearsal of “De kult” on their Funbook page:

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Benefit Show For the Family of Alfred Fuentes III: Wülfskol, Elder Gods, Saturnatas and Terrorem (June 3, 2016)

wulfskol_-_elder_gods_-_saturnatas_-_terrorem

Texas is a huge place, which is why Texas metalheads spend most of our time driving between cities to attend shows far away. We drive the equivalent of several eastern states — Texans measure distance between cities in a unit called a Massachusetts because that dinky little state is a great yardstick — just to see some of the many great bands that Texas has produced.

It is for this reason that Alfred Fuentes III is known to most of us. A fixture at Houston, Austin and San Antonio shows for the last two decades, he always shows up early and supports the bands through intangible ways as well as tangible. He has known many of the Texas metal musicians for even longer. Unfortunately, he has run into health challenges and to counter this, Texas metalheads are throwing a benefit bash to help his family.

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