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Band:Northwest Deathfest 06 Album:Frozen in Time Record Company:Various Writer: -deathboy- Click Album Cover To Buy Now

I awoke this fine sunday mourning, and, after chewing through the restraining straps, opened the curtains to a typical grey and dismal day in the great Northwest. Pouring rain and densly overcast. What a great setting for a day filled with death metal! You just can't get the same dark and foreboding feeling from a bright, cheery sunshiny kind of day. So after a breakfest feast of razor blades and dead fetus, the Gorewhore and I gathered up the Gorriors and headed down the highway on our way to the 3rd annual Northwest Deathfest. Only 3 years in, this festival has already started to garner respect and recognition from the death metal community around the nation. As an interesting trivia note, yours truly had the pleasure and distinction of spewing forth twisted atrocities at the 1st Deathfest! This years installment was held at the Fenix in historic Pioneer Square deep in the heart of downtown Seattle. This is a great club with a small, dungeon like stage downstairs, a large, rockstar stage upstairs, and a great balcony level above the main stage. The sound systems are an interesting mix. Downstairs is pretty much what you would expect from a small club, kinda muddy, and kinda noisy at the same time, while upstairs the sound is huge and crisp and clear. Downstairs they had a bit of technical difficulties throughout the day, but all the bands perservered anyways. When we walked in, we were immediately assaulted by merch tables all around selling the best of the elite underground merch you could find! T-shirts, cd's, beanies, posters and even underground death, black and grind cd's! 'Tis great to see the little man taking commerce from out of the hands of the multinationals.

So we arrived a little late, in true rockstar fashion, and missed the first couple few bands. I did hear through the grapevine that Embalmed tore up the stage, even though they had the displeasure of playing at 11:am. We did catch the last couple of songs of Passive Aggresive's set. I was a little put off by the name at first, (what kind of name is this for a death metal band?), but they changed my mind with just those couple of songs! They played an interesting blend of old school thrash and black metal. Kind of reminded me of early Venom with better musicians. Not too bad I say! I will definately keep an eye for them in the future. Now after their set, we headed upstairs for Embryonic Devourment. This is where the festival truly started for me. These guys were the highlight of the entire day for me! ED is a guttural goregrind band from Cali who also played the first NWDF. While the crowd seemed to have a hard time getting into them, they pummeled everyones skulls into submission before they were done. they were tight as fuck, playing a Cephalic Carnage style of death grind that was just plain sick. the sound was a little muddy, but *shrug* what can you do when you are an early band? I loved the new song they played called "Fear Of Reality".

Now right about here is where the schedule started to turn into a clusterfuck. It seems that a couple of the bands cancelled and Franko, (Of Howitzer Productions, the man who organized this event. Big horns up to Franko for another kick ass fest!), had to shift a couple of set times around and bands started to overlap quite a bit, which made it hard to follow every band that played for the next couple of hours. Yet we perservered and pushed on. The next band on the chopping block was Non-Existence, featuring ex-Tasty Gore guitarist Amz. Due to tech difficulties and sickness in the band, their set started off a little slow. Add in the absence of a bass player and it could very well have been a disaster. But, being consumate proffesionals, they pushed on and by the third song they had the first pit of the day driving with ferocity! NE is deep, death metal that bludgeoned ruthlessly. It was about this time, having no idea who was playing where next, we decided it was beer thirty. I belive Dead To Fall played while were imbibing, but I'm not quite sure. Now Zuckass was scheduled to play downstairs, but they ended up upstairs, which worked out great for us since we were already there! They didn't have much of a crowd reaction, but I thought they were great! They played more grindcore stylings filled with all kinds of humor. The singer was wearing a hockey mask and the guitarist was in true ninja form. Now someone was plaing downstairs at the same time, but I really couldn't say who it was. I think it was Castdown, but I was too busy getting ready for Scorched Earth and flitting around like the social butterfly to notice. Now Scorched Earth, for those who aren't in the loop, are one of the Northwests great underground treasures. They play a mix of straight forward thrashing fury mixed with old school black metal. During their set, the crowd really started to wake up and the pit went nuts. In fact, the youngest gorrior got blasted in the pit and knocked on her ass and slid halfway across the floor! In true metal fashion though, she picked herself up, dusted herself off, and kept on banging her head! After the beatdown by SE, it was time for another beer. I think this is when Desolation played. It was kind of hard to tell who was playing where throughout the mid section of the day. *shrug* Oh well. Now it was time to slam our beers and head downstairs for Beltfed Weapon. BW features Franko on guitar and Northwest death metal legend Herb, from Drawn & Quartered, on vocals. Now unfortunately, Franko had just undergone carpal surgery on his wrist, so instead they had Eric from Agony Of Deceit fill in on guitar duties. I had thought the crowd was getting warmed up earlier. Boy howdy were we in for a shock! The pit erupted during BW's set! The gorriors were down in front of the stage when the pit went nuts, and the next metal warrior got blasted from behind, knocking him onto the stage and damn near knocking over the other guitarist! The guitarist just laughed and helped him up and back into the chaotic crowd. Their set was brutality at it's finest and featured guest vocals by Franko hisself. We cut out during the last song and raced upstairs to catch Mummification. Mummification holds the distinction of having played every year of the Deathfest! The crowd seemed a little lifeless during their set. Kind of like they were recovering from the Beltfed slaughter, but the band delivered intense technical death metal. Now there was some more confusion in the schedule and, well, I'm not quite sure what happened, but Fallen Angels got bumped from the upstairs stage, to the downstairs stage and their set got moved forward in time. We had a choice, do we stay upstairs for whoever it was or go catch FA featuring our very own Bradzilla? Duh! That was a no brainer! And damn are we glad we decided on Fallen Angels! Brad and co. delivered one of the most energetic sets of the day. They blasted the senses with old school speed thrash and whipped the pit up into new levels! Hails to FA for holding it down amongst the death crowd! I believe that Wache The Dead had the misfortune of playing the upstairs stage during FA's set. Here we had to jet outside to grab a hot dog. Now if you have not had the pleasure of indulging in one of these dogs in downtown, you don't know what you're missing! You locals have no excuse, and if you're comin in from out of town make sure you visit one of our fine dog stands scattered across corners all over the city. These are by far some of the worlds greatest dogs you will ever have the pleasure of eating! We finished stuffing our faces and ran back inside and down the stairs just in time to catch Ceremonial Castings. CC plays blackened death metal from the depths of hell! They had the crowd pumped and packed in like sardines. There was some more tech difficulties at the beginning of their set, but it didn't detract from the onslaught. CC is one of the seattle bands to keep an eye on. Grabbing another beer, We settled in downstairs to catch Bung. These guys play furious grind core and hail from Oregon. They didn't seem very well recieved by some of the crowd, and got heckled throughout the set, yet this seemed to just inspire them to tear everyone's heads off even more! All in all, up to this point, it had been a kick ass prelude to the thunderous storm that was swiftly approaching...

The thunder storm broke loose, almost back on schedule even, with Vulgarizer taking the downstairs stage. Vulgarizer is one of the most brutal and guttural death grind bands we have here in the Northwest. They started off the grand finale by ripping the crowd a new asshole! Holy shit! No kidding there. the crowd was packed from front to back and the pit showed it's appreciation by becoming a human meatgrinder. Their set ranked up there as one of the top three of the day! Quick like bunnies the whole crowd ran upstairs to be beheaded by In Memorium. If you've not heard of IM, you haven't been doing your extreme metal homework. IM is one of the best blackened death bands in our nation. They have even been earning respect from the ever so fickle black metal community around the globe. And this set showed us why. They are a haunting mix of melody and brutality that will leave you sleepless from nightmares for weeks on end. Next the crowd was herded like cattle back downstairs for a severe beating by Severed Savior. SS delivered an intense blend of hardcore and death metal that continued whipping the crowd even further into a thrashing fury. Then, like cattle to the slaughterhouse, it was back upstairs for Sadus. This is where I will probably catch some hell from a bunch of you, but I just was not impressed. Sadus was lifeless and uninspired. Their older tunes were alright in the thrash department, but had nowhere near the energy of Fallen Angels, and the newer material sounded disjointed and the keyboards just plain sucked. So you know what we did then? Yeaup! Pounded another beer! And a good thing we did too, for unbeknownst to us, we were about to be completely obliterated. That's right, the force of nature known as Deeds Of Flesh were preparing to take the stage downstairs. Wow. To put it simply. DOF destroyed everything and everyone in their path. This was the best set of the entire day, bar none. Even after just returning from touring in Europe and being a bit tired, DOF showed every band there what it means to be death metal. And the pit went into a crazed frenzy unlike anything I have seen in a long time. Incidently it was during their set that the first of only two fights broke out. Not sure exactly what took place, but security was on it in a heartbeat and dragged him outside. In fact, I've gotta give it up to the security for the day. They were they unsung heros. They kept the crowd under control, yet let them get buck wild all day! Now the crowd was primed and ready to explode, seething in anticipation of the headliners. One of the godfathers of death metal, Obituary. There was a little down time while Obituary set up, but when they took the stage, the house erupted. They devastated the crowd with their trademark sludgfest death metal style and showed why they have been a force to reckon with for two decades now.

It was almost too much metal to handle in one day. Almost. but isn't that the nature of extreme metal? I mean, it's called extreme for a reason isn't it? Tired and beaten down, we piled back into the car and hit the road for home. I have heard through the grapevine that Franko is not going to do this again next year. This would be a sad situation and a crushing blow for the Northwest if it's true. So what I would like each and every one of you who attended, and even if you didn't attend but support the extreme scene, is to sling him an email and show your support at: howitzerproductions@hotmail.com. Let's show him that we appreciate his hard work in setting up something of this scale for us the fans!

Band:Northwest Deathfest 06 Album:Frozen in Time Record Company:Various Writer: -deathboy- Click Album Cover To Buy Now

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