[Gig Review, Pt 1] – The New Dead Festival XII, 15.04.23 @ Lion Arts, Adelaide.
Originally posted on our sadly as-of-NYE-2024-dead-AF previous website. RIP. Today’s article is a review of the also-sadly-defunct New Dead Festival in Adelaide, Australia on the 15th of April in 2023.
THE NEW DEAD XII, PART I.
Opening the floor for us eager and curious early-birds, locals and relative newcomers to the live scene I Choose Violence kick proceedings off like a gunshot.
Slapping lunchtime revellers upside the head with their tumultuous concoction of death metal, hardcore and thrash, there’s plenty of energy radiating from these fresh locals. The eagerness is palpable, with band members oscillating between shit-eating grins, windmilling and headbanging. They are stoked to be here.
Photo Courtesy of Jason Vidic - @vidic_images
Audience participation for the festival is equally as fervent from the get-go – a welcome sight. Ample headbanging, fist-pumps and participatory gang-shouts punctuate a brutal set, centred mainly on the meaty Trial by Combat EP.
Sacred Slayer metalhead hymn ‘Angel of Death’ even gets an ICV death metal makeover, garnering cheerful applause at the set’s conclusion.
Right – a whole day of headbanging ahead, it is!
My neck and knees momentarily spasm in fear, a realistic appraisal of the flogging they’re going to cop. And cop it do they ever, only seconds later.
Sporting a get-up of gauntlets, a goat-skull mic and leather, the aesthetic shift to a thrash netherworld is complete with second act Apocalyptic Annihilation.
Wasting absolutely no time on the small stage, these dudes launch straight into a sheer blackened-thrash assault mere moments after the previous bands’ stage departure.
Within moments we’re treated to a skull-caving barrage of furious palm-muting riffage, evil tremolo, flashy shredding and relentless blastbeats. With the band paying homage the man himself, Lemmy, there’s indeed a Motorhead-from-hell energy from the artists’ music and performance as they churn out pure Necrothrash cuts again and again.
The initial reaction from the steady influx is almost comical to watch – incoming punters sauntering in cautiously, then quickly snapping to furious headbanging and hoots of appreciation. The small stages’ proximity to the entrance generates a sense of immediacy that gets folks fired up very quickly.
Vomiting a stream of guttural growls and shrieks, the energetic frontman prowls the stage like one possessed. Bandmates respond in kind, churning out technical but also groove-laden backing with high intensity and flair.
Appealing equally to us primitive pit-folk and chin-stroking observers , the band were received to similar jeers and howls of appreciation throughout. (p.s., props for the shout-out to Misery!)
This much brutality so early on is honestly a treat.
And it’s far from showing signs of relenting.
@vidic_images
Mere moments from the conclusion of Bifurcated‘s set, with barely enough time to make the bar, bassist/drummer power duo Hell Machine erupts like a blackened-thrash volcano back over on the small stage.
The screeched proclamation ‘We are Hell Machine – and we come from Hell!‘ is as much fun metal-shtick as it is prophetic.
Pic: Vidic Images
Trading off dual vocals that bring both Aura Noir and Exodus to mind, the band utilise, speed, distortion and the full creative potential of metal’s rhythm section to bolster bloodcurdling rasps.
This high-octane set features doggedly snappy tracks such as ‘Spawn of the Devil’, ‘She-Demon’ and more, from aptly-titled new release Relentless Aggression. Roars, hollers and manic cheers of appreciation signify yet another high-calibre performance received well.
Seriously, quality and consistency is a mainstay of today. Not the easiest feat with a fully-packed timetable spanning afternoon, evening and night.
But trust me. New Dead delivers, all day.
Teleporting from the blackened-thrash nether-realms to the thuggish brutality of death metal, it’s not long afterward that Perth’s Ashen offer up their gruesome serving of delectably old-school extreme metal swagger.
Bludgeoning as hell, there’s equal space paved throughout for breakneck riff-fests and slower, groovier chug-a-thons. This push-pull dynamic gets a lively crowd hooting and howling for more over those downright evil buzzsaw guitar tones.
Pic: Jason Vidic @vidic_images (IG)- link above.
A number of tracks from blistering new release Ritual of Ash (including title track, ‘Deadsight’ and ‘Gravemind’) mingle seamlessly amongst demo scorchers such as ‘Godless Oath’ and ‘Threshold’.
A last-minute addition to the lineup, it seems the democratic process of unified applause has deemed the band’s presence very worthy.
Nowhere-near-as-great-as-Jason Pic credit : Me, via the InnerStrengthCheck Instagram.
Barely time to crick one’s next or grab the next round, as Melburnian technical/dissonant death metal purveyors Writhing straight-up brutalise the small stage from the moment of their opening salvo onwards.
With a vocalist belting out subsonic barks and growls over intricate but powerful riffs and blasts, the bands’ abject refusal to forsake heaviness is clear. Lifting multiple belters from most recent album Of Earth And Flesh demonstrates that on the live front, too.
Deceptively doomy at times, there’s only slight reprieve in furious speed for angular, off-kilter moments – even then, rabid hoots of appraisal roar up from the pit. The frontman’s declaration that ‘We’re having a fucking ball today!’ is mirrored by a resounding boom of appreciation from an audience clearly on the same page throughout their intense set.
@vidic _images (IG)
Time to adjust your positions and your genres once more, folks.
Perth’s Remission are preparing yet another dish on this heavy smorgasbord. Exploding from the main stage with a burst of blistering death-thrash, there’s an instantly frantic pace that barely eases through the entire set.
Fresh tracks like ‘Noctus Pestia’ get heads struggling to keep up with such consistently feverish tempos, mixed with rallying calls to fist-pump and chant together. Addition of fill-in drummer Liam Weedall wouldn’t have had anyone second-guessing, the skinsman providing an effortless backing to nimble bass-work and virtuoso leads.
With a final assertion for us to ‘Get out there and see as many fucking riffs as you can today!’, closing track ‘Breaking The Sun’ propels the restless crowd into a frenzy. We’re left ready to obey this last directive with zealous fervour.
It’s all I can do but massage knuckles into an already-doomed neck, stretch my aching knees and gather fortitude to continue. I drag myself over to the small stage, this time for Victorians Vexation.
Ensuring we keep good on our duty as metal primates, there’s little fanfare to be had as the band whirl immediately into a Dragonball-Z style flurry of thrashing death metal melee. Dizzying sweeps, barrelling double-kicks and downright malevolent tremolo straight-up murders the air. Dextrous bass-work and sharp vocal rasps and barks round out an atmosphere of thrashing death metal violence.
Kicking furiously through picks from Trepidation Reigns and older material, every scorching moment is lapped up by a pit-ready audience. There’s such ferocity and speed on offer in this rapid-fire set that the blast-laden conclusion takes me by surprise.
I join the reflexive cheer, ignoring my mortal need for reprieve.
No time just yet, we’ve got bands to see.
Relenting only incrementally from the unrelenting assault of the previous acts, there’s a moody shift in atmospherics and ambience back on the main stage.
Minimalist black-and-white visual backdrop for black metal supergroup Lumen Ad Mortem is just one of many tasty little stylistic shifts that adds more variety to today’s spread.
There’s a theatrical performance from the ashen-face-painted frontman, howling above his black-garbed bandmates and gesticulating through poses like a man truly pained. There’s a subtlety to the music too, aided by the very Nazxul-style atmospherics laid down by the warm but melancholic keyboards.
Which isn’t to say the performance was stripped-back – Gods, no! Not when you’ve got infamous Matt ‘Skitz’ Sanders laying down relentless machine-gun fire in blastbeat form, as we see in ‘Narrow Tiles on Stony Ground’. A spellbinding set, and the ample space provided by the main stage truly adds to the cavernous, ominous feel.
(A post-script note – like many other fill-in musicians today, Matt Walters (Freedom of Fear) provides reservist support from guitar, and fits like a glove.
Yet another pattern of consistency emerging from the festival was just how easily and skilfully artists were filling lineups where required, often with short notice.)
Speaking of short notice – with little warning, the venue is soon brass-knuckle-beaten straight back into thrash territory with the debut performance from critically-acclaimed unit Battlegrave.
Credit: Jason Vidic - @vidic_images (IG)
On the topic of rounding out lineups, the normally studio-facing duo is complemented today by live vocalist Luke Frizon (Growth) and guitarist Daniel Mackie (Triple Kill).
For a first live performance, this is clearly one well-primed musical machine. Charging headfirst into a combination of frenetic riffing, visceral barks and watertight rhythmic backing, we are informed ‘This song’s about a shark!’ with the absolutely jacked ‘White Death’.
Between this number, ‘The Gavul Says… Die!’ and a host of other ripping cuts, there’s not a single moment of physical or musical stillness from neither band nor crowd. Melding Dew-Scented styled riffage with flashy soloing and a punk rock ethos proves massively popular with the crowd. More live Battlegrave, please!
Following up such a rabid set might prove a challenge for some, particularly as the hours wane on.
But now comes the time for Melbourne death metal hellions Black Lava to keep that energy up, old-school style. And boy, do they ever.
Wreathed in layers of distortion, the larger expanse of the main stage fills the sound out in a way that complements the pendulum-swing from focused blasting to head-swaying grooves. Hits such as ‘Eye of The Moon’ and the sneering ‘Aurora’ give off a real black metal snark. There’s close attention paid by the frontman to provide bandmates ample limelight through periods of riffing fury, but not without horns aloft.
The crowd might as well be a pack of howler monkeys at this stage, given the excited hoots and hollers all throughout the set.
Regrettably, it’s at this stage that my basic physiological needs are kicking in and overriding a normally stubborn constitution.
Sangas and beer aren’t cutting the mustard. I amble my already precarious musculoskeletal system out the venue ASAP to stuff a substantial feed down my gob in due time to catch the next act.
Unfortunately, my meat-suits’ fevered shuffle isn’t timely enough to catch the next set. Not content with pretending to review someone I didn’t catch, nor leave any holes in the day’s reporting, I made sure to grab some vicarious feedback from crowd members to ascertain just how Melbourne’s R U N went down.
Pic Credit: Samuel Phillips Photography
Having caught them recently supporting Darkest Hour at Max Watt’s, I was seriously impressed with the newly coagulated five-piece. Both the eclectic, post-metal-meets-hardcore tunes and energetic stage delivery led a strong first live show, mere weeks ago.
It seems this was a sentiment echoed from several folks about today’s set. In particular, the most common theme was a clear sense of passion and intensity.
Thus ends Part I of our two-part review of 2023’s New Dead Festival.
Part 2 coming soon - thanks so much once more to the tireless work of Jason North and crew for making this event happen. Long may it live in our memories.
Pic Credit: Samuel Phillips Photography