Live Review: Tech-Fest 10th Anniversary (Saturday)

Saturday starts with Tea and biscuits and a some quiet reflection on the line up for what will be a seriously heavy day. It feels like Simon Garrod and the Tech-Fest team have nailed the build up to the heavier headliners with their choices on paper and that is indeed how it pans out. They’ve brought back plenty of bands who have appeared at previous years to give this incarnation a real nostalgic charm and make it a real celebration…

Last night a barman said to me that Friday had been steady but today would be messy. Given the number of tired and hungover festival goers in front of Swarm6ix [9/10] it seems unlikely but stranger things have happened. The band were known as Faces Of Eve but have style shifted dramatically into a beast inspired by Gloom and Trap Metal. The result is a combination that the band seem happier with as brutal breakdowns batter with rap screamed verses and the odd clean chorus thrown in for good measure. A lot of the songs are new and haven’t seen been committed to tape as yet but when they do on this evidence in the likes of “Dopamine” and “Death Grips” they’re gonna blow up and the wealth of people who are here to witness their performance, it feels like they already know. Promoted to the main stage following last year’s storming set, the love for Blind Summit [9/10] is obvious from the outset with a near capacity crowd early in the day speaking volumes. DJent riffs and thunderstorms of bass are a backdrop for the clean sung vocals of which are as warm and rich as ever. Nottingham Symphonic Deathcore purveyors Draconian Reign [8/10] are a band we’ve waited the better part of a year to witness and have now signed to Seek & Strike Records. It maybe lunchtime but they decimate the weak infront of a packed audience with higher breakdowns and skull crushing atmospherics. “Crown Of Dispare” is an absolute beast and gets the first big pit of the day complete with spin kicking action even if the solo is a little loose. They’re going to be a threat on the World stage if they can get stateside with cuts like the collosal “Eternal Requiem“, today’s rendition of which is an absolute skull battering. In Fear [8/10] played the main stage last year and have a new album to share songs from that blends eccletic ethereal clean vocals with throat splitting savagery, all sprinkled over a deathbed of destructive guitars in cathartic fashion. One of those bands where every member looks like a distinctly separate character but somehow what they do is utterly seamless as if they were born as one, the results speak for themselves.

If we were to say that Monasteries [10/10] have before them a bigger audience than Lorna Shore had at Southampton Engine Rooms a couple of weeks back it would be a statement of fact purely based on the fact that the latter venue but it would still be correct. The Pins & Knuckles sponsored main stage is absolutely heaving as the Technical Death Metal outfit pummeled them out of existence. “Force Fed Apathy” is a sing-a-long moment while the band announce an album for 25th August with the recently deceased single “Alone & Against“. Both of those are accompanied by serious circle pit action in what is an absolute triumph for the collective who need to be cooled with water to put out the fires they create. A little bit Progressive and a lot Power Metal Azure [7/10] are a very talented band sonically who suffer from a vocalist who is a little bit too theatrical with the high pitched warblings. Over on the main stage Vexed [10/10] threaten to burn the place down with material from their incendiary new album “Negative Energy“, a freshly released record that everyone seems to know end to end already judging by size of the Mosh Pit. Once discredited as “just another female fronted band” by a few idiots, the Progressive Deathcore quartet pack knuckle dusters as they punch from all angles as the thunderous rythmic dynamics hit like a tidal wave over and over again. Line up changes have left Godeater [9/10] something of an unknown quantity but their return is intriguing and Ross Beagan has always been their mastermind. The Glaswegian Death Metal merchants impress with material from “Vespera”  as new vocalist Jamie Harrison finds his way. It will be very interesting to see what the next album brings from them. Fresh from a feature in this month’s Metal Hammer Magazine Heriot [7/10] tear up the main stage with their blend of Death Metal that pitches HM-2 aggression against some more Metallic Hardcore stuccato riff infestations. A play on pleasure and pain, the weight of their sonic onslaught feels like they may end up contorting into a Power Violence act, Debbie Gough’s clean vocal moments as nasty as her unclean ones.

American Armed For Apocalypse [7/10] famously dug Tech-Fest out of a hole a couple of years back by playing two sets of different material on separate days and this afternoon they’re in ferocious form. Cuts from 2022’s “Riutal Violence” are warmly received on the first day of the festival to see any warmth. As they put it themselves, no frills, one hundred percent low tuned riffs to make you want to band your f***ing head. Kublai Khan [10/10] are one of the big draws of this weekend and from the first one to the last (which just happens to be “Antpile“) not only are the band in the form of their lives performance wise but they’re confronted by a swarm of sweaty bodies that fuel their energy with non stop movement. The stuccato riff breaks and brutal breakdowns are non stop, as are the vitrolic vocals from Matt Honeycutt who is as politically and socially aware as they come. The secret is the message, the music will set you free and the likes of “No Fear” and “Boomslang” confirm that if you’re not banging your head then you ain’t human. A cameo from Ben Mason of Bound In Fear adding a little spice. Leeds Post-Metal collective Hundred Year Old Man [8/10] take down the tempo while increasing the intensity with some wonderfully atmospheric tunes to help us breathe more easily. They draw a crowd here for evening worship practice and deliver crushing catharsis to pay them in full with such weight and power that it’s mesmerising. It may seem like an odd thing to say but seminal Death Metal act Aborted [9/10] may not actually be the heaviest band of the weekend (it’s a close run thing) but by they are without a doubt the most influential. Comically they walk about to “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” by Aerosmith, waving to the crowd before distorting the end and busting into their usual seven shades of sheer brutality, “Retrogore” going down like a ship in a storm. They pack a groove laden punch with vocalist Sven de Caluwé in slamming good form mentioning more than once that a song is about “eating shit from my asshole” before delivering some throat splitting retoric over blast beats a groove laden riffage. From the old school to the current crop and Deathcore brutes Bound In Fear [10/10] who decimate the herd with their packed out second stage headlining set filled with the kind of orgasmic bowel clenching gutteral lows from Ben Mason that tickle your cerebral cortex. They play a career spanning set pulling deep cuts like “Godfear” out from the matrix before sharing a new cut “Headcase” from an in the works album. Ben Masons bowel clenching gutteral lows seem more personal tonight and he’s in a reflective mood as he comments about ripping his calf muscle three weeks ago and not being able to get his usual stage movement in. He does however get bullied by the crowd into chugging a pint of Stella at the end of the set with a couple of hundred people chanting “chug, chug, chug!” as opposed to “one more song!“.

It’s no secret that our first Tech-Fest was 2017 and Deathcore pioneers Chelsea Grin [10/10] were a headliner then so it seems fitting they’re a headliner now, especially if this is the last time and not simply a break. Their line up may have changed leaving bassist David Flinn and guitarist Stephen Rutishauser the only members who were there then on the stage tonight but they are no less effective. The percussion from Nathan Pearson is like an artillery shelling, the stuccato riff infestations hitting like the steel fist of RoboCop and Tom Barber’s vocals are like he’s demonically possessed. The new material from their recent double album sits well alongside their older cuts with “Playing With Fire” and “Dead Rose” getting huge pits but due to a woman getting knocked unconscious they have to restart “Recreant” three times before completing it. Stay safe and take care of each other the message loud and clear and thank God for the presence of the medics. We wish her well and a speedy recovery. The show goes on with the band finishing on a brutal high with “Crewcabanger“, Barber’s between song banter the polar opposite of the evil his vocals offer.