Obscene Extreme Festival 2006
Trutnov, Czech Republic 13th, 14th and 15th of July 2006
- Show Report written by Baz
This was a first for me. In the face of being a fervent Death Metal and Grindcore listener since my mid-teens, I've never actually gone and got my shiftless arse together in order to visit this gluttonous Grind gala before. So of course I was full of zeal on arriving at the festival area, the weekend ahead being vacuum-packed with blasts, engorged with gutturals, rife with riffs and turgid with highly affordable ale! - Thursday
Upon enterin' the arena at 11pm, the celebrations were already in full swing. The cacophonous ear-buggery of Nplmd appeared to go down quite well, the one-man act serving up some utterly caustic portions of Harsh Noise, involving lots of uncontrollable squealing, head threshing dissonance and frenzied fx pedal pressery. The painful Hell Show wincefest followed shortly afterwards, seeing a group of nutters inserting sizeable steel hooks through their flesh. It's fair shocking to see this sort of thing in the pages of Bizarre mag and the like, but witnessed in real life it's an astonishing spectacle, especially the ones through the back o' the knee! Oof! With the mood set, it was down to the resident disc jockeys to keep the atmosphere brootal, spinning hits from the likes of Devourment, Regurgitate, Disavowed, Dying Fetus and many, many more! - Friday
The first full day of bands commenced with Attack of Rage, who set the ball rolling with some rather rousing, no messin' Grindcore, thus carrying out the tricky task of opening the festival with ample aplomb. Their set of memorable little ditties contained a lot of adept drumwork, serrated riffery and hysterical vokills, succeeding in having near on everyone's noggin noddin' in approval.
In contrast, Eternal Bleeding offered some technical Brootal Death, full o' convoluted riffage and moist gutturals, much of their material [as well as their moniker] sounding somewhat akin to Visceral Bleeding, or perhaps a bit of mid-period Deeds of Flesh.
After the enjoyable new album 'Sick Atoms' [along with the rest of their splendid back catalogue], I was highly eager to watch local boys Negligent Collateral Collapse. Their set consisted of many hulking lumps of groovin' Grindcore conceptualism, the combination of caveman rhythms, grotesque melody and amphibious vokills coming across as very entertaining indeed. Their albums ought to come with a sticker saying 'Warning: May Cause Booty to Shake'.
Wasteform seemed like warm and friendly lads upon bumping into 'em at the airport, but the same simply cannot be said for their music. Extremely menacing Brootal Death/Grind was the order of the day, with an abundance of nourishing chuggery and hefty gutturals. Seeing as they're New York lads, the Suffocation and Malevolent Creation comparisons are unavoidable, although there's a much more slam-ready approach evident here. Hearty 'n' delicious!
Colombian behemoths Internal Suffering maintained the giddy atmosphere with ease, finding a good balance of excoriating scales, mangled patterns and effortless gutturals within their characteristic brand of Broootal Death.
Night falls, Sinister rise. Their thoroughly engaging set of pummelling Death Metal hymns was immense, delivered with much vigour and conviction. Despite slubbing into a slightly homogenous glob somewhere towards the latter part of the performance, the songs retained plenty of energy, fluidity and potency.
After all those protracted, old skool song-structures, I was in the right frame of mind for some strident, political Crust. It's a bloody good job that the inimitable Cripple Bastards were up next then, proffering a flawless set of enormously catchy tunes. I was overjoyed to hear them run through the Punkish bluster of 'Stimmung', the huge singalong chorus remaining embedded in me skull long after they left the stage.
More madness from Poland ensued with the appearance of Squash Bowels. I've been a fan for a long while, so I was elated to see them doing an exceptional job of grinding the shite out of everything. Unfeasibly fast yet still irresistibly catchy, the whole set was delightful.
It's flabbergasted expressions and cries of 'Eh?!' all round because it's time for a bewildering set of Ridiculousgrind from local lads, Mincing Fury and Guttural Clamour of Queer Decay! Unfathomable songs of grinding flamboyance, full of ludicrous, sub-sub-human reeees, simple yet cranium powderin' rhythms and a total over-indulgence in blastin' extremity. Absolutely preposterous! Even 'Shit Song' was ace. - Saturday
I was awoken from my Gambrinus 'n' apricot brandy induced slumber by Spasm, who sounded brisk 'n' invigorating, especially considering the silly hour of the morning that they took to the stage.
Further filth was supplied by Bufo, who did well to interpolate their gig-friendly Grindcore with some quite considerable groove, harnessing a fair few old skool ethics whilst still staying adequately within the boundaries of modern-day thuggery.
I can't believe it's not Disgorge! Italian outfit Septycal Gorge dished out some appetising elevenses, much of which acted as a direct nod to the influential American band. Aside from the frenetic fret squallery and vicious structures, the vokills seemed to pay the largest tribute, with every tummy-piped eructation sounding just like ex-grunter Matti Way. Heck, there was even a little vokill solo like on 'She Lay Gutted'!
I love a bit of Sillygrind, so I was ecstatic during the Sylvester Staline set. Concise yet corrosive compositions, full of memorable moments, daft themes and those typical French idiosyncrasies! Some of the Crustier moments and the absurd vokills reminded me of Rotten Cunt or more recently, Gastrick Burst. Or am I thinking of Sickbag? Buggered if I can remember.
It's time for more Broootality as German fiends Tears of Decay arrive onstage. Juddering 'n' danceable, the band doled out some feculent Death Metal with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the chin. Excellent ultra-gutturals, biscuit tin blasts and detuned slabs of riff made for a very good set.
I was jubilant due to the appearance of Putrefied, but I'm afraid the sound was a bit of a disappointment. Don't get me wrong, the set was a concretous onslaught of impenetrable Broootal Death, but the sound engineer had decided to put them through a harrowing mixing console ordeal, which seriously dampened the harpoon like effect of their attack.
It must've been Sickbag who I was thinking of above, cos I'm fairly sure a member of Gastrick Burst popped up to do some backing vokills at one point, so that's probably where I got the comparison. Either way, Sickbag played some rather bouncy French Grind, some of it sounding a little bit like Captain Cleanoff or someone.
'Cause they're the pioneers of Porngrind, I simply couldn't wait for Gut. In print, the set might read as faultless, seeing as they played a tumescent assortment of erectile anthems, featuring timeless classics from the vintage 'Odour of Torture' opus alongside brand new 'The Cumback' material. However, they spoiled themselves with their obtuse sexism, gratuitous racism, hackneyed claims to necrophilia, laughably empty threats of violence and, of course, those utterly crap masks. Even with the promise of a hoodie prize, the portly, unfortunately shirtless singer failed wretchedly to prompt the female festivalgoers to take part in the 'Deep Throat Dildo Competition'. The hapless chap even had a tattoo emblazoned across his corpulent beergut that looked dangerously close to the word 'Korn'. Sorry lads, after that atmos ruining performance I think I'll be listening only to Mucupurulent, CBT and Rompeprop et al the next time I need an instant Porngroove fix. Pillocks.
Thank buggery for Dismember then, who followed that load of old arse with ease. A greatest hits style set of Death Metal wizardry, providing us with over an hour of golden old skool nuggets. Much like Sinister the night before, the band put in a consummate performance and the songs possessed significant punch, with impassioned delivery and considerable overall flow.
We all know and love everything defaecated by the Japanese, so Bathtub Shitter were of course greeted with euphoric applause. Appealing, catchy Grindcore with plenty of gratifying groove jumbled in amongst the mesmeric fast-pace. As always, the vokills were highly impressive, switching from rough 'n' chalky snarls to cartoon-like, high-pitched yelps at the drop of a hat [or item of ladies underwear, which seemed to be the headgear of choice for many of the assembled punters].
Time for some more Broootal scratch-head maths, with our lecturers Defeated Sanity drawing up the impossible algorithms on the blackboard. After their 'Prelude to the Tragedy' disc and that split wi' Poppy Seed Grinder, I was ready for some contortuplicated structures, outlandish blastin' and extremely swinelike vokills. Unfortunately, Shite Sound Engineer struck again. For some reason, he decided to make the band sound like a Brodequin record played through a mobile phone tucked inside a sleeping bag. Cryin' shame.
Overall, Obscene Extreme Fest 2006 was a truly monumental festival; the perfect treat for all Death Metal and Grindcore fans. Do go.
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