Death-metal dad rock

Carcass are a couple weeks away from putting out another excellent post-reunion album (hail Surgical Steel), and it was an honor and a pleasure to be able to talk to them about it for Rolling Stone.

2013 metal top 10

My 2013 metal-only top 10 is live now, appended to Brandon Stosuy's year-end Show No Mercy countdown at Pitchfork. Several of these records overlap with my overall top 10 and a 2013 death-metal round-up I recently put together for Noisey, so I'll link inward/outward where applicable.

Here's a Spotify playlist including all the records below, including the honorable mentions, aside from the Pentagram Chile and the Six Feet Under.

1. Carcass Surgical Steel

See 2013 top 10.

2. Suffocation Pinnacle of Bedlam
See 2013 top 10.

3. Black Sabbath 13 
See 2013 top 10.

4. Gorguts Colored Sands
See 2013 top 10. Incidentally, seeing Gorguts perform this entire album live at Saint Vitus—see here or here—was thrilling. What an incredible group of songs, and… this.

5. Sorcery Arrival at Six
See 2013: A Year in Death Metal.

6. In Solitude Sister
I have been a huge Danzig fan for the majority of my life. There's not a lot of other music that gets me anywhere close to that place—that lair, more like it—that is the Danzig soundworld. That place where rock is shirtless, sensual, musty, musky, snarling, evil, shamelessly bountiful. This record goes there, folks. The term "gothic" is just a genre tag these days, but this record is dripping with the atmosphere of the occult—red candle wax, black robes, pallid skin. This is rock at once mournful and beefy, forlorn and savage. If all of Sister were as stupefyingly great as the first half, this would've been a serious contender for my all-genres-in-play top 10. I dig the whole thing, but I do feel there's a bit of a drop-off after track 4. That said, I think this record is very nearly a masterpiece, the kind of album you plunge into, anoint yourself with. Such crafty, manly music, like Danzig III infused with Thin Lizzy and the Cult. Terrifying and awesome, and a great companion to my No. 1 album of 2012, Christian Mistress's Possession, another record so earthy, it sounds like it has moss growing on it.

7. Voivod Target Earth
As I've suggested before, Voivod is all about total aesthetic immersion. It takes a while to get on this band's weird, flamboyantly proggy wavelength. But while some past Voivod records only make sense in context, this one seems to stand unusually strong on its own merits. It almost seems like blasphemy to say so, given that Target Earth is the first Voivod record not to include any contributions from the band's late guitarist and co-mastermind, Denis "Piggy" D'Amour, but this record really oozes that weird Voivodian flavor, summed up perfectly by the garish color scheme of the album cover. As he did with Gorguts on the way-underrated From Wisdom to Hate album, Daniel Mongrain, Piggy's replacement, really takes charge on Target Earth. As Mongrain discusses here, this is one of those situations of being so steeped in a band's musical grammar as a fan and disciple that one is able to join up with their heroes and actually compose fluently in that style. (For more on this phenomenon, see Justina Villanueva's crucial "Join Your Idols" interview series.) It's a pretty impressive feat, and it's resulted in a total re-energization of this deservedly legendary band. Voivod is still an acquired taste, and may they always be so, but I can think of few of their records that distill their appeal so potently as Target Earth does. Fun and weird and epic and quirky and shredding and geeky as hell, just like Voivod should be.

8. Immolation Kingdom of Conspiracy 
See 2013: A Year in Death Metal. See also my Pitchfork review.

9. Pentagram Chile The Malefice
See 2013: A Year in Death Metal. I strongly suggest getting your hands on the 2-CD version of this if at all possible. The bonus disc, containing re-recorded versions of Pentagram's early cult-favorite demo tracks, is an excellent addition to the package. Heck, there's even a great extra track on disc 1, "King Pest."

10. Six Feet Under Unborn
See 2013: A Year in Death Metal.

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A trio of honorable mentions:

Convulse Evil Prevails
Evil Prevails was on the main list above until a late-inning rally from In Solitude unseated it. Was bummed not to be able to find a place for this record, because I love it. But I was happy to be able to throw a bit of ink Convulse's way via 2013: A Year in Death Metal, not to mention my Maryland Deathfest recap and subsequent post on the brilliance of World Without God (which also touches on the Sorcery record cited above). Evil Prevails isn't quite as gruff and relentless as WWG, but it's a super-satisfying return to that general ballpark, with some nifty enhancements here and there.

Vista Chino Peace
You'll recall …Like Clockwork, the latest Queens of the Stone Age disc, ranking among my general ’13 top 10. Well, this is what some of Josh Homme's old Kyuss bandmates have been up to. They were originally operating under the name Kyuss Lives! but had to drop that moniker following a lawsuit from Homme. Honestly, that was probably the best thing that ever happened to them. They got down to business and wrote a great set of songs in the old Kyuss mode, which should satisfy longtime fans while at the same time vaulting the band out of the nostalgia bracket. Such grit and soul in this music, thanks mainly to vocalist John Garcia and godly drummer Brant Bjork. A very worthy addition to a killer body of work that also includes Blues for the Red Sun and Sky Valley, both adolescent faves of mine that have held up well. This is one to crank and savor.

Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals Walk Through Exits Only
Another old friend, listening-wise. Haven't been so into the various Anselmo projects—most prominently Down, but also Superjoint Ritual and a bunch of others—that have come down the pike since the demise of Pantera, whom I consider to be one of the greatest metal bands of all time. But Jesus, this is a hell of a corrective. This music is super nasty and caustic but also blackly funny and bizarrely introspective, almost like Anselmo had gone Woody Allen, or something. I really admire what an extreme statement this project represents—this is exactly the kind of thing you'd hope to hear from a lifer who can basically do whatever he wants at this point. Anselmo is indulging his sickest musical fantasies with the Illegals, and it sounds fucking great. His constant repping for metal's cult underground is no mere lip service; he actually goes there with this band. See also my TONY preview and Ben Ratliff's excellent live review. I missed that show, but I really hope to see them live soon. I should also add that the band's follow-up Scion single is every bit as good as the LP, with "Pigs Kissing Pigs" maybe even topping anything on that release. Can't wait to see what happens next with this project.

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Metal shows of the year:

3.30
Incantation at Saint Vitus
I previewed the mighty -tion trio for TONY back in March and was very happy to see all three of these bands live in 2013. John McEntee and Co. were the rawest and nastiest. Was great to hear a few of the Vanquish in Vengeance songs live. Video.

4.5
Suffocation at Saint Vitus
See also the aforementioned -tion preview. They completely owned, of course. Amazing to see them in a small room. Frank Mullen was in a particularly goofy mood. Dug the Exhumed opening set, but not as much as I've been digging the badass, bar-raising Necrocracy. Video.

5.24, 5.25
Maryland Deathfest
See my recap.

6.5
Cannibal Corpse + Napalm Death + Immolation at Music Hall of Williamsburg
The Corpse seemed a hair less ferocious / more perfunctory than at previous shows I've caught. Napalm Death were their usual mayhem-sowing selves, and it was great to finally see Immolation bring it (-tion preview). Love that they're leaning hard on Kingdom of Conspiracy in the current live set.

8.4
Black Sabbath at PNC Bank Arts Center
Don't listen to anyone who tells you that the current Sabbath incarnation is an embarrassment, either  on record or onstage. Seeing Ozzy, Geezer and Tony live was an amazing experience, period. I loved hearing 13 tracks like "Age of Reason" interspersed with the old warhorses. Do I wish I had seen Bill? Of course I do. But to sit out on this would've been a really bad idea.

9.25
Carcass + Immolation at Saint Vitus 
As discussed in the Deathfest lineup, Carcass circa now are scarily pro. So insanely crisp and powerful, and again, seeing them in a room this size isn't an experience I'll soon forget. Another raging Immolation set was the icing. Video.

10.6
Deicide + Broken Hope + Disgorge at Gramercy Theatre
I've been a Deicide fan for roughly 20 years but had never seen them live until this show. Their live sound is super-weighty and punishing, and man, do those songs from the first couple albums hold up. As with Carcass, very, very pro. Broken Hope didn't impress me here *quite as much as they did at Deathfest, but I still consider myself an overnight fan thanks to the D-fest set and the awesome Omen of Disease. Disgorge, meanwhile, were downright scary.

10.9, 10.10
Obituary at Saint Vitus
The stompingest, most rifftastic show I saw this year, so much so that I went back for seconds the next night. Video.

11/12
Morbid Angel at Irving Plaza
Morbid Angel is friendlier and campier now than they were two decades ago, when they were my chief musical obsession. (Or at least, that's how I imagine their early-’90s incarnation stacking up against their present selves, since I didn't see the band live till after their mid-aughts reunion with David Vincent.) But the playing is still dead-on, and my God, those songs! Covenant in its entirety + one song apiece from every other album, including the non-Vincent ones + typical Azagthoth insanity = a very satisfied fan. Again, the drummer issue: Wish it had been Pete, but what can you do?

11/14
Eyehategod at Saint Vitus
And yet again, drummers: Rest in peace, Joey LaCaze. I felt weird about seeing an EHG show so soon after his passing, but Mike Williams and the rest gave him a very loving tribute at this gig, complete with "Jo-ey! Jo-ey!" chant. I was skeptical about anyone ably filling LaCaze's shoes, but Aaron Hill is the right man for this job. The sludge is intact. Video.

11/15
Kvelertak at Irving Plaza
There were two other bands on this bill, but the boys from Norway towered above them, making rubble out of the stage.

12.7
Revenge + Mausoleum at Saint Vitus
The closest I've ever been to one of the most unhinged musicians on the planet. Seeing Revenge at Deathfest was cool, but this was total lunacy. Had no idea I'd be seeing the masterful Jim Roe live as well, with Mausoleum.

12.21
Gorguts at Saint Vitus
See Colored Sands entry in albums list above.

2013 Top 10

TONY's "Best albums of 2013" feature is now live. That link will take you to a composite top 10 list, assembled via mathematics and compromise out of the individual top 10s chosen by myself and my colleagues Steve Smith and Sophie Harris. We all had totally different takes on the year in music, but there was enough overlap that we arrived at a decently representative selection.

My personal top 10 list, briefly annotated, is here. Some further thoughts:

More and more, my listening is compulsive, instinctual. I gravitate to records made up of songs I love. It's a simple process. The records I've singled out here are ones that I lived with, played in all sorts of different settings: at my desk at work, walking to/from the train or across town, in the car, at home. Alone, or with my wife, friends and family. They're records that may have at one point been objects of formal consideration—i.e., I wrote about them. But over time, that arm's-length engagement gave way to a happy, voluntary invitation—me choosing them and them choosing me. It's not until the end of the year that one goes about assembling a list like this, but the list is assembling itself throughout the year. Sometimes you've got that in mind—you have a moment with a record and you think, "This might be a top 10 candidate" and you make a note of it—but in retrospect, a list like this is, for me, more about transcribing than about calculation. It's just what happened to me. Since my immersion in music is so constant, I don't even have to qualify that. Of course, there was a soundtrack at all times, and these records were it, or a big part of it.

In terms of the statistics, the breakdown, what's here and what's not, I'd like to cite something Drew Millard—a fine writer with whom I briefly crossed paths at TONY; he's now kicking ass at Noisey—wrote in his own excellent and very funny best of 2013 round-up the other day: "I mostly put rap albums on this list because I like rap music the most…" I like the tautology, the self-justification of that. For me, the center of gravity this year wasn't rap but metal. Therefore, there's a lot of it on my list. There's no jazz. There was one near-miss on that front, which I chose as my No. 1 pick in the two jazz-only polls in which I participate. (My jazz-only list is here; I hope to annotate it on DFSBP soon.) As implied above, that's not meant as a slight; there simply weren't any 2013 jazz albums that captivated me, imprinted themselves on my world, as much as the 10 records I chose for my all-genres-in-play list. I will say, though, that some of favorite live-music experiences of the year were jazz/improv-oriented; I cited two of them on TONY's Best NYC concerts of 2013 list, assembled by myself, Steve, Sophie and various other colleagues. DFSBP readers probably won't be too surprised that my choices were the Paul Motian tribute (3.22.13) and the Graves/Lovano duet (12.6.13).

Re: what did make the cut:

1. RVIVR The Beauty Between
This is one of those "I feel like I've known you all my life" records. I don't know what it is about these consummately sincere, tough, vulnerable, searing punk albums—well, actually, I sort of do, since this style was a big part of my musical upbringing—but when they get me, they really get me. (See also: my 2009 No. 1, Propagandhi's Supporting Caste.) I fell hard for RVIVR this year. I saw them live three times, including two sets in one day back in April. I wrote about them a good deal. In terms of summing up what they mean to me, I'm happy with this TONY preview, which I expanded upon here. And then there's this quick, ecstatic follow-up. My 2013 is inextricable from this band, and the reasons are all right here in this record, which I think is basically perfect. My friend Joe summed it up best in a Tweet from one of the two RVIVR shows we attended together:

"RVIVR at Union Pool: this is a punk rock utopia. Every song an anthem, everyone here completely in the moment. This band will be famous"

Re: the "famous" part, who knows? I certainly do hope so. Re: the "punk rock utopia" part—hell, yes. There is such magic and idealism in these songs, such loving craft and raw sentiment. The Beauty Between is the sound of a brilliant young band exploding into its Moment. And whether RVIVR's politics/scene (reductively: radical, pro-queer punk in the hallowed Olympia, WA tradition) or their chosen idiom resonate with you, I'm confident that you'll hear what I mean if you give this record a chance.



Note 1: For some reason, the RVIVR Bandcamp player defaults to track 2. I highly recommend clicking back to track 1 and taking the full ride.

Note 2: Unlike the RVIVR, albums 2 through 10 are all on Spotify. To hear a sample track from each of these records, check out my TONY list above. In case you want to dive all the way in, here's a playlist featuring these nine LPs in full.]

2. Haim Days Are Gone
Unstoppable. You know that priceless line in Tom Petty's "Into the Great Wide Open" that goes "Their A-and-R man said, 'I don't hear a single'"? Well, out of 11 tracks here, I hear roughly nine singles. Days Are Gone is a resurrection of the ’70s/’80s pop ideal: airtight, hook-hungry compositions matched with shit-hot playing. Except instead of a calculating producer, a stable of faceless songwriters and a bunch of cocky, well-powdered session cats, the responsible parties are a trio of badass L.A. sisters who grew up playing covers and studying popcraft with their parents' loving encouragement.

3. Carcass Surgical Steel
Stunning, and for any Carcass fan, so much fucking fun. Here's my full take.

4. Diarrhea Planet I'm Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams
Like the Haim record, this is a deliriously pleasurable LP. At first I found myself wishing that it were only that—I couldn't get with the obvious care that DP took in pacing the album. But I'm Rich really bloomed for me over time. There is the rock, yes, drenching you with its maximal awesomeness ("Lite Dream," "Babyhead"), but there is also the reflection ("Kids," "Skeleton Head") and this sort of soulful dopeyness ("White Girls [Student of the Blues, Pt. 1]": "I may not write a symphony but / I will always save the last slice just 4 U") that socks me right in the heart. This record is maybe a smidge long; I think it'd be a stronger statement without "Togano," for one thing. That said, I still think it's a triumph worthy of the joybomb that is the Diarrhea Planet live experience, which I experienced on two consecutive nights this past August. More on DP via TONY.


5. Queens of the Stone Age …Like Clockwork
This album is slow-burning and seductive as hell. I saw QOTSA perform a long, frequently thrilling show at Barclays Center last Saturday, and I've been re-immersing in …Like Clockwork ever since. If I were settling on a final order for my 2013 top 10 today, this could've been as high as No. 3. As with I'm Rich, there's some delayed gratification going on here: It's not as mercilessly ripping as Songs for the Deaf or as lean and impossibly cool as the self-titled debut, but I'm still comfortable pegging it as my favorite Queens album. …Like Clockwork isn't a particularly long record, but boy, does it take you on a journey. Further thoughts via TONY.

6. Suffocation Pinnacle of Bedlam
The Long Island enforcers return. If the production on this record were a hair punchier and less synthetic-sounding, I'd say it was one of the, say, five best death-metal records I'd ever heard. Hell, I might say that anyway. I cannot believe what a great set of songs this is, genre aside. So commanding, so memorable, so fucking pro. I already loved this band, but I think that with Pinnacle, they've made their definitive statement. More on the mighty Suffo here.

7. Black Sabbath 13
Speaking as serious Sabbath fan, I can say that despite its flaws—and its admittedly tragic Bill Ward–lessness—this record feels to me like a real gift. The generalized slagging it received in the press bummed me out. Kudos to Steve Smith, Phil Freeman and Rhys Williams for refusing to take this bit of heavy-metal manna for granted. Here's my review of 13 and some follow-up thoughts. (I should say that while I dig the bonus tracks, I think this record works best in its stripped-down eight-song incarnation.)

8. Daft Punk Random Access Memories
Until I heard this record, I felt like there was nothing in the realm of impossibly hip dance-pop that was really for me. I've never warmed up to, say, LCD Soundsystem, and I'm not even sure that pre–R.A.M, I could've even named a Daft Punk song. But the ultra-polished geekery of this record spoke to me immediately, probably because it recasts disco as an offshoot of prog. The supporting cast (Julian C., Panda Bear, Nile Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder, etc.), and the integration thereof, are extraordinary. "Get Lucky" is, of course, a perfect single, but "Instant Crush"—with its mechanized melancholy that instantly puts me in a Drive or ’80s Michael Mann or "Eye in the Sky" mindset—is the track that best sums up why I'm so taken with this record.

9. The Men New Moon
I wrote about songs up above. This record has so many good ones. The Men throw a lot at you, stylistically. There are some strummy heartbreakers here ("I Saw Her Face," "Half Angel Half Light"), some raw, driving, unfettered rockers ("The Brass," "Without a Face") and plenty of ambling folkishness. At the same time, like the last, equally great Men record, Open Your Heart, New Moon isn't haphazard—all these tunes feel like they're coming from the same hive heart/mind. It all feels very free and elemental to me, i.e., exactly what you'd want from a band with such a balls-ily monolithic name. More on the Men, via TONY.

(I should say here that while my friend Ben Greenberg joined the Men a couple years back and made significant contributions to this record, I don't feel like I'm playing favorites in citing New Moon; I loved the band before he was a member, and I'm confident that I'd love what he brings to the band even if I didn't know him. Speaking of which, the new Hubble record is a killer as well.)

10. Gorguts Colored Sands
A majestic roar from the perennial phoenix that is Luc Lemay. A tech-metal opus filled with peaks and valleys that do justice to its (literally) lofty Himalayan subject matter. Also: an intergenerational bear-hug of the highest order. Here's my review.

DFSBP archives: Grachan Moncur III

 

NOTE (July 24, 2021): I've re-upped the links to the Grachan Moncur III WKCR interview below. If you have trouble accessing them, drop me a line at hank [dot] shteamer [at] rollingstone [dot] com, and I'll send them to you directly.

I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and online audio interviews recently. I highly recommend Jeremiah Cymerman's 5049 Podcast (I've checked out about ten of these so far, and I've loved pretty much every one), Aisha Tyler's Girl on Guy interview with Clutch's Neil Fallon, the Luc Lemay (Gorguts) and Bill Steer (Carcass) episodes of the MetalSucks Podcast, and the Lemay appearance on the Invisible Oranges East Village Radio show (click on September 3 here). While I'm not equipped to put together snazzy-sounding, nicely edited content à la what's linked above, I do have a fairly extensive archive of audio interviews, some recorded live on air. Since most of these radio shows are interspersed with music, they play like readymade podcasts. As time permits, I'll be going back through and digitizing various programs from the vaults, e.g., the 2000 Steve Lacy show I posted back in February.

Next up is an installment of the WKCR Musician's Show, featuring trombonist-composer Grachan Moncur III, that dates from less than a month after the Lacy Q&A. This has to be one of my most treasured interview tapes. As with the late, great Walt Dickerson, Moncur was an artist who existed in a kind of mythical state in my mind before I was lucky enough to be able to meet him. (I made the connection via a wonderful woman named Glo Harris—the widow of the drummer Beaver Harris—my collaborator on a memorial show concerning Beaver, which featured in-studio appearances from Moncur, Rashied Ali and Wade Barnes, and call-ins from Andrew Cyrille and Jack DeJohnette; maybe that'll be my next post from the archives!) I didn't know Moncur's story; I only knew his records, and at that time I was completely obsessed with them, especially the 1963 Blue Note set Evolution, which I still regard as one of the masterpieces of the period, and of jazz in general. Grachan (for the record, it's pronounced "GRAY-shun") and I sat down for three solid hours of talk, music and off-mic reminiscing. It was a really special experience—for one thing, I'll never forget Grachan discussing how his experience of the Kennedy assassination related to the title track of Evolution, one of my favorite pieces of music ever. I was just a kid at the time of this interview—a month shy of my 22nd birthday—but Mr. Moncur treated me like a peer. I hope you enjoy the show. Here it is, in four installments:

WKCR Musician's Show with Grachan Moncur III: 7.19.2000 - Part I

WKCR Musician's Show with Grachan Moncur III: 7.19.2000 - Part II

WKCR Musician's Show with Grachan Moncur III: 7.19.2000 - Part III

WKCR Musician's Show with Grachan Moncur III: 7.19.2000 - Part IV

NOTES:

1) The easiest way to stream these files is by clicking the Streampad link (the blue bar) you see at the bottom of the page. You can also download them as MP3s.

2) The level on the title track to Aco Dei de Madrugada (played at about the 24-minute mark in Part III) was too high, so I cut that piece from the MP3. You can hear it here. The same goes for Echoes of Prayer (featured on Destination: Out back in 2010), announced right at the end of Part III and continuing into the beginning of Part IV; I'm pretty sure we played the majority of the LP, which you can hear in five parts here: I, II, III, IV, V.

P.S. I want to thank my Aa bandmate Mike Colin for reminding me of the existence of this tape. I have a fond memory of he and I going to see Grachan Moncur III play at Iridum in a band that included Moncur's old Blue Note comrades Jackie McLean and Bobby Hutcherson. They played the classic "Love and Hate" that night and Moncur took a solo for the ages. (Judging by this review, this must've been 2004.)

P.P.S. Steve Lehman's 2000 interview with McLean, recently posted at Do the Math, is well worth your time.

The ecstasy of the present: Gorguts and Carcass return

For sheer big-event-ness, no metal comeback record this year can compete with 13. But for those of us obsessed with death metal and related styles, Colored Sands and Surgical Steel—the respective new ones by Gorguts and Carcass—are each pretty damn momentous as well. My Pitchfork reviews of these titles are linked above.

As I did in my reflection on the experience of reviewing 13, I'll take off my ill-fitting critic's hat here. From a fan perspective—really the most important one, in the end, especially when the subjects are two legacy acts in an especially fan-driven subgenre such as death metal—I'm ecstatic about these records. The respective trajectories (not to mention aesthetic priorities) of Gorguts and Carcass vary, but one thing these two bands have in common is that, as of roughly the mid-aughts, we had no reason to believe that we'd ever hear from either again. And yet even stacked up against each band's classic back catalog, these records are outstanding—they're statements not just of sustained proficiency but of sustained excellence.

Each in its own way, Colored Sands and Surgical Steel—and, now that I think about it, 13 too—is about coming to terms with the weight of history, then shrugging it off and embracing the ecstasy of the present moment. These LPs are meaty statements: dense, info-packed, loud, wild, weird, fucking fun records, and also ceremonies of communion between first-generation extreme-metal practitioners (Luc Lemay of Gorguts, Bill Steer and Jeff Walker of Carcass) and younger virtuosos (Colin Marston, Kevin Hufnagel and John Longstreth on Colored Sands; Daniel Wilding on Surgical Steel). In short, any quibbles I've aired aside, they're exactly what they should be. These are the kinds of albums that reaffirm fandom as a lifelong pact: "As long as you keep making music, I'll keep caring." I love them.

Life-affirming vent: Maryland Deathfest XI

When I ran into Fred Pessaro (Invisible Oranges / Brooklyn Vegan) at Maryland Deathfest on Saturday afternoon and asked him how he was doing, he flashed a weary grin and said, "Grinding." I knew what he meant, having covered the festival last year. When you're on assignment at an event like this (four days, ten or so hours apiece), you enter a strange state—half concentration, half exhaustion. You know that if you slow down, you'll more or less collapse, but since you're on the job slowing down isn't an option, anyway. You become the fest and the fest becomes you.

Don't get me wrong; I had a blast at MDF last year. I tried to line up some "official" coverage for this year's fest, but it didn't pan out. I considered cancelling my trip altogether, but when my friend Tom (a knowledgeable and open-minded listener, though not particularly a metal fan) offered to come along, I changed my mind. I attended MDF XI as a "civilian."

That meant that I didn't have to sweat completism. I would've loved to have been in Baltimore Thursday night for Bolt Thrower, Cobalt and Deiphago, among others, but it didn't work out schedule-wise. Similarly, it would've been cool to stick around for the Sunday offerings such as Pentagram, Venom, Manilla Road, etc., but I chose to give my body/ears a break and head back to NYC today. (If you're looking for exhaustive coverage, by the way, make sure to check in with Fred at IO.)

I'm typically not very good at cutting losses when it comes to decisions like this. I get pretty spoiled-brat-ish about show/festival attendance; as much as the aforementioned grind can be grueling, the all-in approach appeals to me. I hate feeling like I've missed something. But I've got a great summer of shows ahead (can't wait for Cannibal Corpse + Napalm Death + Immolation on June 5, and for Milford Graves night at The Vision Festival a week later), so I'm at peace with my two-day MDF 2013 jaunt.

In the end, my experience of the fest boiled down to six sets—three per day on Friday and Saturday. I saw plenty more than that, but as any devoted festivalgoer knows, when you're at an event like this, there are sets you watch and there are sets you live. For me, these were the latter.

Convulse (Friday)

In many ways, Convulse was a quintessential presence at MDF. There about five different subcamps of fest attendees, those who show up looking for their doom, black-metal, "trad" metal, grindcore or death-metal fixes. I'm not saying these interests don't overlap; plenty of fans are just looking to soak it all up. But I'd venture to say that most come into the fest with a bias. For me, that bias is death metal, specifically, the death metal of my youth. My experience of the festival is sort of like watching one of the Relapse Records compilations that my teenage self used to pore over (1993's Corporate Death, e.g.) come to life.

Convulse, a Finnish band, appeared on that very comp, though I don't remember paying much attention to them at the time. As many bands do, they played what I think of as a "communion" set at MDF XI. Some bands come to the fest to launch a proper comeback; some never went away; and some are just starting out. Then there's a whole other class of bands: acts who turn up in Baltimore for a kind of ceremonial reason. Typically, these are bands that broke up long ago, after putting out one or two minor classics, cult-favorite releases valued by subgenre die-hards but rarely cited outside those circles. In most cases, these bands have never had a chance to greet their respective cults; what acclaim there is has been posthumous. They show up at MDF, then—usually in makeshift lineups featuring only one or two vintage-period members—in a kind of high-five capacity. (Convulse's fellow Finns Demigod did much the same at MDF X and were equally awesome.) "Thank you for not forgetting us," these sets say. "The music we made then still means something to us, and we're thrilled that you feel the same."

Convulse doesn't fit this bill exactly. They are, in fact, staging a comeback, with a new EP already out and an LP promised for this year. But that's not what their MDF set was about. There may have been new material sprinkled in; I'm not familiar enough with their catalog to know for sure. The focus, though, was on World Without God, originally released in 1991 and reissued by Relapse in 2010. It's telling that even though Convulse put out another record back in the day—1994's Reflections, a strange and compelling hybrid of death metal and groovy rock—the band's merch offerings consisted entirely of WWG shirts, and copies of the album on CD and vinyl. (Since I do most of my death-metal listening on either my iPod or my work computer, I held out for the iTunes option.)

The material on WWG is, in the grand scheme of things, fairly run-of-the-mill. This is genre music, i.e., the kind of death metal that only a death-metal die-hard needs to hear. (I'm sure the same could be said of, say, any number of generic yet great '50s hardbop sessions.) Its ingredients are simple: an overall feeling of doomy menace; simple, lumbering riffs; midtempo hardcore beats; the occasional low-velocity blastbeat or 6/8 thrash breakdown; standard-issue Cookie Monster vocals. No curveballs; no fuss. The entire value of this music lies in what you bring to it.

I happen to love this style, and thus I adored Convulse's set. It was a "by the tribe, for the tribe" affair. Even if they didn't know the particular songs, the audience knew every move by heart—blast, break, lumber, repeat—and reveled in the frill-less-ness. The band was tight; fists were raised and horns were thrown, love hurtling back and forth between audience and band. Everyone was there for the same purpose: to exalt this 20-year-old formula that we still can't get enough of.

The band played at 5pm on one of the two outdoor stages. The sun was shining; my Maryland Deathfest experience was just beginning. Convulse was playing beautifully streamlined, classically styled death metal. It hit me like great rock 'n roll.

Benediction (Friday)

Much of what I wrote above also applies to Benediction—the broad concepts, if not the details. Unlike Convulse, Benediction, another classic-period death-metal group, never disbanded. Since their 1990 debut, they've put out a respectable five full-lengths. But their profile in the States is pretty low. I'm not sure exactly how many times they've toured here since the early/mid ’90s, if at all, but I don't think it's been many. Like Convulse's MDF appearance, this felt like a one-off communion gig.

It was a gloriously fun show. So much personality. Benediction is from Birmingham, England—"Where heavy metal was fawkin' invented," noted vocalist Dave Hunt (you might know him as V.I.T.R.I.O.L. from Anaal Nathrakh) early in the set, displaying a little hometown Black Sabbath pride, as he well should—and their brand of death metal is uniquely U.K.-ish in the sense that, say, the Exploited are U.K.-ish. It's raw, strident, beery and willfully obnoxious. The fact that guitarists Darren Brookes and Peter Rew, and bassist Frank Healy all look like they'd been around the block a couple thousand times apiece doesn't hurt the image. As Hunt put it, "Benediction is the most punk band ever to be a death-metal band."

As far as I know, Benediction played a career-spanning set, but you wouldn't have known it—the material was all of a piece. The formula was as stripped down as Convulse's, but the energy was different—more tough, gruff, hard-nosed; less doom and atmosphere and more rock. Hard-charging and anti-flash, with a lot of pit-fueling midtempo chugging. Hunt, an all-around great frontman with an awesome gurgly, spit-flecked roar, had an old-school showman's way of introducing Brookes, Rew and Healy (all original members, as I understand it) each time they'd play a little unaccompanied passage, and it was enormously charming. I loved seeing these grizzled death-metal lifers getting their proper due. Can't wait to dig into the Benediction catalog.

Carcass (Friday)

Whatever I'm describing above, Carcass is in many ways the opposite of it. For more than 20 years, they've embodied a certain strain of progressiveness in death metal. And I don't mean the delirious techiness of, say, Gorguts or Necrophagist. Carcass's achievement was something different: They streamlined death metal, whittled its edges to sharp, gleaming points, while at the same time aerating it, letting in all kinds of nourishing "outside" influences from the greater world of rock. As any fan could tell you, their 1993 album Heartwork is a masterpiece of outward-looking death metal. It keeps one foot in the genre, but it makes no secret of the fact that it values brisk, economical, wickedly catchy songwriting more than maintaining an allegiance to certain style.

So when Carcass took the MDF stage on Friday, against a backdrop of fancy video screens, it was clear that true rock stars had arrived. I was wondering how the death-metal die-hards at MDF would embrace the flash and polish of the Heartwork material, but I quickly realized that my skepticism was silly. One great thing about MDF is how all-embracing most of the fans are. I mentioned subgenre-loyal factions above, and that's a very real phenomenon, but in the end, the attendees are lovers of metal, full stop, who embrace a doom 'n roll supergroup Down (Saturday's headliner) just as warmly as a determinedly underground old-school death-metal act, a mournful doom-death crew or a fiendish black-metal band.

People went apeshit for Carcass and rightly so. I'm most familiar with Heartwork and its predecessor, 1991's Necroticism--Descanting the Insalubrious, and the band played plenty of material from those LPs. I'm pretty sure the balance of the set focused on their two prior records, which I'm looking forward to spending more time with. So this was an all-classics affair, and everyone seemed to know every word. The performance was, to my ears, very nearly flawless. The band plays with incredible flair. The current Carcass lineup, which has a new album due out later this year, consists of cofounders Jeff Walker (bass, vocals) and Bill Steer (guitar), along with two new recruits. I was a little bummed when I heard that Michael Amott (whose melodic shred was a key component of both Necroticism and Heartwork) wasn't involved in the current Carcass reunion, but once the set started, that became a complete non-factor. Guitarist Ben Ash and drummer Daniel Wilding fit perfectly into the mix.

On Twitter, I described Carcass post-set as extreme metal's Thin Lizzy, a comparison I stand by. They're a death-metal band with the flair (I keep coming back to that word) and polish of that almighty Irish rock force, my gold standard when it comes to the elusive rock 'n roll quality I think of as "tastiness." Sure, there are the surface similarities—the soaring dual-guitar ballet, the charismatic frontman doubling on bass—but there's also a spiritual one. Thin Lizzy were so good that they rock while almost seeming to relax. Carcass is the same way. The chops are simply a fact of what they do. There's no struggle, only a kind of gleaming fierceness. Maybe the best word for their presentation is pro. In the wake of the performance I witnessed, I could not be more psyched for the upcoming Carcass full-length, Surgical Steel. The current incarnation of this band is laying waste without breaking a sweat.

Broken Hope (Saturday)

And still another face of death, as it were. Chicago's Broken Hope were a band I'd had a vague awareness of in the '90s, but I'd always thought of them as a second-rate Cannibal Corpse or somesuch—gore-fixated, brutal, basic. I was intrigued to hear about their reunion last year; it seemed like a well-plotted reboot rather than a nostalgia trip. (The 2010 suicide of former vocalist Joe Ptacek adds a sad, poignant wrinkle to the narrative.) I approached their set yesterday with mild interest; I figured I'd check out a few songs and wander off if they didn't grab me, which, in the end, is a pretty typical MDF experience.

From the first few seconds, this band sucked me in like a tractor beam. With all due respect to Suffocation, who played an absolutely ripping set at Saint Vitus back in April and who have released my favorite metal album of 2013 so far, this Broken Hope set might have been the single tightest, most powerful, most no-nonsense set of death metal I've ever seen. This band is a coiled spring. Unlike Convulse, whose vibe was friendly and almost casual, Broken Hope were in full-on attack mode. Vocalist Damian Leski is a beast of a human, a hulking yet agile man whose sole purpose in life seems to be to do what he did yesterday evening: growl himself redfaced over mercilessly gnarled and punishing blastbeats and slams.

And my God, were those blastbeats and slams tasty. This band is a hyper-efficient riff factory, churning out part after part after glorious part. The music was like lifeblood for the mosh pit. People were going absolutely crazy during this set, myself included. The pit became a single heaving organism. I remember one dude kept sort of stumbling around in this cartoonish "death-metal zombie" trance, and I knew exactly what he was feeling. This brand of death metal sums up what is meant by infectious. The way this music was gripping people, affecting them, seeming to alter their metabolism, literally enthralling them, seemed to me very analogous to how great dance music functions. I think of that silly scene in Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon speaks of the music "just owning you." That is what was going on here.

No other time during my two days at MDF XI, or at last year's fest, or at any other death-metal show I've been to, have I seen band and crowd so symbiotically amped during a show. Sure, the energy was feral, with a whiff of beatdown-ism. (Leski comes from the punishing school of death-metal frontmen, those for whom the goal is to make the crowd—or, more specifically, "You sick motherfuckers!"—feel thoroughly brutalized. George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher from Cannibal Corpse puts a sort of cuddly spin on that formula; Leski, on the other hand, was a downright scary presence.) But the sense of release was weirdly wholesome. Overall, the set was what great metal is supposed to be, a seething purge.

And in focusing on the energy/vibe aspects of the set, I don't mean to take anything away from the craft of the music. What I loved about Broken Hope is that they rode that fine line of technicality and brutality so skillfully. Riffs shuffled constantly and took all kinds of unexpected twists, but the parts always cycled enough times that you could internalize their contours and precision-headbang to your heart's content. The force of the playing was dizzying. Serious kudos are due to drummer Mike Miczek, who slammed with more force and control than any other blastbeat-oriented player I heard a MDF XI.

This band is an absolute machine. If you have the slightest affinity for the so-called brutal school of death metal, the kind that thrives on the juxtaposition of swirling technicality and pit-fueling slam riffs, you need to see the current incarnation of Broken Hope. (They're coming out with a new album soon, so expect touring to follow.) I can barely describe the feeling of joy they left me with. I was glowing.

Melvins (Saturday)

I was ready for a break after Broken Hope. I just wanted to sit down and process and let the brutalized-but-ecstatic feeling linger. But it was not to be. Melvins had struck me as sort of an odd band out at Deathfest. They've never fit into "metal," per se; their aesthetic has always been too bizarre, too expansive. At their best, they can lay waste to any sort of rock-oriented subgenre-ism. (In particular, they make the endless factionalism of extreme metal—"We play death/doom," "We play blackened death," "We play stoner sludge"—which was definitely on display at Deathfest, seem a little absurd; there's nothing wrong with specializing in a style, but it's good to be reminded that not all heavy music exists in some tiny little box.) And that is what happened last night. The band, operating in its double-drummer quartet lineup, put on a clinic in the art of omni-dimensional rock— crushing harder just about every other band I saw over the weekend, but doing so with such staunchly eccentric style.

You cannot put the Melvins in a box, but they will happily show up at your box of choice (in this case, the death-metal realm), set up camp and lay waste. I'm sometimes guilty of taking the Melvins for granted; then I see them live and remember that they are very likely the greatest rock band (and I mean that in the broadest sense, from "rock 'n roll" all the way up to extreme metal) of our time. The force of the current lineup is absolutely withering. They started slow and agonizing with "Hag Me," and from there, it was on: Classic after classic. "Hooch," "Night Goat," Revolve," "With Teeth," "Honey Bucket," "Anaconda." The drive of these songs, their groove, their engine, their melody, their full-spectrum rock-ness. It is all embodied in the particular qualities of Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover, each of whom is the best in the world at what he does. Is there any frontman on earth with Buzz's range, his force and drama and sheer personality? Is there any drummer who can match Dale's hulking precision, his combination of brontosaurus weight and ingenious design? The authority of this set was totally mesmerizing. Having seen Melvins play five or so times since 2006, I can say that they're only getting fiercer as an onstage unit. If you care even slightly about any kind of "hard" rock music, you must, must see them as soon as you can, and then again at every opportunity after that.

Revenge (Saturday)

I was thinking about sticking around to see the Sunday offerings at MDF, but this set swayed me the other way. I knew that nothing was going to top it, in terms of sheer intensity. In that sense, I got exactly what I was hoping for from Revenge.

I've been into this band for a few years now. I had a serious "What in God's name...?" epiphany when I stumbled on 2004's Victory.Intolerance.Mastery in a extreme-metal-loving co-worker's iTunes folder a couple years back. I had never heard such world-swallowing filth in my life—a tornado of vomitous negativity, just, like, pure barf music, with vocals that alternated between a typical hellish shriek and what sounded like the grunting of a human-pig hybrid. And my God, the drumming of James "J." Read... I had never heard anything so simultaneously raw and commanding, so rickety yet controlled. Neck-snapping blasts, Neanderthal midtempo grooves and these tumbling, hold-on-for-your life rolls, all executed on a set that sounded like it had been fished out of the garbage—dead toms, clangy cymbals. I felt like I had found some sort of ideal that I never knew I was looking for. It was the polar opposite of sanitized extreme metal drumming. It was, I felt, one of the most purely punk drum-set performance I'd ever heard.

I sought out Read's work in various other contexts and was never disappointed. Axis of Advance—as filthy-sounding as Revenge, but with a sort of dystopic sci-fi conceptual bent—hit me just as hard, and after some initial puzzlement, I grew to love Blood Revolt (his collaboration with Primordial's A.A. Nemtheanga) too. I still need to get familiar with his earlier band, Conqueror, and the first couple Revenge records, but you get the point: Read is one of my favorite instrumentalists on the planet.

I was almost scared to see Revenge live. Scared, on one hand, by how violent I knew the crowd was going to be, and scared too that their set might not live up to the gross majesty of the recordings. I needn't have worried on the latter count. Live, the band gives off an identical sensation to that of their recordings: ungodly, pedal-to-metal recklessness; pure bestial chaos; pick your metaphor. It was mayhem.

I wish I could've watched Read from behind the drum kit—I could only see his hair and his scowling, wide-eyed face for most of the set—so I could check out exactly how he executes those patented rapid-fire rolls of his. I did get to marvel at his blastbeat technique. Blastbeats are a tough racket: typically, you either see a puny technique, or one that's so strong and virtuosic that it seems machinelike. Read's method is his own. He's absolutely smashing the kit, and he's in total command, but he still maintains a certain roughness. I'm really at a loss to describe how he does what he does behind the drums. It's like he's found a way to perfect and harness a sound/style (a sense of chaos, really) that typically results from a drummer playing just at the edge of his/her ability. He's not struggling, but he maintains the feeling of struggle, harnesses it.

You don't remember Revenge songs, as a rule, either on record or live. What you do remember are parts. Dirgey intros, headlong blasts with trilly, demented solos from Chris "Vermin" Ross, also of Axis of Advance and Blood Revolt, skull-rattling midtempo rockouts. Ross and bassist Tim "Haasiophis" Grieco are integral to the music, but it's really Read's show. As Profound Lore's Chris Bruni put it in a Tweet, his performance is a display of "pure hatred." I'm not sure there is a more possessed musician in extreme metal. Judging by interviews I've read—see here and here—Read seems like a reticent, difficult guy. He's clearly a man following his own muse, and judging by some allusions to skinhead culture in those Q&As, possibly some sort of ethically questionable ideology. I've heard rumors, but I don't want to throw any specific terms out there unsubstantiated. Does anyone happen to know exactly what's up with Read's politics? Would be curious to know if he's ever made an overt statement.

Anyway, I've gotten off track here. The chaos pouring off the stage definitely seeped into the crowd. The audience vibe during this set definitely didn't feel like the relatively run-of-the-mill catharsis that went down during, say, Broken Hope's set. I was up in front of the pit, and I'd look back behind me and see some dude just catapult forward as though he'd been hurled; one guy was inexplicably swinging a garbage bag; people seemed to regress into this feral state. But then at the same time, I'd see people just beaming in a sort of blissful disbelief. That's sort of the state I found myself in, like, "How can this be so fantastically intense, so full-on"? It was fascinating to watch Revenge after the Melvins, to see two bands so good at two completely different things. Revenge is a special band. I'm not going to lie and say I pull out their records all that much, but there's a certain kind of cleansing power that I associate with them—analogous to taking a really stiff shot or inhaling menthol. It really is the furthest I've ever heard metal go in terms of a certain kind of animal lawlessness. It's not just they're the fastest or the noisiest or the most bewildering. It's that they're the most… heathenish, maybe? It's a sound that radiates pure disgust, and they completely own it, both on record and, I'm happy to report, onstage.

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A few additional thoughts:

Repulsion (Friday): I respect this band's place in the history of death/grind, but I've never really been able to get with the undifferentiated rawness. I liked the good-natured bent of their MDF set, though. Scott Carlson and Matt Olivo are funny guys, and their M.O. is just to crank it up and rip. Their devotion to pure primitiveness makes more sense when it's couple with their everydude stage presence.

Down (Saturday): I still think this supergroup adds up to less than the sum of its parts, i.e., I'm a much bigger fan of all these guys' past and present work outside of Down—Pantera, Eyehategod, Crowbar, Corrosion of Conformity—than I am of this band. But I respect the M.O. of the project: a bunch of veteran metal gods who happen to be tight bros getting together to worship the Sabbath and the sweet leaf. They were a nice comedown after the insanity of Revenge, and I'm always up for some nice, inspirational Phil Anselmo banter. I almost felt myself getting choked up when he started talking about how proud his late ex-bandmate Dimebag Darrell would've been to look out into the sea extreme-metal die-hards he saw before him.

Ihsahn (Saturday): I caught about 15 minutes of this set, rushing over shortly before Revenge finished. (The MDF schedule typically avoids blatant overlap between stages, but these sets went down at almost exactly the same time.) Ihsahn, frontman of legendary Norwegian black-metal band Emperor—not being a huge fan of the subgenre, I don't know their records all that well; they're on my list—now plays a kind of epic, super-polished prog-metal. It was a serious trip moving right from the feral insanity of Revenge to the dramatic, super-choreographed presentation of Ihsahn and his bandmates, who came off like some sort of Warped Tour boy band onstage. At that point in the night, I was completely overloaded from the consecutive Broken Hope–Melvins–Revenge assault and couldn't really take in any more fresh info. I'm not sure I'm fully on board with the slickness of the Ihsahn presentation (it reminds me a bit of fellow Norwegians Shining, who haven't quite clicked with me for similar reasons), but I'm intrigued by the material. Looking forward to learning more.

The Obsessed / Weedeater (Saturday): I have mixed feelings re: a certain brand of what I'll call "lifer" doom, a subscene that seems to revolve entirely around the concept of dues-paying, of hard-living men whose extremely basic music gets elevated to the realm of the poetic thanks mainly to the admittedly romantic notion that they've been around a long time, grinding it out in the trenches. I do in fact admire what Scott "Wino" Weinrich does in general. I particularly love the Hidden Hand record Mother Teacher Destroyer, as well as his recent solo "folk" record, Adrift. But I found what I heard of his MDF XI set with the Obsessed to be pretty stultifying, and I felt the same about the Saint Vitus set (also feat. Wino) that I caught last year at MDF X. I love a whole lot of super-basic, anti-evolutionary metal—Obituary being a primo example—but the Obsessed just seemed like a lifeless rehash of the post-Sabbath doom concept. To say that they merely paled in comparison to Melvins would, I think, be too generous. Maybe it's just a function of how much Sabbath means to me, but I think we need to hold the doom movement to a higher standard—the throwing together of a couple bluesy, generically "dark" riffs does not make for a great song, and the presence of grizzled elders, respectable as their devotion to their craft may be, does not necessarily confer true gravity onto a set of music. Sabbath is the highest sort of poetry, not just a set of stylistic moves repeated ad nauseum. Honoring that legacy is a tall order. (For me, one band making a serious go of it these days would be Pallbearer.)

I felt much the same about Weedeater. I'm a huge fan of Eyehategod, but I'm conflicted re: this whole Southern-sludge mythos that celebrates the self-abuse of figures like Mike IX Williams (EHG) and "Dixie" Dave Collins (of Weedeater, Buzzov*en), as though that somehow makes their music truer. The bottom line is that Eyehategod is a great band because they've devoted years to the perfection of their sludge-punk craft. They play together as well as any other heavy-rock band in the world. With Weedeater, on the other hand, I got the sense that the entire point of the band is to fuel and glorify Collins's substance-abuse habit. He made a point of showily chugging whiskey between every song, and the band's merch table had a hand-lettered sign posted that said something to the effect of "We need drugs, weed, pills—please." Is that not just a tad pathetic, maybe? I get the perverse appeal of that sort of attitude, but for me, the music just didn't hold up. Abuse drugs if you like, sure, but don't use that as a stand-in for making great art happen. Weedeater's brand of sludge is crustier and edgier than that of the Obsessed, and while I saw the appeal in Collins's deranged-hobo stage presence, the riffs and the feel just weren't drawing me in.

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I'll just say in conclusion that MDF is a really special festival. I'll treasure memories of all six of the sets covered in detail above. There's something magical about joining up with one's tribe, as it were. I realize that I don't fit the description of the typical metalhead in a lot of ways, but I still feel the same primal, blood-deep connection to this music that I did when I was 14. I relish those moments when the music takes over and I just have to rush the stage, headbang, dance, throw some energy back in return, surrounded by a pack of die-hards, responding to the exact same deep-seated impulses. I can only imagine how great it must feel for the practitioners, for a band like Broken Hope who's been waiting a good 20 years to greet its public, to come face-to-face with a mirror, an audience who lives and breathes for this music in much the same way they do. Genres can be limiting factors, but they can also be tent posts to really around. We don't know why we respond on a molecular level when we hear those low, growling tones, those zombified riffs of bands like Convulse, but they call to us; we regress into some deep trance. A dark zone, in a sense, a celebration of animal ferocity, but also, it must be said, a place of bliss, of release, where you can revel in the volume and the force, witness a creative act that seems to give voice to every aggressive feeling you've had to suppress, sublimating those emotions into an entirely non-violent, life-affirming vent.

As I indicated in my recent Immolation review, the craft of death metal is a craft of love, purely its own reward. Maybe it's easier to feel that in the presence of, say, Convulse or Broken Hope or Benediction—bands who took pains to thank the crowd profusely at every opportunity—than standing before a hate-spewing band like Revenge. But it's all one phenomenon. Let's not pretend this is a game of misery, people; metal is fun.