WARRIORS OF METAL FEST VII
O’Shecky’s Live, Columbus, Ohio
June 26-28, 2014
For the fifth consecutive year, Jen and I spent our summer vacation
traveling to Columbus, Ohio to attend the Warriors of Metal Fest.
Much was different this year. Most glaringly, the
festival was moved indoors to O’Shecky’s Live, a comfortable, welcoming,
music-friendly bar/music venue on the north side of town. The
open-air, camping, fall-down drunk BYOB hijinks of the Frontier Ranch were left
behind, in favor of a cushy bar situated 0.5 miles from the official fest
hotel. Soft mattresses and hot showers for
everyone! (And I didn’t even notice the heavy rains on
Saturday afternoon, which would have been a debilitating buzzkill
at the outdoor venue, but were utterly inconsequential at
O’Shecky’s.) A bit more subtle, but no less present a change
was the overriding sense of impending doom about this year’s WOM
Fest. It clung to the event like a fine mist, this idea that
WOM Fest was happening for the last time (thanks to well-publicized funding
problems and a track record of underwhelming attendance). To
our collective credit, the Fest regulars shook off the doom’n’gloom and partied
like they should have done on the Titanic as it sank into icy
waters. If we’re going out, let’s go out with a bang.
For all of that, much was the same about WOM Fest this year.
Despite the (once again) lackluster turnout, many of the loyal Fest
diehards were on-hand, preserving the “family reunion” vibe to the
event. Even the same food/mead vendor (Jim Lyons and family)
was onsite keeping our bellies full with tasty flatbread sandwiches and
delicious homemade mead in various flavors (apple pie mead FTW!).
Thankfully, the laidback, unpretentious, we’re-all-in-this-together
family atmosphere remained intact, and the spirit of true metal filled the air
all weekend long. Band members mingled with fans mingled with
bar staff mingled with event staff and vendors until the lines and subdivisions
dividing all of us were erased. We were all the
same. Jen and I were still running Merch Central, bearing
sole responsibility for keeping the merch (and merch money) of nearly 30
performing bands inventoried, displayed and accounted for at all
times. Most importantly, though, what had not changed was WOM
Fest’s unwavering commitment to high-caliber true/traditional/
classic/thrash/power metal, including a nice mixture of cult acts from
yesteryear, highly-regarded current “name” acts, and unknown young
whippersnappers just now entering the fray. It was truly a
remarkable collection of talent, an embarrassment of riches as one quality metal
band after another took the stage over a three-day period, with nary a dud in sight.
In keeping with tradition, I’ve done my best to capture my thoughts and
impressions of the bands I saw this weekend. The usual
disclaimer applies: I didn’t see every band.
It wasn’t for lack of interest, and I promise I wasn’t blowing anybody
off. Aside from the usual excuses (needing to take an
occasional break to wolf down a sandwich, to rest my punished eardrums, to chat
with a friend, or to attend to pressing Merch Central duties), I have an even
stronger one this year. You see, Merch Central was situated
as far away from the stage as it possibly could have been, given the floor plan
of the venue. It was in another room from the stage, along
the opposite wall of the venue. When Merch Central got busy
(as it often did), I didn’t have the luxury of simply looking up to see what was
happening on stage. So sacrifices had to be made for the
greater good of Merch Central, and I did miss some bands because of
that. If your band isn’t discussed in my review, I didn’t get
to see you perform. But (and I swear, this is no patronizing
bullshit), I heard favorable reports about every single band that I
missed. So, by all means, pat yourself on the back, rest
assured that you kicked ass, and please accept my apologies for not being able
to describe your glories in these pages.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
The Thursday night pre-party was itself a bit of a
marathon event, with live music running from 6:00 p.m. until 2:00
a.m. in a procession of 8 acts across the stage.
Thanks to our late arrival (damn you, heavy traffic and construction on
I-65 and I-71) and the usual chaos of trying to set up Merch Central while
saying hello to the smiling familiar faces filing into the venue, I missed the
first four bands of the night; however, I did catch significant chunks of the
last four Thursday acts.
The first band I witnessed in depth was Winterhymn.
Hailing from Cincinnati, this sextet has been making waves in pagan/folk
metal circles, given that they received the prestigious opening slot on the
PaganFest V tour (featuring Korpiklaani and Turisas) earlier this
year. From the outset, this band made a bold statement with
their physical appearance. Each of the four men and two women
(violinist and keyboardist) wore pagan/tribal war paint and was decked out in
full costume. Particularly striking was the
guitarist/vocalist, who wore battle dress replete with furry shoulder coverings
(kinda like a pagan football player’s shoulder pads).
Style-wise, Winterhymn fit neatly into that European school of pagan/folk
metal populated by the likes of Korpiklaani, older Turisas, Eluveitie, Fintroll,
and so on. What kept them from seeming like a cheap copy,
however, was Winterhymn’s tremendous stage presence and the obvious conviction
with which they delivered their material. They came across as
a very seasoned, professional act (as would befit a band with their PaganFest
pedigree), and the venue was buzzing about Winterhymn for the remainder of the
evening. Memorable songs included “Alesong” (which the singer
dedicated to those of us who were drinking beer in what he termed an ode “to
help climb the mountain of inebriation”), “The Dragonborn Comes” (dedicated to
all the nerds in the audience), and “Stand Your Ground.” In
short, Winterhymn blew me (and many others in the venue) away, so much so that I
award them the 2014 Amadis Award, which has never before been bestowed on a
pre-party band. The Amadis Award is given every year to the
WOM Fest band who appeared out of leftfield to kick my ass completely and
unexpectedly. So it has to be a band I had basically never
heard of before, else the expectations would have been higher and the element of
surprise would be ruined. Aside from the award’s namesake,
other winners in past years include Vanlade (WOM III), Machinage (WOM IV) and
Wulfhook (WOM VI). You rule, Winterhymn!
Next up were Cleveland’s own Deadiron, who were also a heretofore
unknown quantity to me. In contrast to Winterhymn, Deadiron
had no gimmicks (visually or sonically), but simply plugged in and rocked
hard. I heard elements of traditional heavy metal and thrash,
as well as the old U.S. power metal sound, in Deadiron’s music.
It was fast, raw and relentless, while remaining catchy and
accessible. Even better than the music itself was the
intensity of the band’s performance. At one point, the
singer, bassist and guitarist all stripped off their shirts, revealing sweaty
tattooed torsos. Then they put their heads down and rocked
even harder. The singer (who, by the way, commented from the
stage about how amazing Winterhymn’s performance was, more proof that the Amadis
Award was rightfully bestowed upon them) would jump offstage and into the
audience from time to time, even standing on a barstool in the middle of the
floor on one occasion. It was a high-energy, high-octane set
from beginning to end, and Deadiron made me a fan. I love
that old-school, hard-rockin’, no-bullshit aesthetic, and Deadiron had it in spades. Well done.
Continuing with the regional theme of tonight’s show case was another
Ohio band, Eternal Legacy, Auburn Records stalwarts.
In fairness, Eternal Legacy had a couple of tough acts to follow, given
the electrifying performances of the two bands who preceded them.
Still, they acquitted themselves well, with a no-frills, blue-collar set
of dual-guitar heavy-duty traditional metal flecked with bits of
thrash. Guitarwork was excellent and the songs (including
several selections from their latest ‘Seeking No Peace’ opus, one of which
surprisingly was the moody “Eyes without a Soul”) were simple but effective in
keeping the dwindling audience banging heads and throwing horns.
Despite the lateness of the hour and the overall level of travel
exhaustion catching up to me, I dug Eternal Legacy, from the yellow ‘Seeking No
Peace’ backdrop to the honest approach to their craft.
The unenviable task of closing out the pre-party (with a set time
beginning at nearly 1:00 a.m. in a
mostly deserted hall) went to Grave Robber of Ft. Wayne,
Indiana. Initially, my reaction to this booking can be
summarized by three letters: WTF? You see, Grave Robber
really aren’t a metal band, nor do they claim to be. They’re
a punk band -- I think I heard the singer use the word “psychobilly” to describe
one song – that, to my untrained ears, sounds heavily steeped in stuff like The
Misfits. But you know what? Grave
Robber were a totally fun, over-the-top, ridiculous live act, genre tags be
damned. These guys came out of the green room in rubber ghoul
masks, bloody jumpsuits, and latex skeleton gloves. As they
waited for their intro tape to start rolling, George Call called out, “what are
you, the new Slipknot?” I thought one of the Grave Robber
ghouls was going to clock George with his grave-robbing shovel.
It was hilarious. And damned if these guys didn’t
deliver the goods onstage with their short, melodic, punchy, catchy, punky,
singalong tunes. For the record, they kept the masks and
latex gloves (how do they play guitar with those things on?) and jumpsuits on
for the whole gig and stayed in character between songs as well.
I thought Jen was going to die laughing when the singer intoned in a
suitably ghoulish voice, “Last time we were here, there were five people in the
audience. This is an improvement.” There
were probably eight people watching them. Then, when DJ
Valkyrie shouted along with the lyrics at the wrong time, the singer scolded
her, “Keep up with the class, missy.” They kept us laughing,
that’s for sure. And the rocking closing track, “Army of the
Dead,” was a pretty killer way to put an exclamation point on the
pre-party. What a great party band Grave Robber are.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Make no mistake: Even without the physical rigors of
camping, WOM Fest days are long. Jen and I got back to the
Hawthorn Suites at about 3:00 a.m., slept for a few hours, then made it back to
O’Shecky’s shortly after 11:00 a.m. to start setting up Merch Central for the
first official day of the festival. Today marked our 16th wedding anniversary,
and it was special to have so many members of our WOM Fest family giving us
anniversary wishes over the course of the day. (For the
record, this weekend also marked birthdays of fest co-organizer Lea Alaee,
Brazen Angel bassist Joey Phillips, and Mithridium drummer Tony Kaliszewski, so
there was much to celebrate in our little WOM Fest family.)
The music cranked up at noon, but the first band I witnessed today was
Noble Beast of St. Paul, Minnesota, who took the stage just before 1:00
p.m. Do you like guitar-driven Euro
metal? More specifically, do you like Falconer, Running Wild,
Blind Guardian, Iron Savior, Savage Circus, etc.? If yes, and
if you haven’t checked out Noble Beast, you need to get with the program,
posthaste. I first heard Noble Beast at last year’s WOM Fest
pre-party, and thought they were great. Now that their first
full-length CD has been released, and I’ve had a couple of months to absorb the
songs, I was primed and ready for a grade-A Noble Beast ass-kicking.
And that’s precisely what I got. They were terrific,
punching through seven songs from the debut album at high velocity.
“Iron Clad Angels” started things off with a bang, melting faces with
such alacrity that Datis called out afterwards, “play a fast song.”
New drummer with the gigantic afro did a nice job, and the
band even withstood guitarist Matt Hodsdon’s broken string mishap without
missing a beat. Guitarist/vocalist Sir Robert was, as usual,
hilarious, spouting off between songs about Venn diagrams (“do you like fast
songs? Do you like heavy songs?”), questioning what we are all doing with our
lives (“it’s noon on a Friday – don’t you people have jobs?”), and giving
props to the other bands and to WOM Fest (“you might find your new favorite band
at this festival”). My only criticism of the Noble Beast set
was that they didn’t play two of my favorite tunes, “On Wings of Steel” and
“Nothing to Repent,” but what they did perform was so killer that there was
really no room for grousing or complaining. Again, if you
haven’t heard them, check out Noble Beast!
Setlist: Iron-Clad Angels, Behold the
Face of Your Enemy, The Dragon Reborn, Disintegrating Force, We Burn, Master of
Depravity, The Noble Beast.
It was only 2 o’clock in the
afternoon, but WOM Fest VII was already firing on all cylinders.
Shredding guitarist extraordinaire and perennial WOM Fest artist Justin
Zych (has this guy ever not performed at WOM?) was back, pulling double-duty
today with Valhalla and Zephaniah. I prefer the latter (no
keyboards and barely any prog tendencies), but the former are a whole lot of fun
too. In addition to Zych, the two bands share vocalist Logan
Detwiler (he of the Transformers obsession, as Jen learned when she asked him
about his t-shirt), so the similarities are pronounced.
Valhalla were up first with their self-proclaimed shredding,
baby-making extravaganza. To my ears, Valhalla sounded
heavier, more guitar-centric, and less noodly self-indulgent this year than last
year. Is it because of the new songs? I
don’t know. But I do know their cover of Manowar’s “Hail and
Kill” damn near blew the roof off O’Shecky’s and whipped the crowd into a
frothing mass of Manowarriors. I also know that Zych blew
away the entire audience with his mind-boggling display of six-string
mastery. And I do know it was impossible to watch Valhalla
rock through their set without rocking a smile of my own.
Jen and I wholeheartedly support every band that takes the stage at WOM
Fest, but some are special in our hearts. One of those is
Connecticut’s Shallow Ground, who played the pre-party last year and hung
around the Frontier Ranch all weekend long. We became quite
fond of the guys, especially guitarist/singer Keith Letourneau and drummer Kurt
Ragis. Jen tells a very funny story about the time Keith
offered her some fruit salad last year. Plus, Shallow Ground
were the only true thrash act of the day (and one of the only thrash bands
booked this year), so we were pulling for them big-time. We
weren’t disappointed. Shallow Ground treated us to
razor-sharp thrash riffs courtesy of Letourneau and Tim Smith, and offered up
several selections from their debut album, including opener “Shallow Ground” and
killer live track “Whence They Came,” plus “The Black Rose” (I think, though I
could be mis-remembering) and “Prostitution.” A couple of new
tracks were also aired, one of which (“Class Warfare”) Keith very kindly
dedicated to me. New stuff sounded great, and definitely
whetted my appetite for Shallow Ground’s forthcoming second album.
Unfortunately, Shallow Ground got squeezed for time, through no fault of
their own, as their 50-minute set was compressed to 30 minutes.
The band understandably weren’t happy about it, but they finished off
triumphantly inviting George Call up onstage (George, God bless him, said “Let’s
hear it for Shallow Grave” before realizing his goof and correcting himself) for
a spot-on, unrehearsed romp through Judas Priest’s “Green Manalishi (with the
Two Pronged Crown).” This was yet another early highlight of
a festival that was littered with them.
All the way from Denver, Colorado, speedy power metal merchants
Cellador came to rock WOM Fest VII. Many will recall
that Cellador made quite a splash back in 2006 with their Metal Blade debut
album, ‘Enter Deception.’ It’s been a long, hard road for the
lads since then, with founding member Chris Petersen being the lone holdover
from the debut lineup. Unlike on ‘Enter Deception,’ Petersen
has added lead vocals to his guitar duties, and it turns out that he’s quite a
capable high-pitched soaring power metal vocalist. Cellador
are now promoting a strong self-released four-track EP entitled ‘Honor
Forth.’ The band are a five-piece, but only four of them were
onstage in Ohio, with Petersen deadpanning from the stage, “Our keyboard player
couldn’t make this trip, which is a shame, because he has a bad-ass
keytar.” The lack of keyboards in the live sound was welcomed
by me, as Cellador’s live sound was chock full of ripping guitar
goodness. Nearly every song was played at blinding speed (not
surprisingly, given Cellador’s tag in the Metal Blade days as “the American
Dragonforce”) but it sounded great. Most (perhaps all) of the
EP tracks were aired, along with at least a couple of stellar new songs (“Off
the Grid” stuck in mind as a particular scorcher). Of course,
there were also a few classics from ‘Enter Deception’ in the setlist, including
the damn near perfect trio of “Never Again,” “Forever Unbound” (Noble Beast’s
Sir Robert yelled from the audience, “hey, are you going to play ‘Forever
Unbound,’” and Petersen smiled and said, “Speak of the devil,” as the band
launched into that very tune) and closer “Leaving All Behind.”
The only negative about Cellador’s performance was that Petersen had some
kind of adverse physical reaction to the copious fog enshrouding the
stage. I felt really badly for the guy as he was in obvious
discomfort, trying to rub his irritated eyes, sing and play guitar, all at the
same time. When he asked for less stage fog, the fog machine
blew more of it onto the stage right on cue, prompting him to say, “Pretty much
the opposite of that.” But Petersen’s a trooper, and he gave
the gig everything he had, temporary blindness or no. Watch
out, boys and girls, because Cellador have risen from the ashes and are back and
ready to do some damage. Maybe nobody cares now that
Dragonforce seem to have fallen out of fashion, but I wouldn’t bet against
Cellador, based on today’s performance.
In my conversations with festival attendees about today’s lineup, the one
band that consistently made people’s eyes light up with anticipation was
Armory. The sextet rarely plays shows outside of their
native Massachusetts, and their two self-released discs (2007’s ‘The Dawn of
Enlightenment’ and last year’s ‘Empyreal Realms’) have an ardent cult following
amongst fans of Euro-style symphonic power metal, with epic songs, lush
arrangements and Tate-style vocals. Nowhere was the pent-up
demand for all things Armory more evident than at Merch Central, where Armory
did a brisk business all weekend long (particularly with their amazing $15
mix’n’match combo pack that included a CD, shirt, poster and
sticker). Before seeing Armory live, I would not have
characterized myself as a huge fan, although I owned and appreciated both their
albums. After seeing them, I think I now understand the magic
of Armory. They’re not the most dynamic live band you’ll ever
see, although the small, cramped stage may explain why the six of them didn’t
move around much. What makes Armory special, though, is their
propensity for glorious guitar melodies courtesy of Joe Kurland and Chad
Fisher. My goodness, just watching them during the
instrumental song, I was utterly transfixed by the glittering melodies the
guitarists created. Add in Adam Kurland’s powerful, spot-on,
expressive vocals on songs like “Fate Seeker,” and you have a recipe for epic
power metal bliss. It’s fair to conclude that sky-high
audience expectations were met and quite likely exceeded by Armory’s performance today.
It’s 6:30 p.m. on Friday, and the hits just keep on
coming. The pride of Rockville, Maryland, Burning
Shadows delivered a punchy 50-minute set of guitar-driven power metal
goodness with elements of the American (Iced Earth / Jag Panzer) and European
schools. Central to Burning Shadows’ live attack is the
booming voice of Tom Davy, and he sounded tremendous today on songs like the “A
Thousand Lies” medley, “Southwind,” and closer “Supernatural
Warfare.” Guitarists Tim Regan and Greg Jones were in fine
form, dishing out the riffs and solos seemingly without even breaking a
sweat. Burning Shadows also treated us to some unreleased
material off their forthcoming third full-length album, and it sounded
fantastic. These guys are a talented bunch with a fairly
unique slant on the oversaturated power metal genre, and would seem to have a
bright future ahead of them.
Boston’s Bad Karma were a late replacement to the
bill. I remember hearing about this long-running act back in
the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was going to school in Boston, though I
can’t for the life of me recall whether I ever witnessed them live back in the
day. Still going strong, the quartet is now readying an album
for release on Shadow Kingdom Records. They’ve also earned
the respect of their peers, with Steel Assassin’s John Falzone gushing about Bad
Karma from the stage on Saturday and
Meliah Rage’s Anthony Nichols having made the booking recommendation to bring
Bad Karma to WOM Fest in the first place. The Meliah Rage
connection is strengthened by the presence of that band’s powerhouse drummer
Stuart Dowie, who graciously lent his Ludwig drum kit to the festival to be
abused by two dozen drummers during the Friday and Saturday events. Bad Karma is
fronted by singer/guitarist Alec Dowie, whom Jen and I found to be an absolute
pleasure to deal with on merch stuff. He even kindly brought
me a CD-R copy of three songs so that I would have some Bad Karma recordings to
take home from the festival. Without question, a standout
feature of Bad Karma’s live attack is Alec’s unconventional guitar playing
technique. His right hand was injured many years ago in a
motorcycle accident, so he plays guitar exclusively with his left
hand. It’s really amazing to watch him up there rocking out
using just his left hand on the fretboard, ripping out smoking riffs and searing
leads. Watching Alec Dowie play guitar is like watching the
triumph of the human spirit because the man refused to quit doing what he loved
and, despite physical limitations, does it at a high level.
Between that and Stuart’s crushing drum technique, Bad Karma were a lot
of fun. To me, they sounded firmly in the Boston metal school
of bands like Wargasm and Meliah Rage, but with some trippier parts as
well. I was happy to have had the opportunity to see Bad
Karma, and the guys hung out at the festival all weekend long to support the other bands.
Few metal bands put on a more fun live show than WOM Fest staples
Lords of the Trident. These five wacky dudes from
Madison, Wisconsin played at WOM Fests III and IV, with vocalist
Ty/Fang/whatever showing up on his own the last two years.
For Lords of the Trident, WOM Fest was a tour stop, and as Fang explained
both on and off stage, the road has been unkind to our valiant heroes, who have
had to endure such indignities as tiny audiences, thieving promoters, and
vehicular breakdowns. It’s a long way to the top,
y’all. Still, they’ve kept their good humor and their high
energy intact. If you’ve never had the pleasure, Lords of the
Trident wear ridiculous costumes (singer is an armored warrior, guitarists as
gladiator and veiled martial artist, bassist as grim reaper, etc.) and use a
staggering array of props during their set. Fang shot
multiple blasts of confetti into the audience (much of which seemed to land in
the Noble Beast drummer’s afro) from trident-shaped devices, wielded plastic
swords and shields, goofed around with a flaming microphone and a flaming
plastic video-game guitar, and even ran into the audience to “slay” us all with
plastic axe and cleaver. The gimmick would be entertaining
enough on its own merit, but what puts Lords of the Trident over the top is
their songcraft, as their material is simple, catchy, 80s metal excellence,
typically at a midtempo with occasional forays into speed (see “Complete
Control”). At one point, Fang fooled us all by talking about
how they were going to play a heavy metalized cover of a Garth Brooks song
because they’d been touring in the South. That cover turned
out to be a face-melting rendition of Judas Priest’s “Screaming for
Vengeance.” Heh. There were a bunch of new
songs in the setlist tonight but I was pleased to hear the familiar strains of
“Complete Control,” “Face of the Enemy,” “Chains on Fire,” and closer “Skyforce”
in the mix. The band were apparently poised to perform
personal favorite “The Metal Seas,” as Fang was about to unfurl a pirate flag
for this sea shanty, but then he realized they were almost out of time so the
tune was jettisoned in favor of crowd-pleasing singalong “Skyforce.”
Support Lords of the Trident. They deserve
it. Their stage presentation is goofy, absurd, and completely
over the top, but you’ll find yourself laughing and cheering and jumping up and
down like the two little girls standing right in front of me.
And like I said, the songs are good, no, very good, so it’s not like the
gimmick is camouflaging a lack of substance or songwriting acumen.
Fare thee well, Lords of the Trident, and I’ll be watching for that new
disc as we sail the metal sea.
A much-heralded reunion at this year’s WOM Fest was the reactivation of
Ft. Wayne, Indiana’s Zephaniah. Back in 2008,
Zephaniah self-released a fantastic album called ‘Stories from the Book of
Metal,’ which was like a cross between Dragonforce and Manowar-style true metal,
with the incomparable Justin Zych on guitar. The Zephaniah
live shows became legendary for the “tricks” the musicians would pull off (more
about those later); however, Zych eventually moved onto other musical
priorities, such as Argonaut and Valhalla, and Zephaniah was relegated to the
dustbin of history. Until now. For
whatever reason, Zych, vocalist Logan Detwiler, and bassist Ian Bender decided
to re-launch Zephaniah with a new drummer and second guitarist.
There is talk of a new album, with the artwork and title ‘Reforged’
having already been made public. Not sure if tonight was the
first reunion show for Zephaniah or not, but it felt like a momentous occasion
nonetheless. Eschewing the new material altogether, Zephaniah
raced through the bulk of their ‘Stories from the Book of Metal’
disc. Admittedly, I hadn’t heard the album in quite some
time, so I was pleasantly surprised at how well I remembered tunes like “Sword
of the King,” “Fight for Love,” “Blackbeard’s Revenge,” and “Flame of the
Dragon.” Did I play the CD that much a few years ago, or are
the songs just *that* good that they’re etched permanently in my
brain? It may be a combination of the two, but I tend to
credit the latter. These are just great, catchy, intensely
memorable songs with excellent choruses and vocal lines, plus riffs for
miles. Oh yes, the tricks were back too.
At one point, Detwiler warned us, “You’re gonna see some shit
now.” The two guitarists faced each other, with each slinging
his guitar across his back. They then leaned over each
other’s shoulders, and proceeded to shred on each other’s guitars.
Wow! It happened again later, when the two guitarists
and bass player stood in a circle, axes in front of them, then leaned over and
played each other’s instruments. It’s about the coolest thing
you ever saw, and is definitely “some shit.” So glad to see
that Zephaniah brought back these outrageous tricks. Man,
after tonight’s performance, I am very stoked indeed for the new Zephaniah
album. If they can deliver songs of the quality of those on
the debut, and inject the fire of their live performance, then ‘Reforged’ may be
a monster of a reunion album, truly.
As the clock struck midnight, there was only one more band left to grace
O’Shecky’s stage today, in the form of Texas favorites ASKA, who last
played WOM Fest in 2011 when Daryl Norton was still in the band playing guitar,
Chris Menta had just joined the band playing guitar, George Call had hung up his
axe to focus on singing, and bedrock bassist Keith Knight was still in the
fold. Fast-forward to 2014, and Norton, Menta and Knight have
all departed, with only Call and drummer Danny White remaining.
Call plays guitar again (tonight he was favoring a Confederate
flag-adorned guitar that no doubt curried favor with the Brazen Angel members in
attendance, especially when he added a miniature Confederate flag to the
headstock), Dave Harvey is on the bass (he’s been in the band for two years or
so), and young-gun guitarist Bryant Contreras is now a fixture on George’s
right-hand side. Jen and I saw Bryant’s first show with ASKA
in February in Houston. As expected, he seemed far more
comfortable and at-ease tonight, which was good to see. ASKA
came out breathing fire, following a few rough days on tour (including what
sounds like a trying show in St. Louis the night before WOM Fest
began). The setlist was strewn with one ASKA classic after
another, including three of the standout tracks off their new ‘Fire Eater’ disc
(“Everyone Dies,” crowd favorite “Dead Again,” and testosterone-pumping
“Valhalla,” which George dedicated to the band of the same name).
It was also great to hear the band dust off a couple of rarely-performed
older tunes, in the form of “Immortal” (killer song) and “Leprosy” (not my
favorite with its AC/DC stomp, but it always goes down a storm
live). As they’ve done for a few years, ASKA also peppered
their set with a few well-known metal covers, in the form of “The Trooper,”
“Breaking the Law,” and “Seek and Destroy.” I would have
preferred three more ASKA originals, but I understand the reason for the covers
and certainly nobody else seems to mind. “Breaking the Law”
was actually a special moment, inasmuch as ASKA invited Helstar vocalist James
Rivera up onstage for a totally unrehearsed, impromptu go at the Priest
classic. Rivera clearly had no idea what song they were going
to play, although “Breaking the Law” was a piece of cake for him given his
activities in the Sabbath Judas Sabbath tribute band. Before
the song began, Rivera commented at how blown away he was by ASKA’s performance
tonight and then laughed at George’s hoarse speaking voice, marveling, “How can
you talk like *that* when you sing like *that*?” I’ve often
wondered the same thing myself, James. It was hilarious, but
more importantly, it was really special to see these two Texas legends who have
meant so much to WOM Fest over the years together on the same stage having a
little fun. Another memorable moment of the set came after
“Crown of Thorns,” when the band were notified that they only had time for one
more song. Still wearing his leather jacket and somehow not
passed out from heat exhaustion, George opened up the floor to
requests. Somebody called out for “old ASKA,” somebody else
requested “Killashandra” (huh? I like the song, but that’s
not how you close out a blistering 90-minute set). To me, the
choice was clear: “Invasion.” So I gave a
shout for that one. George heard, and he
approved. Every ASKA show should end with
“Invasion.” That song lays waste to all in its path, leaving
only smoking, twisted wreckage in its wake. Such was the case
tonight, and the gig ended with me (and every other person in the room) being
happy campers indeed. Setlist: Angels of War,
Stalker, Dead Again, Leprosy, The Trooper, Longships, Everyone Dies, Immortal,
Valkyries, Breaking the Law (with James Rivera), Valhalla, Leather, Seek and
Destroy, Crown of Thorns, Invasion.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
It was a novel feeling to awaken on a WOM Fest Saturday morning and
not feel totally obliterated. Usually by the time a WOM Saturday rolls around, we’re bleary-eyed from lack of
sleep at the campsite, smelly from multiple days without a proper shower, itchy
from numerous bug bites, and generally feeling pretty rough.
Today, we woke up in our nice clean hotel bed feeling fresh as a
daisy. We paid the day’s weather forecast scant attention,
and didn’t even raise an eyebrow (much less furrow a brow) when the heavens
unleashed a torrential downpour on Columbus this afternoon.
Had we been in an open-air setting, the storm would have been calamitous;
however, from the dry comfort of O’Shecky’s, it wasn’t even a blip on the
day. Yeah, I don’t much miss the open-air format of past years.
Once again, the music kicked off at high noon today, so Jen and I were
back at the venue by 11:00 a.m. to
reconfigure Merch Central in a manner that highlighted today’s
bands. First live act I caught today was the highly-touted
Long Island combo, Shadowstrike. When they hit the
stage, I was still occupied at Merch Central, so I couldn’t see them, but I
could hear them distinctly in the largely empty hall.
Shadowstrike’s music sounded like a killer form of epic symphonic power
metal, so I abandoned my merch post to take a gander. It was
a pleasant surprise to see that the five people creating this spellbinding sound
were relative youngsters; indeed, age-wise Shadowstrike just might have been the
youngest band of the Festival proper this year. They’ve
packed a lot of talent into their tender years, and the venue was quite properly
abuzz about them for the rest of the day, with seveal folks coming over to Merch
Central breathlessly seeking a copy of their debut EP, ‘Infinite
Power.’ All of that said, I do think that Shadowstrike has
room to improve on their largely-static live presentation.
I’d like to see them moving around the stage and rocking out just a bit,
instead of being glued to their spots and staring at their fingers.
My strong suspicion is that the visual aspect of performing will come in
time for Shadowstrike as they grow in self-confidence, poise and
experience. For now, though, they’re working from a fine
batch of songs, which is an excellent start indeed.
Adding to the list of last year’s pre-party bands earning mainstage spots
in 2014 (see Shallow Ground and Noble Beast) was Crusader.
Hailing from the Windy City, this quintet screams classic metal to the
core, musically, lyrically and visually. Diminutive frontman
Hoagie is quite a sight onstage, with his black mane of hair whipping around and
his leather-gauntleted fists flying. They performed much of
their Stormspell Records debut CD, ‘Onward into Battle,’ today, which is fine by
me because that album is highly recommended to fans of the true metal
revival. I did not get to witness their entire set, but I did
see Crusader rip through “Hopeless Destiny,” “Dead Kings,” “Onward into Battle,”
“Asgard’s Fire,” and “Iron Forge” from the album, as well as a raw, blistering
run through the Venom classic, “Witching Hour.” Damn, why
don’t more bands cover Venom? Sure, they were never the most
talented band in the world, but those early Venom songs stand the test of time
and rock mightily to this day. Overall, I was highly
impressed with Crusader’s gig and will be following their exploits closely in
the future, as they’ve got bucketloads of talent and heart.
Today’s “oddball” band was Mithridium, a local Columbus, Ohio act
that played the mainstage early in the morning on the last day of WOM Fest
VI. They don’t fit neatly within the power/trad/classic metal
parameters of the Fest, being more modern and a bit harsher in their
approach. I actually think that works to Mithridium’s
advantage, though. Some two dozen bands deep into the Fest,
it was refreshing to have a change of pace with a band working somewhat outside
the stylistic boxes inhabited by their colleagues. It also
helps matters that the Mithridium boys are great friends of WOM Fest, having
hung out all year at least year’s event and having provided myriad support and
assistance to Datis & Lea last year and this year. If I’m
not mistaken, it was Mithridium’s suggestion to hold the Fest at O’Shecky’s Live
this year. Drummer Tony Kaliszewski graciously lent his kit
to the pre-party for WOM Fests VI and VII, and always seemed to be standing
nearby the stage as a “drum tech on-call” whenever a need arose this
weekend. The point is that it’s really easy to root for a
band comprised of good guys, and Mithridium fit that bill.
And of course it doesn’t hurt that guitarist/vocalist Eric Slone is an
imposing frontman and the material is powerful, punishing even, without
sacrificing melody. I never would have heard or seen this
band without WOM Fest, but I sure am glad I did.
I debated whether or not to include A Tortured Soul in my
narrative of WOM Fest VII, simply because I was only able to observe a couple of
songs from their set. In the interest of completeness,
though, I pass along these fragmentary impressions, with a caveat that I didn’t
get to see much. A Tortured Soul is a Wisconsin band that
tapped into the occult Mercyful Fate sound long before it became “cool” to do so
(i.e., well before the hordes of imitators like Portrait, In Solitude,
Attic, Trial, and so on began streaming out of the woodwork).
Because timing is everything, A Tortured Soul have not enjoyed the
acclaim that some of these newer acts have; however, there’s much to recommend
their recorded output, particularly their 2010 ‘Lucifer’s Fate’ opus on Pure
Steel Records. Bald, sunglass-wearing singer Rick Black wins
the award for “best microphone stand of the Fest,” hands-down.
Black brandished a shiny silver chain stand with protruding sharp points
to either side near the base. It looked hella
cool. The songs I heard A Tortured Soul perform were mostly
new tunes that regrettably did not leave much of an impression on me musically
(not enough KD-style falsetto in the vocals either), and it didn’t help that the
band members (save Black) mostly stood in place without even looking
up. Still, after I made it back to Merch Central I heard the
strains of “Reign,” a truly haunting piece from the ‘Lucifer’s Fate’ album that
sounded fantastic. I was thrilled that they played it.
It seems beyond debate that A Sound of Thunder are a band on the
rise. They’ve developed a rabid following in their home
territory of D.C./Maryland/Virginia, so much so that they eclipsed their
Kickstarter crowdfunding goal for their forthcoming fourth album by a factor of
2.5. They’re insanely dedicated to their craft, as evidenced
by the fact that they will be releasing two albums in the coming months and are
well into the production of album #6 already! And – here’s an
important one – A Sound of Thunder have developed their own sound.
They don’t sound like any other band, they hopscotch gracefully across
stylistic borders and boundaries, and yet their material is unabashedly metal
and has a certain cohesiveness to it that makes it all sound like
ASoT. They’ve improved markedly as a live act each time I’ve
seen them, and today was definitely the strongest A Sound of Thunder performance
I’ve witnessed. Lanky bassist Jesse Keen lurches around the
right side of the stage, while guitarist Josh Schwartz (he of the headstock-less
guitar) rocks out in a more stationary way, his head seemingly on a
swivel. Custom leather-clad singer Nina Osegueda (our first
of three female singers today) has a dynamic voice that seems equally suited for
banshee shrieks and smooth crooning (not that we heard much of the latter today
since “I’ll Walk With You” wasn’t on the setlist). And
drummer Chris Haren complements his bandmates perfectly. A
Sound of Thunder have the whole package, including a phenomenal catalog of songs
that translate effectively in a live setting. The
almost-thrashy hockey-themed “Power Play” and Raven-esque “Out of the Darkness”
are gigantic adrenaline rushes. The anthemic stuff like “I
Will Not Break” thumps along defiantly. And the big epic
quirky stuff like “Time’s Arrow” works brilliantly too. To
their credit, the band changed up their setlist on the fly, dropping “The Day I
Die” and adding the tongue-in-cheek “Kill that Bitch” at the request of multiple
audience members. It’s a wise band that listens to its fans
and gives the people what they want, even if they confuse the hell out of their
drummer in the process. Kudos to A Sound of Thunder for
delivering a crushing set at WOM Fest, despite arriving on the premises from
last night’s New Jersey tour stop just minutes before they were supposed to hit
the stage. Bring on ‘Lesser Key of Solomon’!!!
Setlist: Queen of Hell, Time’s Arrow, I Will Not Break,
Kill that Bitch, Power Play, Out of the Darkness, Blood Vomit, A Sound of Thunder.
It’s hard to imagine that a band would travel all the way from Australia
to perform at the WOM Fest, but it happened this year with Darker
Half. The Sydney-based quartet arrived in the USA several
weeks ago and has been crisscrossing the country playing occasional gigs and
doing lots of sightseeing. I was really proud of the WOM Fest
family for welcoming our guests with open arms, for supporting them onstage
(many of the audience members consisting of band members that had played shows
with Darker Half earlier on their US run), and for buying a shit-ton of their
merch. Darker Half are supporting their brand-new third
album, ‘Never Surrender,’ which is interesting because it contains new songs as
well as re-recorded versions of old songs from the band’s first two
albums. This arrangement made it very easy for a fan because
all eight tunes Darker Half performed today are found on ‘Never Surrender’ even
though, as frontman Vo Simpson put it, a couple of the tracks aired are known as
the “old songs” back home, “but they’re all new to you.”
Darker Half are a twin-guitar melodic power metal band, with high-pitched
vocals and the occasional adventurous element in their songwriting.
Right away, they endeared themselves to the crowd.
When they launched into their second tune, “End of the Line,” something
went drastically wrong with the bass drum pedal, prompting drummer Dom Simpson
to start waving his arms frantically for the band to stop.
They did, then Vo cracked a joke about how in Australia, they start
playing a song, then pretend like they screwed it up and start over, so they can
get everybody to pay attention when they play it the second time.
In general, Darker Half came across as a very polished, professional live
band. All the necessary elements were present:
Cool songs, great performances, high energy, and headbanging
aplenty. It was a bold move for Darker Half to cross the
great wide sea and grace us with their presence; however, their being here
definitely enriched the WOM Fest VII experience for all.
Thanks and cheers, mates. Setlist
(sequence may not be exact): Nemesis, End of the Line, Never
Surrender, As Darkness Fades, Blinded by Darkness, Stranger, Heads Are Gonna
Roll, Duality.
Here’s something you don’t see every day: A local
thrash band that broke up in 1989 playing a reunion show at Warriors of Metal
Fest as a one-off, with no apparent plans for any other gigs.
But it happened tonight in the form of Restless Breed.
I wasn’t familiar with the band back in the day, but stellar indie label
Stormspell Records recently released a CD anthology of their demos as part of
the label’s Red, White & Heavy series. The recordings on
that ‘No Walls Can Hold’ anthology certainly sounded above-average for late 80s
thrash, so I was looking forward to checking them out. And
Restless Breed did a solid for WOM Fest by drawing a decent number of locals to
attend the Fest, and some of them even stuck around to watch other bands, which
is great. Unfortunately, I got tied up with some Merch
Central business that kept me from witnessing much of Restless Breed’s set,
although did get there for 3-4 songs, including “Matter over Mind” and “Those
That Never Were,” as well as a couple of others. Hulking
vocalist Dave Cowgill, he of the close-cropped hair and denim jacket, may have
dropped the high-end notes he sang in the old days, but he still sounded
convincing. No idea how many of the other members onstage
were part of an original lineup, but all impressed and the unit sounded tight
and well-rehearsed. It was great to see that Restless Breed
seemingly took so much care and exercised so much diligence in making certain
this one-off show was a full-on, no-holds-barred Restless Breed
experience. Wish I could’ve seen more, but like I say, I was
grateful for the part of their gig I was able to catch.
Here’s where I lose all semblance of objectivity.
There were many great performances at WOM Fest VI in 2013.
My favorite was Boston’s Steel Assassin, a band I’ve long adored
but never expected to see live. They blew me away at the
Frontier Ranch with their killer songs, old-school approach, and massively
intense and energetic performance. After WOM VI, I made sure
Datis knew how badly I wanted them back for WOM VII, and god bless him, Datis
the magic man made it happen. There were a few anxious
moments about Steel Assassin today. Bassist Phil Grasso
revealed to me that they hadn’t played a single show since last year’s Warriors
of Metal Fest, and drily predicted that tonight’s gig would be
“interesting.” Singer John Falzone, who apparently lives in
Tennessee, encountered travel delays driving to Columbus and did not arrive at
O’Shecky’s until just minutes before Steel Assassin were to take the stage.
Thankfully, the metal gods were smiling on Steel Assassin,
and everything worked out in the end. How was their
gig? In all honesty, it’s an open question whether their 2013
or their 2014 performance was better. Yes, they were *that*
good tonight. Falzone is a truly intense frontman, barking
out the lyrics at full power as the veins bulge on his neck and the sweat pours
from his brow. Guitarists Mike Mooney and Kevin Curran are a
perfectly synced-up six-string tandem that weave heavy metal magic with every
riff, solo and harmony. Grasso is in constant motion, bobbing
his head and working the stage with boundless energy. And
drummer Greg Michalowski not only delivers the thunderous beats but also
contributes backing vocals. One of my favorite aspects of
this gig was that Steel Assassin varied up their setlist from last
year. Given how rarely they play live, the predictable course
of action would have been just to play the same songs as last year.
But Steel Assassin didn’t do that; instead, they treated us to songs like
the awesome “Hawkwood” (arguably my favorite tune on ‘War of the Eight Saints’),
the classy “Sword in the Stone” (which Falzone introduced by saying it was his
audition on that song that earned him a place in the band), the superb
“Phaeton,” and the ripping “Merchants of Force,” as well as a cool closing cover
of Saxon’s “Denim and Leather,” none of which were played last year.
I dearly love this band and I hope that, somehow, someway, the guys are
able to find a way to keep it going despite geographic distances and the
busy-ness and complications of life. Whatever happens, I will
not forget how hard Steel Assassin rocked WOM Fest VII. (One
last note: There was a guy with a pro video camera filming
the band’s entire set. Perhaps that footage will see the
light someday as an official Steel Assassin DVD. A guy can
dream can’t he?) Setlist: Breakout at St. Lo,
Hawkwood, God Save London, Blitzkrieg Demons, Sword in the Stone, The Wolfpack,
Phaeton, Merchants of Force, Denim and Leather.
A very special bonus to WOM Fest VII was that Benedictum’s set was
preceded by a four-song mini-set by none other than Leather Leone
of Chastain fame, with three-fourths of Benedictum serving as her
backing band. I have long admired Leather’s work with
Chastain, and always felt that her voice was the template for what a female
heavy metal singer should be: powerful and tough, but melodic and
expressive. Admittedly, we are now many years removed from
Leather’s Chastain heyday with albums like ‘The 7th of Never’ and ‘Voice of the Cult’
(although, to be fair, she did sing on Chastain’s 2013 release, ‘Surrender to No
One’). Moments after she hit the stage this evening, however,
Leather conclusively eradicated all doubts about the present state of her
abilities. Holy crap, she sounded awesome, with every ounce
of the power, conviction and range she displayed on those 1980s Chastain
albums. It was amazing. I think the entire
audience at O’Shecky’s was mesmerized by her, with all of us knowing
instinctively that we were witnessing something really special.
Hell, even Josh Schwartz of A Sound of Thunder had given me a heads-up to
be sure not to miss Leather’s performance (ASoT had been on the road with
Benedictum for the last couple of days, so he knew what was in
store). He was so right. Leather
ruled. Her set consisted of three bona fide Chastain classics
plus one song off the new album. It was a beautiful thing and
a positively spine-tingling experience. I’m so glad I
witnessed it. Hats off to Leather, to Pete Wells and the rest
of Benedictum, and to Datis for making it happen.
Setlist: For Those Who Dare, Ruler of the Wasteland, Evil
Awaits Us, Angel of Mercy.
It was like tag-team wrestling: As soon as Leather’s
four songs were finished, she tagged out, and Veronica Freeman tagged in for
Benedictum time. The band tore through “Fractured,”
the opening track of their latest opus, ‘Obey,’ and it was off to the
races. (Well, almost. Drummer Rikard
Stjernquist killed his snare drum early on, causing a very brief delay while
Steel Assassin’s Greg Michalowski furnished his as a replacement.)
Freeman is an imposing frontwoman, with her stacked heels and piercing
voice cutting through the din with power aplenty as she whips the audience into
a frenzy. To her right, amiable guitarist Pete Wells exudes
cool, churning out mighty riffs with a faint smile on his lips that belies his
hulking stature. Interestingly, Benedictum focused their
setlist heavily on the new album, foregoing anything from ‘Seasons of Tragedy’
(my personal favorite Benedictum disc) from the set. But
that’s okay because the new songs sounded awesome. “Obey”
featured Veronica snapping at the air with a leather whip.
Closer “Retrograde” was epic and beautiful, just a great
song. And the older tunes were well chosen.
“Benedictum” inspired the “In Nomine, In Nomine” singalong in the chorus
(with Veronica even lending me the mike to belt out a couple of lines,
inflicting unspeakable pain on the ears of the poor WOM Fest souls).
“Wicca” was performed by request, apparently at the urging of ASKA
bassist Dave Harvey, who was right near the stage for the Benedictum
gig. “The Shadowlands” was introduced as a song for all of
those who have battled depression. By contrast, “Bang” got
the party vibe going strong, with Veronica kicking off her high heels and
inviting Leather Leone and Nina Osegueda on stage for a fun singalong, even if
Nina looked a bit confused as to what her role was supposed to be.
Benedictum even aired a new song that is part of what is apparently an
ongoing collaboration between the band and Leather Leone. It
was called “Kiss My Lips” and had, ahem, provocative lyrical content that will
surely elicit polarizing reactions from the fanbase.
Altogether, the Benedictum gig was very cool.
Setlist (approximate, since my brain was pretty well fried
on metal at this time): Fractured, Apex Nation, The
Shadowlands, Benedictum, Wicca, Evil that We Do, Obey, Bang, Kiss My Lips,
Retrograde.
Just like that, WOM Fest VII was reduced to one final band.
It was only fitting that, if this was to be the Festival’s swansong,
James Rivera and Helstar be the ones to close it out.
Over the last few years, Rivera has become an integral part of the WOM
Fest family, from headlining WOM Fest V with Helstar, to stepping up at the last
minute to headline WOM Fest VI as a solo artist, to closing the curtain on WOM
Fest VII with Helstar. The circle is now
complete. Initially, I did feel pangs of disappointment when
Helstar took the stage. It just didn’t feel the same without
hyperspastic bassist Jerry Abarca (sidelined for the last year or so because of
a chronic ailment) and stalwart guitarist Rob Trevino (apparently sidelined
temporarily by health problems of his own). However, the show
must go on, and the fill-in players performed admirably, particularly the young,
bald-haired goateed guitarist who stepped in for Trevino. He
told me later it was only his fourth Helstar gig, but he nailed his parts and
seemed totally comfortable, judging by the way he rocked out.
Rivera came out on stage wearing a horned latex skull mask (the
embodiment of the character depicted on the cover art of ‘This Wicked Nest,’ I
suppose) but ditched it after the first song. Tonight’s
setlist was very cool. Aside from rightfully emphasizing the
newly released ‘This Wicked Nest’ album, Helstar touched on every single studio
album in their history, thereby ensuring that everyone in the audience would be
satisfied. Me, I was partial to the old-school stuff like
“The King is Dead,” “Evil Reign,” and “Baptized in Blood,” but everything
sounded awesome. In honor of the 30th anniversary of Helstar’s debut
album, ‘Burning Star,’ the band devoted their encore to selections from that
disc, most of which have held up well over the years. Over
the course of the set, there were more technical issues with the drums,
prompting Rivera to lead the crowd in a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” to
Brazen Angel’s Joey and Mithridium’s Tony. Also, the
O’Shecky’s owner seized the moment to grab the microphone and thank all of the
great bands and fans at WOM Fest VII, with special thanks to Datis, Lea and
James Rivera himself. Cool gesture by a cool bar owner who
“gets it” and treated us WOM Fest folks far better than he had to, despite
super-long hours, less-than-exciting attendance figures, and (no doubt)
unimpressive bar receipts. O’Shecky’s was a godsend for this
Fest. Anyway, the Helstar set closed, appropriately enough,
with a supercharged version of “Run with the Pack,” a classic singalong
number. Maybe it’s the last song that will ever be performed
at a WOM Fest. If so, then we went out on top.
Afterwards, Rivera and bandmates hung out with the fans near Merch
Central until the last person had left. Classy, classy act,
that Helstar. Setlist (may not be
exact): Fall of Dominion, Pandemonium, Tormentor, Good Day to
Die, Eternal Black, The King is Dead, This Wicked Nest, King of Hell, Evil
Reign, It Has Risen, Baptized in Blood. Encore:
Burning Star, Toward the Unknown, Witch’s Eye, Dracula’s Castle, Run with the Pack.
I’m not going to lie: I felt this overwhelming sense
of sadness when WOM Fest VII came to a close. For all of its
quirks and foibles, this Fest has been at the bedrock of Jen’s and my summer
plans for the last five years. Thanks to WOM Fest, we’ve seen
incredible live performances, discovered great new bands, and made lifelong
friends. The notion that there may not be another was
difficult to wrap our minds around. So we took our sweet time
with photos, hugs and goodbyes to our many WOM Fest friends.
You all rule, and we look forward to seeing you somewhere on the
road. I won’t start naming names because I’d invariably leave
somebody out, but you all know who you are. Cheers, and good night …
~ Review by Kit Ekman ~
O’Shecky’s Live, Columbus, Ohio
June 26-28, 2014
For the fifth consecutive year, Jen and I spent our summer vacation
traveling to Columbus, Ohio to attend the Warriors of Metal Fest.
Much was different this year. Most glaringly, the
festival was moved indoors to O’Shecky’s Live, a comfortable, welcoming,
music-friendly bar/music venue on the north side of town. The
open-air, camping, fall-down drunk BYOB hijinks of the Frontier Ranch were left
behind, in favor of a cushy bar situated 0.5 miles from the official fest
hotel. Soft mattresses and hot showers for
everyone! (And I didn’t even notice the heavy rains on
Saturday afternoon, which would have been a debilitating buzzkill
at the outdoor venue, but were utterly inconsequential at
O’Shecky’s.) A bit more subtle, but no less present a change
was the overriding sense of impending doom about this year’s WOM
Fest. It clung to the event like a fine mist, this idea that
WOM Fest was happening for the last time (thanks to well-publicized funding
problems and a track record of underwhelming attendance). To
our collective credit, the Fest regulars shook off the doom’n’gloom and partied
like they should have done on the Titanic as it sank into icy
waters. If we’re going out, let’s go out with a bang.
For all of that, much was the same about WOM Fest this year.
Despite the (once again) lackluster turnout, many of the loyal Fest
diehards were on-hand, preserving the “family reunion” vibe to the
event. Even the same food/mead vendor (Jim Lyons and family)
was onsite keeping our bellies full with tasty flatbread sandwiches and
delicious homemade mead in various flavors (apple pie mead FTW!).
Thankfully, the laidback, unpretentious, we’re-all-in-this-together
family atmosphere remained intact, and the spirit of true metal filled the air
all weekend long. Band members mingled with fans mingled with
bar staff mingled with event staff and vendors until the lines and subdivisions
dividing all of us were erased. We were all the
same. Jen and I were still running Merch Central, bearing
sole responsibility for keeping the merch (and merch money) of nearly 30
performing bands inventoried, displayed and accounted for at all
times. Most importantly, though, what had not changed was WOM
Fest’s unwavering commitment to high-caliber true/traditional/
classic/thrash/power metal, including a nice mixture of cult acts from
yesteryear, highly-regarded current “name” acts, and unknown young
whippersnappers just now entering the fray. It was truly a
remarkable collection of talent, an embarrassment of riches as one quality metal
band after another took the stage over a three-day period, with nary a dud in sight.
In keeping with tradition, I’ve done my best to capture my thoughts and
impressions of the bands I saw this weekend. The usual
disclaimer applies: I didn’t see every band.
It wasn’t for lack of interest, and I promise I wasn’t blowing anybody
off. Aside from the usual excuses (needing to take an
occasional break to wolf down a sandwich, to rest my punished eardrums, to chat
with a friend, or to attend to pressing Merch Central duties), I have an even
stronger one this year. You see, Merch Central was situated
as far away from the stage as it possibly could have been, given the floor plan
of the venue. It was in another room from the stage, along
the opposite wall of the venue. When Merch Central got busy
(as it often did), I didn’t have the luxury of simply looking up to see what was
happening on stage. So sacrifices had to be made for the
greater good of Merch Central, and I did miss some bands because of
that. If your band isn’t discussed in my review, I didn’t get
to see you perform. But (and I swear, this is no patronizing
bullshit), I heard favorable reports about every single band that I
missed. So, by all means, pat yourself on the back, rest
assured that you kicked ass, and please accept my apologies for not being able
to describe your glories in these pages.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
The Thursday night pre-party was itself a bit of a
marathon event, with live music running from 6:00 p.m. until 2:00
a.m. in a procession of 8 acts across the stage.
Thanks to our late arrival (damn you, heavy traffic and construction on
I-65 and I-71) and the usual chaos of trying to set up Merch Central while
saying hello to the smiling familiar faces filing into the venue, I missed the
first four bands of the night; however, I did catch significant chunks of the
last four Thursday acts.
The first band I witnessed in depth was Winterhymn.
Hailing from Cincinnati, this sextet has been making waves in pagan/folk
metal circles, given that they received the prestigious opening slot on the
PaganFest V tour (featuring Korpiklaani and Turisas) earlier this
year. From the outset, this band made a bold statement with
their physical appearance. Each of the four men and two women
(violinist and keyboardist) wore pagan/tribal war paint and was decked out in
full costume. Particularly striking was the
guitarist/vocalist, who wore battle dress replete with furry shoulder coverings
(kinda like a pagan football player’s shoulder pads).
Style-wise, Winterhymn fit neatly into that European school of pagan/folk
metal populated by the likes of Korpiklaani, older Turisas, Eluveitie, Fintroll,
and so on. What kept them from seeming like a cheap copy,
however, was Winterhymn’s tremendous stage presence and the obvious conviction
with which they delivered their material. They came across as
a very seasoned, professional act (as would befit a band with their PaganFest
pedigree), and the venue was buzzing about Winterhymn for the remainder of the
evening. Memorable songs included “Alesong” (which the singer
dedicated to those of us who were drinking beer in what he termed an ode “to
help climb the mountain of inebriation”), “The Dragonborn Comes” (dedicated to
all the nerds in the audience), and “Stand Your Ground.” In
short, Winterhymn blew me (and many others in the venue) away, so much so that I
award them the 2014 Amadis Award, which has never before been bestowed on a
pre-party band. The Amadis Award is given every year to the
WOM Fest band who appeared out of leftfield to kick my ass completely and
unexpectedly. So it has to be a band I had basically never
heard of before, else the expectations would have been higher and the element of
surprise would be ruined. Aside from the award’s namesake,
other winners in past years include Vanlade (WOM III), Machinage (WOM IV) and
Wulfhook (WOM VI). You rule, Winterhymn!
Next up were Cleveland’s own Deadiron, who were also a heretofore
unknown quantity to me. In contrast to Winterhymn, Deadiron
had no gimmicks (visually or sonically), but simply plugged in and rocked
hard. I heard elements of traditional heavy metal and thrash,
as well as the old U.S. power metal sound, in Deadiron’s music.
It was fast, raw and relentless, while remaining catchy and
accessible. Even better than the music itself was the
intensity of the band’s performance. At one point, the
singer, bassist and guitarist all stripped off their shirts, revealing sweaty
tattooed torsos. Then they put their heads down and rocked
even harder. The singer (who, by the way, commented from the
stage about how amazing Winterhymn’s performance was, more proof that the Amadis
Award was rightfully bestowed upon them) would jump offstage and into the
audience from time to time, even standing on a barstool in the middle of the
floor on one occasion. It was a high-energy, high-octane set
from beginning to end, and Deadiron made me a fan. I love
that old-school, hard-rockin’, no-bullshit aesthetic, and Deadiron had it in spades. Well done.
Continuing with the regional theme of tonight’s show case was another
Ohio band, Eternal Legacy, Auburn Records stalwarts.
In fairness, Eternal Legacy had a couple of tough acts to follow, given
the electrifying performances of the two bands who preceded them.
Still, they acquitted themselves well, with a no-frills, blue-collar set
of dual-guitar heavy-duty traditional metal flecked with bits of
thrash. Guitarwork was excellent and the songs (including
several selections from their latest ‘Seeking No Peace’ opus, one of which
surprisingly was the moody “Eyes without a Soul”) were simple but effective in
keeping the dwindling audience banging heads and throwing horns.
Despite the lateness of the hour and the overall level of travel
exhaustion catching up to me, I dug Eternal Legacy, from the yellow ‘Seeking No
Peace’ backdrop to the honest approach to their craft.
The unenviable task of closing out the pre-party (with a set time
beginning at nearly 1:00 a.m. in a
mostly deserted hall) went to Grave Robber of Ft. Wayne,
Indiana. Initially, my reaction to this booking can be
summarized by three letters: WTF? You see, Grave Robber
really aren’t a metal band, nor do they claim to be. They’re
a punk band -- I think I heard the singer use the word “psychobilly” to describe
one song – that, to my untrained ears, sounds heavily steeped in stuff like The
Misfits. But you know what? Grave
Robber were a totally fun, over-the-top, ridiculous live act, genre tags be
damned. These guys came out of the green room in rubber ghoul
masks, bloody jumpsuits, and latex skeleton gloves. As they
waited for their intro tape to start rolling, George Call called out, “what are
you, the new Slipknot?” I thought one of the Grave Robber
ghouls was going to clock George with his grave-robbing shovel.
It was hilarious. And damned if these guys didn’t
deliver the goods onstage with their short, melodic, punchy, catchy, punky,
singalong tunes. For the record, they kept the masks and
latex gloves (how do they play guitar with those things on?) and jumpsuits on
for the whole gig and stayed in character between songs as well.
I thought Jen was going to die laughing when the singer intoned in a
suitably ghoulish voice, “Last time we were here, there were five people in the
audience. This is an improvement.” There
were probably eight people watching them. Then, when DJ
Valkyrie shouted along with the lyrics at the wrong time, the singer scolded
her, “Keep up with the class, missy.” They kept us laughing,
that’s for sure. And the rocking closing track, “Army of the
Dead,” was a pretty killer way to put an exclamation point on the
pre-party. What a great party band Grave Robber are.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Make no mistake: Even without the physical rigors of
camping, WOM Fest days are long. Jen and I got back to the
Hawthorn Suites at about 3:00 a.m., slept for a few hours, then made it back to
O’Shecky’s shortly after 11:00 a.m. to start setting up Merch Central for the
first official day of the festival. Today marked our 16th wedding anniversary,
and it was special to have so many members of our WOM Fest family giving us
anniversary wishes over the course of the day. (For the
record, this weekend also marked birthdays of fest co-organizer Lea Alaee,
Brazen Angel bassist Joey Phillips, and Mithridium drummer Tony Kaliszewski, so
there was much to celebrate in our little WOM Fest family.)
The music cranked up at noon, but the first band I witnessed today was
Noble Beast of St. Paul, Minnesota, who took the stage just before 1:00
p.m. Do you like guitar-driven Euro
metal? More specifically, do you like Falconer, Running Wild,
Blind Guardian, Iron Savior, Savage Circus, etc.? If yes, and
if you haven’t checked out Noble Beast, you need to get with the program,
posthaste. I first heard Noble Beast at last year’s WOM Fest
pre-party, and thought they were great. Now that their first
full-length CD has been released, and I’ve had a couple of months to absorb the
songs, I was primed and ready for a grade-A Noble Beast ass-kicking.
And that’s precisely what I got. They were terrific,
punching through seven songs from the debut album at high velocity.
“Iron Clad Angels” started things off with a bang, melting faces with
such alacrity that Datis called out afterwards, “play a fast song.”
New drummer with the gigantic afro did a nice job, and the
band even withstood guitarist Matt Hodsdon’s broken string mishap without
missing a beat. Guitarist/vocalist Sir Robert was, as usual,
hilarious, spouting off between songs about Venn diagrams (“do you like fast
songs? Do you like heavy songs?”), questioning what we are all doing with our
lives (“it’s noon on a Friday – don’t you people have jobs?”), and giving
props to the other bands and to WOM Fest (“you might find your new favorite band
at this festival”). My only criticism of the Noble Beast set
was that they didn’t play two of my favorite tunes, “On Wings of Steel” and
“Nothing to Repent,” but what they did perform was so killer that there was
really no room for grousing or complaining. Again, if you
haven’t heard them, check out Noble Beast!
Setlist: Iron-Clad Angels, Behold the
Face of Your Enemy, The Dragon Reborn, Disintegrating Force, We Burn, Master of
Depravity, The Noble Beast.
It was only 2 o’clock in the
afternoon, but WOM Fest VII was already firing on all cylinders.
Shredding guitarist extraordinaire and perennial WOM Fest artist Justin
Zych (has this guy ever not performed at WOM?) was back, pulling double-duty
today with Valhalla and Zephaniah. I prefer the latter (no
keyboards and barely any prog tendencies), but the former are a whole lot of fun
too. In addition to Zych, the two bands share vocalist Logan
Detwiler (he of the Transformers obsession, as Jen learned when she asked him
about his t-shirt), so the similarities are pronounced.
Valhalla were up first with their self-proclaimed shredding,
baby-making extravaganza. To my ears, Valhalla sounded
heavier, more guitar-centric, and less noodly self-indulgent this year than last
year. Is it because of the new songs? I
don’t know. But I do know their cover of Manowar’s “Hail and
Kill” damn near blew the roof off O’Shecky’s and whipped the crowd into a
frothing mass of Manowarriors. I also know that Zych blew
away the entire audience with his mind-boggling display of six-string
mastery. And I do know it was impossible to watch Valhalla
rock through their set without rocking a smile of my own.
Jen and I wholeheartedly support every band that takes the stage at WOM
Fest, but some are special in our hearts. One of those is
Connecticut’s Shallow Ground, who played the pre-party last year and hung
around the Frontier Ranch all weekend long. We became quite
fond of the guys, especially guitarist/singer Keith Letourneau and drummer Kurt
Ragis. Jen tells a very funny story about the time Keith
offered her some fruit salad last year. Plus, Shallow Ground
were the only true thrash act of the day (and one of the only thrash bands
booked this year), so we were pulling for them big-time. We
weren’t disappointed. Shallow Ground treated us to
razor-sharp thrash riffs courtesy of Letourneau and Tim Smith, and offered up
several selections from their debut album, including opener “Shallow Ground” and
killer live track “Whence They Came,” plus “The Black Rose” (I think, though I
could be mis-remembering) and “Prostitution.” A couple of new
tracks were also aired, one of which (“Class Warfare”) Keith very kindly
dedicated to me. New stuff sounded great, and definitely
whetted my appetite for Shallow Ground’s forthcoming second album.
Unfortunately, Shallow Ground got squeezed for time, through no fault of
their own, as their 50-minute set was compressed to 30 minutes.
The band understandably weren’t happy about it, but they finished off
triumphantly inviting George Call up onstage (George, God bless him, said “Let’s
hear it for Shallow Grave” before realizing his goof and correcting himself) for
a spot-on, unrehearsed romp through Judas Priest’s “Green Manalishi (with the
Two Pronged Crown).” This was yet another early highlight of
a festival that was littered with them.
All the way from Denver, Colorado, speedy power metal merchants
Cellador came to rock WOM Fest VII. Many will recall
that Cellador made quite a splash back in 2006 with their Metal Blade debut
album, ‘Enter Deception.’ It’s been a long, hard road for the
lads since then, with founding member Chris Petersen being the lone holdover
from the debut lineup. Unlike on ‘Enter Deception,’ Petersen
has added lead vocals to his guitar duties, and it turns out that he’s quite a
capable high-pitched soaring power metal vocalist. Cellador
are now promoting a strong self-released four-track EP entitled ‘Honor
Forth.’ The band are a five-piece, but only four of them were
onstage in Ohio, with Petersen deadpanning from the stage, “Our keyboard player
couldn’t make this trip, which is a shame, because he has a bad-ass
keytar.” The lack of keyboards in the live sound was welcomed
by me, as Cellador’s live sound was chock full of ripping guitar
goodness. Nearly every song was played at blinding speed (not
surprisingly, given Cellador’s tag in the Metal Blade days as “the American
Dragonforce”) but it sounded great. Most (perhaps all) of the
EP tracks were aired, along with at least a couple of stellar new songs (“Off
the Grid” stuck in mind as a particular scorcher). Of course,
there were also a few classics from ‘Enter Deception’ in the setlist, including
the damn near perfect trio of “Never Again,” “Forever Unbound” (Noble Beast’s
Sir Robert yelled from the audience, “hey, are you going to play ‘Forever
Unbound,’” and Petersen smiled and said, “Speak of the devil,” as the band
launched into that very tune) and closer “Leaving All Behind.”
The only negative about Cellador’s performance was that Petersen had some
kind of adverse physical reaction to the copious fog enshrouding the
stage. I felt really badly for the guy as he was in obvious
discomfort, trying to rub his irritated eyes, sing and play guitar, all at the
same time. When he asked for less stage fog, the fog machine
blew more of it onto the stage right on cue, prompting him to say, “Pretty much
the opposite of that.” But Petersen’s a trooper, and he gave
the gig everything he had, temporary blindness or no. Watch
out, boys and girls, because Cellador have risen from the ashes and are back and
ready to do some damage. Maybe nobody cares now that
Dragonforce seem to have fallen out of fashion, but I wouldn’t bet against
Cellador, based on today’s performance.
In my conversations with festival attendees about today’s lineup, the one
band that consistently made people’s eyes light up with anticipation was
Armory. The sextet rarely plays shows outside of their
native Massachusetts, and their two self-released discs (2007’s ‘The Dawn of
Enlightenment’ and last year’s ‘Empyreal Realms’) have an ardent cult following
amongst fans of Euro-style symphonic power metal, with epic songs, lush
arrangements and Tate-style vocals. Nowhere was the pent-up
demand for all things Armory more evident than at Merch Central, where Armory
did a brisk business all weekend long (particularly with their amazing $15
mix’n’match combo pack that included a CD, shirt, poster and
sticker). Before seeing Armory live, I would not have
characterized myself as a huge fan, although I owned and appreciated both their
albums. After seeing them, I think I now understand the magic
of Armory. They’re not the most dynamic live band you’ll ever
see, although the small, cramped stage may explain why the six of them didn’t
move around much. What makes Armory special, though, is their
propensity for glorious guitar melodies courtesy of Joe Kurland and Chad
Fisher. My goodness, just watching them during the
instrumental song, I was utterly transfixed by the glittering melodies the
guitarists created. Add in Adam Kurland’s powerful, spot-on,
expressive vocals on songs like “Fate Seeker,” and you have a recipe for epic
power metal bliss. It’s fair to conclude that sky-high
audience expectations were met and quite likely exceeded by Armory’s performance today.
It’s 6:30 p.m. on Friday, and the hits just keep on
coming. The pride of Rockville, Maryland, Burning
Shadows delivered a punchy 50-minute set of guitar-driven power metal
goodness with elements of the American (Iced Earth / Jag Panzer) and European
schools. Central to Burning Shadows’ live attack is the
booming voice of Tom Davy, and he sounded tremendous today on songs like the “A
Thousand Lies” medley, “Southwind,” and closer “Supernatural
Warfare.” Guitarists Tim Regan and Greg Jones were in fine
form, dishing out the riffs and solos seemingly without even breaking a
sweat. Burning Shadows also treated us to some unreleased
material off their forthcoming third full-length album, and it sounded
fantastic. These guys are a talented bunch with a fairly
unique slant on the oversaturated power metal genre, and would seem to have a
bright future ahead of them.
Boston’s Bad Karma were a late replacement to the
bill. I remember hearing about this long-running act back in
the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was going to school in Boston, though I
can’t for the life of me recall whether I ever witnessed them live back in the
day. Still going strong, the quartet is now readying an album
for release on Shadow Kingdom Records. They’ve also earned
the respect of their peers, with Steel Assassin’s John Falzone gushing about Bad
Karma from the stage on Saturday and
Meliah Rage’s Anthony Nichols having made the booking recommendation to bring
Bad Karma to WOM Fest in the first place. The Meliah Rage
connection is strengthened by the presence of that band’s powerhouse drummer
Stuart Dowie, who graciously lent his Ludwig drum kit to the festival to be
abused by two dozen drummers during the Friday and Saturday events. Bad Karma is
fronted by singer/guitarist Alec Dowie, whom Jen and I found to be an absolute
pleasure to deal with on merch stuff. He even kindly brought
me a CD-R copy of three songs so that I would have some Bad Karma recordings to
take home from the festival. Without question, a standout
feature of Bad Karma’s live attack is Alec’s unconventional guitar playing
technique. His right hand was injured many years ago in a
motorcycle accident, so he plays guitar exclusively with his left
hand. It’s really amazing to watch him up there rocking out
using just his left hand on the fretboard, ripping out smoking riffs and searing
leads. Watching Alec Dowie play guitar is like watching the
triumph of the human spirit because the man refused to quit doing what he loved
and, despite physical limitations, does it at a high level.
Between that and Stuart’s crushing drum technique, Bad Karma were a lot
of fun. To me, they sounded firmly in the Boston metal school
of bands like Wargasm and Meliah Rage, but with some trippier parts as
well. I was happy to have had the opportunity to see Bad
Karma, and the guys hung out at the festival all weekend long to support the other bands.
Few metal bands put on a more fun live show than WOM Fest staples
Lords of the Trident. These five wacky dudes from
Madison, Wisconsin played at WOM Fests III and IV, with vocalist
Ty/Fang/whatever showing up on his own the last two years.
For Lords of the Trident, WOM Fest was a tour stop, and as Fang explained
both on and off stage, the road has been unkind to our valiant heroes, who have
had to endure such indignities as tiny audiences, thieving promoters, and
vehicular breakdowns. It’s a long way to the top,
y’all. Still, they’ve kept their good humor and their high
energy intact. If you’ve never had the pleasure, Lords of the
Trident wear ridiculous costumes (singer is an armored warrior, guitarists as
gladiator and veiled martial artist, bassist as grim reaper, etc.) and use a
staggering array of props during their set. Fang shot
multiple blasts of confetti into the audience (much of which seemed to land in
the Noble Beast drummer’s afro) from trident-shaped devices, wielded plastic
swords and shields, goofed around with a flaming microphone and a flaming
plastic video-game guitar, and even ran into the audience to “slay” us all with
plastic axe and cleaver. The gimmick would be entertaining
enough on its own merit, but what puts Lords of the Trident over the top is
their songcraft, as their material is simple, catchy, 80s metal excellence,
typically at a midtempo with occasional forays into speed (see “Complete
Control”). At one point, Fang fooled us all by talking about
how they were going to play a heavy metalized cover of a Garth Brooks song
because they’d been touring in the South. That cover turned
out to be a face-melting rendition of Judas Priest’s “Screaming for
Vengeance.” Heh. There were a bunch of new
songs in the setlist tonight but I was pleased to hear the familiar strains of
“Complete Control,” “Face of the Enemy,” “Chains on Fire,” and closer “Skyforce”
in the mix. The band were apparently poised to perform
personal favorite “The Metal Seas,” as Fang was about to unfurl a pirate flag
for this sea shanty, but then he realized they were almost out of time so the
tune was jettisoned in favor of crowd-pleasing singalong “Skyforce.”
Support Lords of the Trident. They deserve
it. Their stage presentation is goofy, absurd, and completely
over the top, but you’ll find yourself laughing and cheering and jumping up and
down like the two little girls standing right in front of me.
And like I said, the songs are good, no, very good, so it’s not like the
gimmick is camouflaging a lack of substance or songwriting acumen.
Fare thee well, Lords of the Trident, and I’ll be watching for that new
disc as we sail the metal sea.
A much-heralded reunion at this year’s WOM Fest was the reactivation of
Ft. Wayne, Indiana’s Zephaniah. Back in 2008,
Zephaniah self-released a fantastic album called ‘Stories from the Book of
Metal,’ which was like a cross between Dragonforce and Manowar-style true metal,
with the incomparable Justin Zych on guitar. The Zephaniah
live shows became legendary for the “tricks” the musicians would pull off (more
about those later); however, Zych eventually moved onto other musical
priorities, such as Argonaut and Valhalla, and Zephaniah was relegated to the
dustbin of history. Until now. For
whatever reason, Zych, vocalist Logan Detwiler, and bassist Ian Bender decided
to re-launch Zephaniah with a new drummer and second guitarist.
There is talk of a new album, with the artwork and title ‘Reforged’
having already been made public. Not sure if tonight was the
first reunion show for Zephaniah or not, but it felt like a momentous occasion
nonetheless. Eschewing the new material altogether, Zephaniah
raced through the bulk of their ‘Stories from the Book of Metal’
disc. Admittedly, I hadn’t heard the album in quite some
time, so I was pleasantly surprised at how well I remembered tunes like “Sword
of the King,” “Fight for Love,” “Blackbeard’s Revenge,” and “Flame of the
Dragon.” Did I play the CD that much a few years ago, or are
the songs just *that* good that they’re etched permanently in my
brain? It may be a combination of the two, but I tend to
credit the latter. These are just great, catchy, intensely
memorable songs with excellent choruses and vocal lines, plus riffs for
miles. Oh yes, the tricks were back too.
At one point, Detwiler warned us, “You’re gonna see some shit
now.” The two guitarists faced each other, with each slinging
his guitar across his back. They then leaned over each
other’s shoulders, and proceeded to shred on each other’s guitars.
Wow! It happened again later, when the two guitarists
and bass player stood in a circle, axes in front of them, then leaned over and
played each other’s instruments. It’s about the coolest thing
you ever saw, and is definitely “some shit.” So glad to see
that Zephaniah brought back these outrageous tricks. Man,
after tonight’s performance, I am very stoked indeed for the new Zephaniah
album. If they can deliver songs of the quality of those on
the debut, and inject the fire of their live performance, then ‘Reforged’ may be
a monster of a reunion album, truly.
As the clock struck midnight, there was only one more band left to grace
O’Shecky’s stage today, in the form of Texas favorites ASKA, who last
played WOM Fest in 2011 when Daryl Norton was still in the band playing guitar,
Chris Menta had just joined the band playing guitar, George Call had hung up his
axe to focus on singing, and bedrock bassist Keith Knight was still in the
fold. Fast-forward to 2014, and Norton, Menta and Knight have
all departed, with only Call and drummer Danny White remaining.
Call plays guitar again (tonight he was favoring a Confederate
flag-adorned guitar that no doubt curried favor with the Brazen Angel members in
attendance, especially when he added a miniature Confederate flag to the
headstock), Dave Harvey is on the bass (he’s been in the band for two years or
so), and young-gun guitarist Bryant Contreras is now a fixture on George’s
right-hand side. Jen and I saw Bryant’s first show with ASKA
in February in Houston. As expected, he seemed far more
comfortable and at-ease tonight, which was good to see. ASKA
came out breathing fire, following a few rough days on tour (including what
sounds like a trying show in St. Louis the night before WOM Fest
began). The setlist was strewn with one ASKA classic after
another, including three of the standout tracks off their new ‘Fire Eater’ disc
(“Everyone Dies,” crowd favorite “Dead Again,” and testosterone-pumping
“Valhalla,” which George dedicated to the band of the same name).
It was also great to hear the band dust off a couple of rarely-performed
older tunes, in the form of “Immortal” (killer song) and “Leprosy” (not my
favorite with its AC/DC stomp, but it always goes down a storm
live). As they’ve done for a few years, ASKA also peppered
their set with a few well-known metal covers, in the form of “The Trooper,”
“Breaking the Law,” and “Seek and Destroy.” I would have
preferred three more ASKA originals, but I understand the reason for the covers
and certainly nobody else seems to mind. “Breaking the Law”
was actually a special moment, inasmuch as ASKA invited Helstar vocalist James
Rivera up onstage for a totally unrehearsed, impromptu go at the Priest
classic. Rivera clearly had no idea what song they were going
to play, although “Breaking the Law” was a piece of cake for him given his
activities in the Sabbath Judas Sabbath tribute band. Before
the song began, Rivera commented at how blown away he was by ASKA’s performance
tonight and then laughed at George’s hoarse speaking voice, marveling, “How can
you talk like *that* when you sing like *that*?” I’ve often
wondered the same thing myself, James. It was hilarious, but
more importantly, it was really special to see these two Texas legends who have
meant so much to WOM Fest over the years together on the same stage having a
little fun. Another memorable moment of the set came after
“Crown of Thorns,” when the band were notified that they only had time for one
more song. Still wearing his leather jacket and somehow not
passed out from heat exhaustion, George opened up the floor to
requests. Somebody called out for “old ASKA,” somebody else
requested “Killashandra” (huh? I like the song, but that’s
not how you close out a blistering 90-minute set). To me, the
choice was clear: “Invasion.” So I gave a
shout for that one. George heard, and he
approved. Every ASKA show should end with
“Invasion.” That song lays waste to all in its path, leaving
only smoking, twisted wreckage in its wake. Such was the case
tonight, and the gig ended with me (and every other person in the room) being
happy campers indeed. Setlist: Angels of War,
Stalker, Dead Again, Leprosy, The Trooper, Longships, Everyone Dies, Immortal,
Valkyries, Breaking the Law (with James Rivera), Valhalla, Leather, Seek and
Destroy, Crown of Thorns, Invasion.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
It was a novel feeling to awaken on a WOM Fest Saturday morning and
not feel totally obliterated. Usually by the time a WOM Saturday rolls around, we’re bleary-eyed from lack of
sleep at the campsite, smelly from multiple days without a proper shower, itchy
from numerous bug bites, and generally feeling pretty rough.
Today, we woke up in our nice clean hotel bed feeling fresh as a
daisy. We paid the day’s weather forecast scant attention,
and didn’t even raise an eyebrow (much less furrow a brow) when the heavens
unleashed a torrential downpour on Columbus this afternoon.
Had we been in an open-air setting, the storm would have been calamitous;
however, from the dry comfort of O’Shecky’s, it wasn’t even a blip on the
day. Yeah, I don’t much miss the open-air format of past years.
Once again, the music kicked off at high noon today, so Jen and I were
back at the venue by 11:00 a.m. to
reconfigure Merch Central in a manner that highlighted today’s
bands. First live act I caught today was the highly-touted
Long Island combo, Shadowstrike. When they hit the
stage, I was still occupied at Merch Central, so I couldn’t see them, but I
could hear them distinctly in the largely empty hall.
Shadowstrike’s music sounded like a killer form of epic symphonic power
metal, so I abandoned my merch post to take a gander. It was
a pleasant surprise to see that the five people creating this spellbinding sound
were relative youngsters; indeed, age-wise Shadowstrike just might have been the
youngest band of the Festival proper this year. They’ve
packed a lot of talent into their tender years, and the venue was quite properly
abuzz about them for the rest of the day, with seveal folks coming over to Merch
Central breathlessly seeking a copy of their debut EP, ‘Infinite
Power.’ All of that said, I do think that Shadowstrike has
room to improve on their largely-static live presentation.
I’d like to see them moving around the stage and rocking out just a bit,
instead of being glued to their spots and staring at their fingers.
My strong suspicion is that the visual aspect of performing will come in
time for Shadowstrike as they grow in self-confidence, poise and
experience. For now, though, they’re working from a fine
batch of songs, which is an excellent start indeed.
Adding to the list of last year’s pre-party bands earning mainstage spots
in 2014 (see Shallow Ground and Noble Beast) was Crusader.
Hailing from the Windy City, this quintet screams classic metal to the
core, musically, lyrically and visually. Diminutive frontman
Hoagie is quite a sight onstage, with his black mane of hair whipping around and
his leather-gauntleted fists flying. They performed much of
their Stormspell Records debut CD, ‘Onward into Battle,’ today, which is fine by
me because that album is highly recommended to fans of the true metal
revival. I did not get to witness their entire set, but I did
see Crusader rip through “Hopeless Destiny,” “Dead Kings,” “Onward into Battle,”
“Asgard’s Fire,” and “Iron Forge” from the album, as well as a raw, blistering
run through the Venom classic, “Witching Hour.” Damn, why
don’t more bands cover Venom? Sure, they were never the most
talented band in the world, but those early Venom songs stand the test of time
and rock mightily to this day. Overall, I was highly
impressed with Crusader’s gig and will be following their exploits closely in
the future, as they’ve got bucketloads of talent and heart.
Today’s “oddball” band was Mithridium, a local Columbus, Ohio act
that played the mainstage early in the morning on the last day of WOM Fest
VI. They don’t fit neatly within the power/trad/classic metal
parameters of the Fest, being more modern and a bit harsher in their
approach. I actually think that works to Mithridium’s
advantage, though. Some two dozen bands deep into the Fest,
it was refreshing to have a change of pace with a band working somewhat outside
the stylistic boxes inhabited by their colleagues. It also
helps matters that the Mithridium boys are great friends of WOM Fest, having
hung out all year at least year’s event and having provided myriad support and
assistance to Datis & Lea last year and this year. If I’m
not mistaken, it was Mithridium’s suggestion to hold the Fest at O’Shecky’s Live
this year. Drummer Tony Kaliszewski graciously lent his kit
to the pre-party for WOM Fests VI and VII, and always seemed to be standing
nearby the stage as a “drum tech on-call” whenever a need arose this
weekend. The point is that it’s really easy to root for a
band comprised of good guys, and Mithridium fit that bill.
And of course it doesn’t hurt that guitarist/vocalist Eric Slone is an
imposing frontman and the material is powerful, punishing even, without
sacrificing melody. I never would have heard or seen this
band without WOM Fest, but I sure am glad I did.
I debated whether or not to include A Tortured Soul in my
narrative of WOM Fest VII, simply because I was only able to observe a couple of
songs from their set. In the interest of completeness,
though, I pass along these fragmentary impressions, with a caveat that I didn’t
get to see much. A Tortured Soul is a Wisconsin band that
tapped into the occult Mercyful Fate sound long before it became “cool” to do so
(i.e., well before the hordes of imitators like Portrait, In Solitude,
Attic, Trial, and so on began streaming out of the woodwork).
Because timing is everything, A Tortured Soul have not enjoyed the
acclaim that some of these newer acts have; however, there’s much to recommend
their recorded output, particularly their 2010 ‘Lucifer’s Fate’ opus on Pure
Steel Records. Bald, sunglass-wearing singer Rick Black wins
the award for “best microphone stand of the Fest,” hands-down.
Black brandished a shiny silver chain stand with protruding sharp points
to either side near the base. It looked hella
cool. The songs I heard A Tortured Soul perform were mostly
new tunes that regrettably did not leave much of an impression on me musically
(not enough KD-style falsetto in the vocals either), and it didn’t help that the
band members (save Black) mostly stood in place without even looking
up. Still, after I made it back to Merch Central I heard the
strains of “Reign,” a truly haunting piece from the ‘Lucifer’s Fate’ album that
sounded fantastic. I was thrilled that they played it.
It seems beyond debate that A Sound of Thunder are a band on the
rise. They’ve developed a rabid following in their home
territory of D.C./Maryland/Virginia, so much so that they eclipsed their
Kickstarter crowdfunding goal for their forthcoming fourth album by a factor of
2.5. They’re insanely dedicated to their craft, as evidenced
by the fact that they will be releasing two albums in the coming months and are
well into the production of album #6 already! And – here’s an
important one – A Sound of Thunder have developed their own sound.
They don’t sound like any other band, they hopscotch gracefully across
stylistic borders and boundaries, and yet their material is unabashedly metal
and has a certain cohesiveness to it that makes it all sound like
ASoT. They’ve improved markedly as a live act each time I’ve
seen them, and today was definitely the strongest A Sound of Thunder performance
I’ve witnessed. Lanky bassist Jesse Keen lurches around the
right side of the stage, while guitarist Josh Schwartz (he of the headstock-less
guitar) rocks out in a more stationary way, his head seemingly on a
swivel. Custom leather-clad singer Nina Osegueda (our first
of three female singers today) has a dynamic voice that seems equally suited for
banshee shrieks and smooth crooning (not that we heard much of the latter today
since “I’ll Walk With You” wasn’t on the setlist). And
drummer Chris Haren complements his bandmates perfectly. A
Sound of Thunder have the whole package, including a phenomenal catalog of songs
that translate effectively in a live setting. The
almost-thrashy hockey-themed “Power Play” and Raven-esque “Out of the Darkness”
are gigantic adrenaline rushes. The anthemic stuff like “I
Will Not Break” thumps along defiantly. And the big epic
quirky stuff like “Time’s Arrow” works brilliantly too. To
their credit, the band changed up their setlist on the fly, dropping “The Day I
Die” and adding the tongue-in-cheek “Kill that Bitch” at the request of multiple
audience members. It’s a wise band that listens to its fans
and gives the people what they want, even if they confuse the hell out of their
drummer in the process. Kudos to A Sound of Thunder for
delivering a crushing set at WOM Fest, despite arriving on the premises from
last night’s New Jersey tour stop just minutes before they were supposed to hit
the stage. Bring on ‘Lesser Key of Solomon’!!!
Setlist: Queen of Hell, Time’s Arrow, I Will Not Break,
Kill that Bitch, Power Play, Out of the Darkness, Blood Vomit, A Sound of Thunder.
It’s hard to imagine that a band would travel all the way from Australia
to perform at the WOM Fest, but it happened this year with Darker
Half. The Sydney-based quartet arrived in the USA several
weeks ago and has been crisscrossing the country playing occasional gigs and
doing lots of sightseeing. I was really proud of the WOM Fest
family for welcoming our guests with open arms, for supporting them onstage
(many of the audience members consisting of band members that had played shows
with Darker Half earlier on their US run), and for buying a shit-ton of their
merch. Darker Half are supporting their brand-new third
album, ‘Never Surrender,’ which is interesting because it contains new songs as
well as re-recorded versions of old songs from the band’s first two
albums. This arrangement made it very easy for a fan because
all eight tunes Darker Half performed today are found on ‘Never Surrender’ even
though, as frontman Vo Simpson put it, a couple of the tracks aired are known as
the “old songs” back home, “but they’re all new to you.”
Darker Half are a twin-guitar melodic power metal band, with high-pitched
vocals and the occasional adventurous element in their songwriting.
Right away, they endeared themselves to the crowd.
When they launched into their second tune, “End of the Line,” something
went drastically wrong with the bass drum pedal, prompting drummer Dom Simpson
to start waving his arms frantically for the band to stop.
They did, then Vo cracked a joke about how in Australia, they start
playing a song, then pretend like they screwed it up and start over, so they can
get everybody to pay attention when they play it the second time.
In general, Darker Half came across as a very polished, professional live
band. All the necessary elements were present:
Cool songs, great performances, high energy, and headbanging
aplenty. It was a bold move for Darker Half to cross the
great wide sea and grace us with their presence; however, their being here
definitely enriched the WOM Fest VII experience for all.
Thanks and cheers, mates. Setlist
(sequence may not be exact): Nemesis, End of the Line, Never
Surrender, As Darkness Fades, Blinded by Darkness, Stranger, Heads Are Gonna
Roll, Duality.
Here’s something you don’t see every day: A local
thrash band that broke up in 1989 playing a reunion show at Warriors of Metal
Fest as a one-off, with no apparent plans for any other gigs.
But it happened tonight in the form of Restless Breed.
I wasn’t familiar with the band back in the day, but stellar indie label
Stormspell Records recently released a CD anthology of their demos as part of
the label’s Red, White & Heavy series. The recordings on
that ‘No Walls Can Hold’ anthology certainly sounded above-average for late 80s
thrash, so I was looking forward to checking them out. And
Restless Breed did a solid for WOM Fest by drawing a decent number of locals to
attend the Fest, and some of them even stuck around to watch other bands, which
is great. Unfortunately, I got tied up with some Merch
Central business that kept me from witnessing much of Restless Breed’s set,
although did get there for 3-4 songs, including “Matter over Mind” and “Those
That Never Were,” as well as a couple of others. Hulking
vocalist Dave Cowgill, he of the close-cropped hair and denim jacket, may have
dropped the high-end notes he sang in the old days, but he still sounded
convincing. No idea how many of the other members onstage
were part of an original lineup, but all impressed and the unit sounded tight
and well-rehearsed. It was great to see that Restless Breed
seemingly took so much care and exercised so much diligence in making certain
this one-off show was a full-on, no-holds-barred Restless Breed
experience. Wish I could’ve seen more, but like I say, I was
grateful for the part of their gig I was able to catch.
Here’s where I lose all semblance of objectivity.
There were many great performances at WOM Fest VI in 2013.
My favorite was Boston’s Steel Assassin, a band I’ve long adored
but never expected to see live. They blew me away at the
Frontier Ranch with their killer songs, old-school approach, and massively
intense and energetic performance. After WOM VI, I made sure
Datis knew how badly I wanted them back for WOM VII, and god bless him, Datis
the magic man made it happen. There were a few anxious
moments about Steel Assassin today. Bassist Phil Grasso
revealed to me that they hadn’t played a single show since last year’s Warriors
of Metal Fest, and drily predicted that tonight’s gig would be
“interesting.” Singer John Falzone, who apparently lives in
Tennessee, encountered travel delays driving to Columbus and did not arrive at
O’Shecky’s until just minutes before Steel Assassin were to take the stage.
Thankfully, the metal gods were smiling on Steel Assassin,
and everything worked out in the end. How was their
gig? In all honesty, it’s an open question whether their 2013
or their 2014 performance was better. Yes, they were *that*
good tonight. Falzone is a truly intense frontman, barking
out the lyrics at full power as the veins bulge on his neck and the sweat pours
from his brow. Guitarists Mike Mooney and Kevin Curran are a
perfectly synced-up six-string tandem that weave heavy metal magic with every
riff, solo and harmony. Grasso is in constant motion, bobbing
his head and working the stage with boundless energy. And
drummer Greg Michalowski not only delivers the thunderous beats but also
contributes backing vocals. One of my favorite aspects of
this gig was that Steel Assassin varied up their setlist from last
year. Given how rarely they play live, the predictable course
of action would have been just to play the same songs as last year.
But Steel Assassin didn’t do that; instead, they treated us to songs like
the awesome “Hawkwood” (arguably my favorite tune on ‘War of the Eight Saints’),
the classy “Sword in the Stone” (which Falzone introduced by saying it was his
audition on that song that earned him a place in the band), the superb
“Phaeton,” and the ripping “Merchants of Force,” as well as a cool closing cover
of Saxon’s “Denim and Leather,” none of which were played last year.
I dearly love this band and I hope that, somehow, someway, the guys are
able to find a way to keep it going despite geographic distances and the
busy-ness and complications of life. Whatever happens, I will
not forget how hard Steel Assassin rocked WOM Fest VII. (One
last note: There was a guy with a pro video camera filming
the band’s entire set. Perhaps that footage will see the
light someday as an official Steel Assassin DVD. A guy can
dream can’t he?) Setlist: Breakout at St. Lo,
Hawkwood, God Save London, Blitzkrieg Demons, Sword in the Stone, The Wolfpack,
Phaeton, Merchants of Force, Denim and Leather.
A very special bonus to WOM Fest VII was that Benedictum’s set was
preceded by a four-song mini-set by none other than Leather Leone
of Chastain fame, with three-fourths of Benedictum serving as her
backing band. I have long admired Leather’s work with
Chastain, and always felt that her voice was the template for what a female
heavy metal singer should be: powerful and tough, but melodic and
expressive. Admittedly, we are now many years removed from
Leather’s Chastain heyday with albums like ‘The 7th of Never’ and ‘Voice of the Cult’
(although, to be fair, she did sing on Chastain’s 2013 release, ‘Surrender to No
One’). Moments after she hit the stage this evening, however,
Leather conclusively eradicated all doubts about the present state of her
abilities. Holy crap, she sounded awesome, with every ounce
of the power, conviction and range she displayed on those 1980s Chastain
albums. It was amazing. I think the entire
audience at O’Shecky’s was mesmerized by her, with all of us knowing
instinctively that we were witnessing something really special.
Hell, even Josh Schwartz of A Sound of Thunder had given me a heads-up to
be sure not to miss Leather’s performance (ASoT had been on the road with
Benedictum for the last couple of days, so he knew what was in
store). He was so right. Leather
ruled. Her set consisted of three bona fide Chastain classics
plus one song off the new album. It was a beautiful thing and
a positively spine-tingling experience. I’m so glad I
witnessed it. Hats off to Leather, to Pete Wells and the rest
of Benedictum, and to Datis for making it happen.
Setlist: For Those Who Dare, Ruler of the Wasteland, Evil
Awaits Us, Angel of Mercy.
It was like tag-team wrestling: As soon as Leather’s
four songs were finished, she tagged out, and Veronica Freeman tagged in for
Benedictum time. The band tore through “Fractured,”
the opening track of their latest opus, ‘Obey,’ and it was off to the
races. (Well, almost. Drummer Rikard
Stjernquist killed his snare drum early on, causing a very brief delay while
Steel Assassin’s Greg Michalowski furnished his as a replacement.)
Freeman is an imposing frontwoman, with her stacked heels and piercing
voice cutting through the din with power aplenty as she whips the audience into
a frenzy. To her right, amiable guitarist Pete Wells exudes
cool, churning out mighty riffs with a faint smile on his lips that belies his
hulking stature. Interestingly, Benedictum focused their
setlist heavily on the new album, foregoing anything from ‘Seasons of Tragedy’
(my personal favorite Benedictum disc) from the set. But
that’s okay because the new songs sounded awesome. “Obey”
featured Veronica snapping at the air with a leather whip.
Closer “Retrograde” was epic and beautiful, just a great
song. And the older tunes were well chosen.
“Benedictum” inspired the “In Nomine, In Nomine” singalong in the chorus
(with Veronica even lending me the mike to belt out a couple of lines,
inflicting unspeakable pain on the ears of the poor WOM Fest souls).
“Wicca” was performed by request, apparently at the urging of ASKA
bassist Dave Harvey, who was right near the stage for the Benedictum
gig. “The Shadowlands” was introduced as a song for all of
those who have battled depression. By contrast, “Bang” got
the party vibe going strong, with Veronica kicking off her high heels and
inviting Leather Leone and Nina Osegueda on stage for a fun singalong, even if
Nina looked a bit confused as to what her role was supposed to be.
Benedictum even aired a new song that is part of what is apparently an
ongoing collaboration between the band and Leather Leone. It
was called “Kiss My Lips” and had, ahem, provocative lyrical content that will
surely elicit polarizing reactions from the fanbase.
Altogether, the Benedictum gig was very cool.
Setlist (approximate, since my brain was pretty well fried
on metal at this time): Fractured, Apex Nation, The
Shadowlands, Benedictum, Wicca, Evil that We Do, Obey, Bang, Kiss My Lips,
Retrograde.
Just like that, WOM Fest VII was reduced to one final band.
It was only fitting that, if this was to be the Festival’s swansong,
James Rivera and Helstar be the ones to close it out.
Over the last few years, Rivera has become an integral part of the WOM
Fest family, from headlining WOM Fest V with Helstar, to stepping up at the last
minute to headline WOM Fest VI as a solo artist, to closing the curtain on WOM
Fest VII with Helstar. The circle is now
complete. Initially, I did feel pangs of disappointment when
Helstar took the stage. It just didn’t feel the same without
hyperspastic bassist Jerry Abarca (sidelined for the last year or so because of
a chronic ailment) and stalwart guitarist Rob Trevino (apparently sidelined
temporarily by health problems of his own). However, the show
must go on, and the fill-in players performed admirably, particularly the young,
bald-haired goateed guitarist who stepped in for Trevino. He
told me later it was only his fourth Helstar gig, but he nailed his parts and
seemed totally comfortable, judging by the way he rocked out.
Rivera came out on stage wearing a horned latex skull mask (the
embodiment of the character depicted on the cover art of ‘This Wicked Nest,’ I
suppose) but ditched it after the first song. Tonight’s
setlist was very cool. Aside from rightfully emphasizing the
newly released ‘This Wicked Nest’ album, Helstar touched on every single studio
album in their history, thereby ensuring that everyone in the audience would be
satisfied. Me, I was partial to the old-school stuff like
“The King is Dead,” “Evil Reign,” and “Baptized in Blood,” but everything
sounded awesome. In honor of the 30th anniversary of Helstar’s debut
album, ‘Burning Star,’ the band devoted their encore to selections from that
disc, most of which have held up well over the years. Over
the course of the set, there were more technical issues with the drums,
prompting Rivera to lead the crowd in a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” to
Brazen Angel’s Joey and Mithridium’s Tony. Also, the
O’Shecky’s owner seized the moment to grab the microphone and thank all of the
great bands and fans at WOM Fest VII, with special thanks to Datis, Lea and
James Rivera himself. Cool gesture by a cool bar owner who
“gets it” and treated us WOM Fest folks far better than he had to, despite
super-long hours, less-than-exciting attendance figures, and (no doubt)
unimpressive bar receipts. O’Shecky’s was a godsend for this
Fest. Anyway, the Helstar set closed, appropriately enough,
with a supercharged version of “Run with the Pack,” a classic singalong
number. Maybe it’s the last song that will ever be performed
at a WOM Fest. If so, then we went out on top.
Afterwards, Rivera and bandmates hung out with the fans near Merch
Central until the last person had left. Classy, classy act,
that Helstar. Setlist (may not be
exact): Fall of Dominion, Pandemonium, Tormentor, Good Day to
Die, Eternal Black, The King is Dead, This Wicked Nest, King of Hell, Evil
Reign, It Has Risen, Baptized in Blood. Encore:
Burning Star, Toward the Unknown, Witch’s Eye, Dracula’s Castle, Run with the Pack.
I’m not going to lie: I felt this overwhelming sense
of sadness when WOM Fest VII came to a close. For all of its
quirks and foibles, this Fest has been at the bedrock of Jen’s and my summer
plans for the last five years. Thanks to WOM Fest, we’ve seen
incredible live performances, discovered great new bands, and made lifelong
friends. The notion that there may not be another was
difficult to wrap our minds around. So we took our sweet time
with photos, hugs and goodbyes to our many WOM Fest friends.
You all rule, and we look forward to seeing you somewhere on the
road. I won’t start naming names because I’d invariably leave
somebody out, but you all know who you are. Cheers, and good night …
~ Review by Kit Ekman ~