### New England Metal and Hardcore Festival, 2006-04-28/29/30

#### 20/06/06 || Global Domination

This report was written by ex-staffer/cocksmoker Desert Eagle.

Note by The Lord: We were offered to borrow pictures for this review from Return to the pit, but we are way too fucken lazy to resize them and work with them, so we just tell you to go to that site and check them out. If you can find them that is. Now I’ll leave you poor bastards in emo-kid Desert Eagle’s hands. May the warts be with you. You have all so deserved those warts.

Ah, Metalfest. Where would we be without your mass-gatherings of sweaty, ugly, metal-fans? Or rather, sweaty and ugly metal AND hardcore fans?

But, I digress. The New England Metal and Hardcore Festival has been going on for quite some time but this was the first one I ever attended. Overall I would describe my first experience as being both filled with excitement and disappointment. Kind of like getting a puppy for Christmas and then having it die the next day. Although, that might be more sad than disappointing. I bet the puppy’s parents would be disappointed that little fucker failed at living.

NOW! On to the bands, in the order that I think I saw them. Keep in mind that I obviously didn’t see every single band. That’s just not possible. Plus a lot of bands sucked, probably ones that you like for some reason. I don’t know why you like those shitty bands man. What’s up with that?

Ok, so first up was The Absence. First that I remember seeing anyways, and as expected, they were sick. “Sick” meaning great for all you that aren’t “in the know”. The singer had a decent stage-presence though he seemed a bit new to the whole “performing in front of a live audience” thing. But hey, whatever, I give him an A for effort. They also didn’t play the one song I wanted to hear, but that’s ok.

Keeping with bands that start with “A”, the next band I saw was Arsis. Wow. Seriously, just wow. For one thing, no one informed me that the singer was also the leadguitarist. That was mighty impressive shit. He could shred and sing at the same time. Color me impressed, which is a deep burgundy. Have I made that joke before? I feel I have. That is so my kind of humor. Anyways, for those unfamiliar with what Arsis sounds like, then I shall describe them as “awesome”. And “sick”. “Awesomely sick”. Much like any other metal-band they stood there and cranked out a few songs and that was it. But, that’s pretty much what I expected so I’ll give them an 8. Did I give The Absence a score? Shit! I didn’t. Ok, I give The Absence an 8 too. Hm, 8.1. Ok, moving on…

Up next, I missed fucking Suicide Silence! SHIT! I give my anger on that one a 7. I could have been more pissed.

The next few bands blur together unimpressively. I give the blur a 4.

Dead to Fall, however, phew! I mean, right?! Jon really knows how to work a crowd. Either that or Dead to Fall fans really know how to go to Metalfest. Which is actually pretty easy. I mean you just buy a ticket and go in. But yeah, Dead to Fall was fun as fuck to watch because the crowd went nuts, doing circle pits and the chum hands and all that crap. The music is ok but the audience’s participation really makes this band. I’m sure you metal-idiots will never understand that. I give you guys a fucken 3. Dead to Fall gets an 8.

That last paragraph gets a 6. I could have done better, I’m sorry.

Up next was If Hope Dies, who were actually pretty damn good. Their latest CD is rather average but live it came out better. Unfortunately the crowd was not into them at all. So I feel kind of bad for the band, except for the bassist. The dude must have tourettes or something because he was going BONKERS. Shit, that word is lame. He was going APE-DICK. Much better! It looked like he was having seizures, lots and lots of seizures. The music they play is basically metalcore. So yeah, enjoy! I give them a 7.

The next band was a band I was really looking forward to seeing. Through the Eyes of the Dead. In all honesty I was just looking forward to seeing them play this one part in a song I like. The drums are all PBBBBBBPPBPPBPBPBPBPBPPBPB. I wanted to see if they could do it, you know? And they did! But, really, wasn’t that exciting. Overall they were rather boring. Again it was typical American bullshit. So, 5.

HOLY SHIT, ACACIA STRAIN! CUMMM! Ok, so I really enjoy this band, I am very biased here. I was disappointed Vincent didn’t give up the mike at all, but it’s cool. They still put on quite a show anyways. They all had wireless equipment so everyone was jumping around and acting like fools and it was really just a lot of fun. These guys are a great band to see live. They play heavy fuckin’ metalcore. Or whatever you want to call it. Fuck this label-shit. They’re god damned heavy and they play great music and their liveshow is awesome. At the end one of the Dan’s jumped into the crowd and totally kicked my friend in the head. Fucken sick. 9.

After them was Still Remains… Oh shit why are the Red Chord on stage? HOLY SHIT! RED CHORD SPECIAL SECRET SET! Wow, fucken sick. There was free time due to bands dropping off or something and The Red Chord were in the area so they played a few songs. Damn near stole the show too. They are probably THE most fun band to see live. 9.5.

Still Remains made me want to die. They played a cover of “Head Like a Hole” and it was one of the worst things ever. Especially when they added in a breakdown. WTF MAN! UGH. 3, I mean 2.

Hey, this kind of seems like an Audio Autopsy, only in live-concert form. So let me add a little non-music related shit. Ok, so I met a lot of cool people at the NHMF, like Bob from Prosthetic Records and Bambino from something and Doormouse from something else. I also met this total bitch Jen from Metal Blade. Hah! She’s not going to bother reading this anyways so whatever. Everything I say about music is correct! I also chatted up Seth from Acacia Strain and you know we talked about Myspace and other cool things like that. And Vincent too! We talked about giving up the mike. Is it mic? I don’t even know anymore. So yeah, lots of cool people at Metalfest. Oh, and Suzy Paradise too, she was rather keen. If you don’t know all these people then I guess you just aren’t cool enough and should be jealous.

Anyways some god awful band was after Still Remains and they sucked. 2.

I bet a lot of people would like to know what Necrophagist are like live. You can count me among those people since I missed them.

Or not. Hah! Fuckers. Yeah I saw them and they sounded fantastic. Some metal-dorks were doing a lame pushpit during their set so I didn’t even bother moshing. I just stood and listened to some Necro. And they pretty much just stood and played, which is fine I suppose. I really don’t expect too much from metal-bands, to be honest. As long as they play well and sound good then that’s all that I ask for. Necrophagist did exactly that so 9, ahoy!

ALOL=garbage. 1.

Between the Buried and Me closed the night. For me at least. As usual they picked an interesting array of songs. Maybe a few you wouldn’t expect, including motherfucking “Territory” by Sepultura. That was god damned awesome. A few dudes from some other bands ran on stage during the chorus and sang along. It was all great fun. I should mention that this happened quite a bit during Metalfest, but I won’t. BTBAM is probably one of my favorite bands at the moment so I must say I thoroughly enjoyed their set. I would recommend this bunch to anyone that’s willing to try something a little different. That’s all I’ll say about that! 9.

Alright, so what happened after BTBAM. Well, I had two, (yes two!) cheeseburger subs. You see a vendor outside the place had a ton of burgers but no buns, but he did have grinder rolls. So what he did was cut the burger in half and put the two slices in the grinder. Brilliant! Burger-subs get a fucken 10.

After that, me and my friend Dan went back to our hotelroom and hung out with some Canadian dudes and some broad. I tried to nail said broad but was unsuccessful. My attempt gets a 7 but my dick probably gives it a 3. Sorry little buddy! And by little I mean huge. I give my dick a 10.

I should also mention that the Canadian dudes brought some awesome beer called Kokanee or something, and it was delicious. So thanks for the beers guys!

Ok, day 2, judgement day. Or rather, the SECOND day.

I should first mention that I missed just about every band on the second stage. I could NOT care less.

The first band I remember seeing was Ion Dissonance. There’s this one part in a song of theirs where the lyrics go: “I am giving you a choice, kill yourself or someone you love”. That was really sick when they did that part. The rest however could be compared to putting your dick in a vacuum while it was on reverse. You know, windy. So, that sounds like a 5.

Into the Moat was fun.

Not really.

Or at all. 4

Skinless was way rad though. Or at least I think they were. I mean, I know I like them but now looking back on it I’m not even sure I saw them. So they were PROBABLY great. 8

The next band I really listened to after that was God Forbid. They put on a decent show but they didn’t play that one song I really wanted to hear. It’s always disappointing when that happens. Not too much went on in the pit during their set either I was again disappointed. I give the Metalfest-attendees a 4.

Suffocation probably stole that night for me. I hadn’t really listened to them before and was pleasantly surprised. The singer kept pointing to his chest for some reason too. Also the audience as well. Hmm, maybe he was hitting on everyone, I don’t really know… Definitely a brutal set though, and now that I recall this I should probably check out some of their albums. What do you think guys? Should I do it?

I guess I watched Overcast too but I was pretty much half-asleep and the band did nothing to change that.

So, after day two I went back to the room again with the intent of just going to bed. However, those Canadian dudes had other plans. They brought more beer and when others walked by the room and saw a bunch of us drinking, something of a party broke out. It almost got a little out of hand when I mentioned my hatred for Slayer and almost everyone in the room disagreed with me. Cowards. Also, at some point the singer from The Black Dahlia Murder walked in, wearing only his underpants and drank some of our vodka. Clearly he didn’t need anymore but hell, I wasn’t about to stop him. Eventually it all died down and I passed out, so that was cool.

Day three. Ugh. Seriously.

The highlight of that day, aside from seeing Into Eternity, was hanging out with most of the members from Into Eternity in a bar. I drank some Sam Addams and we discussed Canadian Indians and the bread they eat, among other things. It was all very fascinating, I’ll have to try that bread recipe some time (the recipe is Lysol + bread).

There were, I think, three good bands on Sunday. And NONE of them are Dragonforce. FUCK YOU DRAGONFORCE FANS. I hate their fans because they all bought Dragonforce-shirts on day three and were all wearing them. That is so powerfully lame. I need more alcohol. I give Dragonforce-fans a 1.

Protest The Hero is a band that probably none of you will like. Fuck it though, I love the little dudes. I mean that in the most endearing way possible too. Their music is all catchy and guitars are all shreddy. It’s really good shit, you guys. The vocals is probably what you’d all dislike because they’re not growls or power metal falsettos or whatnot. It’s just singing. I dunno, it’s good stupid. They get an 8.

I almost missed Byzantine. But I didn’t. Obviously. They went on early, but it’s alright because there wasn’t anything else going on upstairs so I was in the main-area anyways. They were great and had a good stage-presence. The singer claimed that they were nervous but I couldn’t tell. They’re a very weird band but I still dig them. Hmm.. ok… yeah, 8 sounds good for them too.

Into Eternity was the last band I saw on day three and I was a little disappointed that Rob, one of the guitarists, was absent! I never got the full story but there was a problem of some sort. Anyways, some other dude filled in and he was pretty good except he didn’t do the lead-harmony in the intro of “Splintered Visions”. Oh well, life goes on, right? The band put on quite a show, as always, and Stu was the same nut he always is. I probably would have enjoyed their set more if someone standing in front of me didn’t smell like TOTAL SHIT. But they did and it was so god damned bad. WASH YOUR ASS MAN! I give that fan a zero. It was cool seeing the original drummer, Jim, on the drums and he did an awesome job. Other than that I will say that Troy should probably always wear a backwards hat or people won’t know who he is. Into Eternity gets an 8.5.

Alright, so that was NEHMF for me. It was my first and hopefully not my last. Just so long as I keep getting in free I’ll keep going! I hope there is more debauchery next year though. It was pretty tame. I saw only a few bloodied people and there were no fires or police called. I am disappointed once again, Metalfest-fans. I give you all a 2.

Metalfest gets a low 7. Or a high 6. Whichever sounds better.

This review gets a fucken 10.