Blastonbury 2012 at The Well, Leeds (Sunday)
(review n pix by mwj)
Despite best efforts of crawling from hotel room, mooching records shops and hitting the pub for lunch we still managed to turn up in time for the first band of the second days’ worth of mental extreme noise attack. There was a righteously hungover atmosphere in the harsh daylight that Diseased Maggotectomy sought to blast away with some seemingly largely improvised grind workouts, a jam band for the organisers, the 5 minute set timetabled stretching out a bit but it was going to take a little more to get the day kick started properly. I was ever so slightly miffed that I couldn’t say I’d seen Fuck Right Off next as they’d, well, fucked right off but next we had the pleasure of Rectal Implosion. Another two-piece, I’d seen a version at the Day of Rapture gig recently but now the addition of live drums to the technical death/grind guitar really added another impressive dimension to them. Obviously having a lot of fun around the kit and providing the vocals too, with further genius sick pun titles. There are always some gloomy bastards to drag the party down though and Sloth Hammer (main pic) certainly brought things to an abrupt apocalypse by unleashing the opposite end of the grind spectrum, with a crushing leviathan doom dirge. Pretty much ad-libbed, reverberating bass with circuit bending, dual vocals, and a nekkid drummer with a massive sock. The sparks might have flown but most there just smile and enjoy the beating. Reversing the polarity once more Cheshire’s Colonel Blast (pic below bring a return to regimented order again, certainly containing the extremity that their name suggests but with a much more diverse mix within their metal sound, shifting through sections that include hardcore vibes and even post rock to contrast the furious riffing that is their mainstay. A guitarist down but even an early broken string on the other doesn’t let them break their stride and they go down well.
Liverpool’s Dr Aids are certainly a productive band and have a huge set of their short and sick celebrity/paedo obsessed ditties. It’s stripped down stuff with no technical flourish, the emphasis is on a good riff and the raw chaotic onslaught that brings to mind the ENT formula. Leeds’ Shoot the Bastard are a much newer band featuring The Afternoon Gentlemen’s drummer on guitar, and the clearer, less distorted sound of that is a noticeable feature of their sound. That doesn’t mean to say they are any less raging in their punky/power violence approach, good backing vocals too.
The joint organisers of our festivities bring Horrific Sexual Atrocity (pic above) to our ears next. With Wogghead having a great time pig grunting and squealing in among the crowd while Joe provides the trouserless grind guitar and vocals on stage, they are ably assisted by a laptop providing hyper-blasts, sick samples, and a porno running throughout. Definitive silly mayhem! Transferring the party to the beach with their Hawaiian shirts, shorts and sandals (all be it all drenched in blood), Gout (pic below) from London are spot on with their heavy and precise goregrind onslaught.
The vocalist from Living With Disfigurement returns but with a wholly bowels of hell eruption (must be some effects in there somewhere!) offset by further poetically funny titles, they really are a solid act. Same has to be said of the inspired Foetal Juice, whose storming old school death metal onslaught from the North west is a treat, powered along with some seemingly effortless drumming and with powerful roared vocals. Really are a polished article who deserve success.
With set time slippage, the previous 4 days/nights’ exertions catching up, lack of drink, a long drive, work early in the morning, and excuses, excuses, excuses the end was in sight for me. A rejigging of the order that guttingly robbed me of the opportunity of seeing the trampgrind intensity of The Afternoon Gentlemen by them moving to headliners, as well as the one man U.S. grind army Cemetery Rapist and sick Netherlands troop Anal Penetration. But to finish we still had the dubious pleasure of France’s Vaginotopsy, gimped up, sloppy and raw gore-grind struggling with emergency laptop drums, but with an ultra brutal twin vocal attack. It’s not exactly an anti-climax, though it might put you off your stroke, but I’ve had my satisfaction anyway with the weekend’s abuse. I think Saturday was the better day of the two but the whole thing has been a great crazy success and definitely brought a flavour of the Obscene Extreme vibe indoor to Leeds. All signs are good for more of the same here next year, get your grind on and check it out.