BLADES OF STEEL IV

I was hoping to split my coverage of the show with Mr. Theron Moore when fate stuck out its leg and tripped Theron in the worst way possible, leaving him with a broken leg just a week before the Fest. With a heavy orthopedic boot and having to come all the way from the burning sands of Albuquerque, there was just no way he could make it. So it was the Good Doctor left to soldier on by his lonesome…

As you likely already know, I look forward to making this big Randy Kastner promoted fest every year. Not only are the bands usually excellent, but it’s one of the few things that can pass for an actual social event for me...a chance to hook up with other metalheads and make new acquaintances. This year was special because I got to do a live interview with lethal lady thrashers NERVOSA, an occasion I enjoyed to the utmost because the Doc is usually not surrounded by hot women. Live ones, that is…

The festival went through the usual changes right up to the first day of the show. At one time, underground German thrash legends DARKNESS were scheduled, but I had a pretty good idea that would never come to pass. And it didn’t. The sleaze/hard rock veterans KILLER DWARFS was also supposed to make it in, but had to cancel...too bad, as they would have been something a little bit different from the norm.

At the end, we were left with a most intriguing metal festival with a lot of variety to it...a trademark of a Kastner promoted show and one I really appreciate. We had classic metal like LIEGE LORD and CIRITH UNGOL, female fronted power metal bands TELOMYRAS and QUEEN OF DREAMS, evil ripping thrash from GRAVE RIPPER, epic black metal from STORMRULER, misery-inducing sludge in EYEHATEGOD and something completely indescribable and outrageous from AETHER REALM (more on this whacko band later). Although DARKNESS couldn’t make it, we did manage to get ACERO LETAL from Chile and DEXTER WARD from Greece...both of whom kicked humongous amounts of ass.

As always, it was exhausting but 100% worth it. I never thought I’d see LIEGE LORD and EXHORDER play back to back, but I always wind up crossing a lot of bands off the bucket list when going to Blades of Steel. The Crucible Club was accommodating as usual and extremely easy to get to.

Well, as Marty DeBergi would say, let’s boogie!

THURSDAY AUGUST 29

Thursday’s lineup had just six bands, but this worked out all to the good, as the energy level was high for the whole night. I was also surprised by the turnout. While not a sellout, it was pretty respectable for a weeknight when a lot of folks had to work or go to school the next day. At all points, it was better than last year’s Thursday attendance.

Kicking off the festival was a young band TUNDRA. There’s been a few acts with this monicker over the years...I distinctly recall a HELLHAMMER-like band from Europe...but these guys played that kind of gritty 80’s power metal with touches of speed and thrash that our promoter the No Fun Shogun prefers. I missed the first track but caught the remainder of the set. It was good enthusiastic metal of the vintage variety and fun enough. I don’t think it will be too long before we see this band popping up in the NWOTHM lists on Youtube.

Second band MANIACAL FORCE was a complete unknown to me and a pleasant surprise. Found out this trio hails from Minnesota and they play a pure kind of old school death metal with strong influence from bands like MASSACRE and BOLT THROWER. Real heavy and in your face shit, with a lot of groovy riffs you could bounce along to. This kind of stuff is getting to be the rage again these days, so MANIACAL FORCE maybe has a shot of joining FROZEN SOUL and 200 STAB WOUNDS at the forefront of the style.

Promoter Kastner has a knack for putting together fests where there are a variety of metal sounds and styles. Thursday was the flat-out heaviest and fastest day, with a lot of hardcore thrashers getting a look in. Next band up to bat was HATRIOT, who are real road dogs. They were damn lucky to make the fest, as their van suffered damage just a day or two before. Many would have cashed in their chips that close to the gig, but HATRIOT bit the bullet and graced Blades of Steel with a furious set of raucous death-thrash. This is one band that’s really improved a lot over the last couple of years. Being on the road a lot will tend to do that. I remember being not overly impressed with their debut, but they’ve gotten steadily better and if this set was anything to go by, the best is yet to come. The band is still led by Cody Souza, son of EXODUS’ Zetro, and he’s become an excellent frontman. The band even played a good cover of EXODUS’ “Piranhas” which got the first pit of the fest going. Good gig from HATRIOT!

As always, I spent quite a bit of the festival hob-nobbing with my metal compadres. Chicago’s inimitable Johnny Vomit is a constant presence at Blades and it seems he is there to bask in the warmth of my companionship and the profusion of alcoholic libation. The bands are another story, as he seems to hate 75% of all the acts playing, a peccadillo which provides me with a lot of mirth. Johnny V’s Hate Parade would make for a popular podcast!

LICH KING kept the thrash flowing after HATRIOT and this was for sure one of the band’s on the Hate Parade. These guys are really pure….they don’t mix their thrash with anything. No death, no black, no industrial…well, maybe a fair shot of punk finds its way in. It’s all about the pits and the moshing. I for one don’t have a problem with them. They know exactly who they are and what they want to do. Their enthusiastic frontman has a voice that’s kind of on the shrieky side, but not to the point where the music gets derailed. Lots of energy, lots of fun, lots of speed...what’s not to like?

LICH KING was just the warm-up for the next act, the ferocious hellcats of thrash, NERVOSA. Much like HATRIOT, this band has shown steady improvement over the years, despite the almost absurd number of line-up changes they’ve had. It now seems that guitarist/singer Prika Amaral is firmly in control of the band and a period of stability has begun. Coming off an excellent album “Jailbreak”, the ladies ripped into a virulent selection of high speed mayhem, starting with “Seeds of Death”.  They are a very tight unit on stage and don’t concede an inch to their male counterparts. They plunged into older songs like “Death!” with energy, but spent most of their time on “Jailbreak” tunes like “Nail the Coffin”, “Behind The Wall” and the killer set ender “Endless Ambition”.  The harder they thrashed, the more attractive they looked and I must confess to having a crush on their drummer Gabriela Abud.

Wrapping up the first night was NIGHT DEMON, who have become a force on the true metal scene. I have to admit, their set was extremely well played, but kind of disappointing. They started off with the balladic title track to their last album “Outsider” and seemed to focus on slower, longer songs like “Beyond the Grave” to start. “Outsider” was far from my favorite NIGHT DEMON album, but if this set is anything to go by, this is the direction NIGHT DEMON is choosing to go currently. I prefer the punchier, shorter, more NWOBHM style tunes from their first two albums, which they got around to later in the set. Jarvis Leatherby’s voice is undeniably strong and has improved a lot. The set was by no means terrible, but following the manic energy of NERVOSA, LICH KING and the prior bands, it came across as pretty subdued.

FRIDAY AUGUST 30

I got stuck in a traffic jam on the way up to Madison, so I caught just the last couple songs of opening band BLIND OATH. What I saw was impressive and fell into that “not quite thrash but still pretty fast” power metal of bands like LIEGE LORD, PALADIN, etc. The lead singer was wearing a blindfold, so he takes the band’s name seriously. Can’t say much more about BLIND OATH but they did get a good reception from the Blades of Steel faithful...who were fairly numerous for an opening band.

QUEEN OF DREAMS was a completely unknown quantity for me and I’m guessing most of the crowd. They are from Madison and I believe I heard the lady singer say this was one of their first live gigs. Boy, these guys were pure Euro power metal with all the cheese that entails. Crowd members were given rainbow colored glow rods to wave around during the set and on the final song, the singer sprinkled everybody with sparkly fairy dust. Oh brother! At various points during the set, she also waved around an inflatable hammer and plastic sword. This bunch for sure is inspired by LORD OF THE TRIDENT. I will say they played with energy and enthusiasm and the vocalist has one hell of a strong melodic voice. But at the end of the day, the music was a bit on the typical side and the silly antics were just that...silly. Half the crowd lit out on them, but the half that stayed was very much into the D & D style antics.

A much more serious band was SANHEDRIN from Southern California. Yet another female fronted band! Women are becoming a really powerful presence in heavy metal and I think might just be the key to keeping this genre alive. As for SANHEDRIN, they are a power trio that is undeniably heavy but not easy to pin down. They are definitely not balls out thrash like NERVOSA or power metal like QUEEN OF DREAMS. There’s a smoky, earthy touch to their metal, which seems to have a touch of the blues. That manifests itself also into the vocals of bassist Erica Stoltz who has a vibe much different than most female singers. Shades of Janis Joplin! I get a touch of ARMORED SAINT in what they do, but they don’t remind me of any one band specifically and that’s a great thing! I was hanging with metal buddy Carl “Caveman” Pavesich during their set and he was most impressed with them. “Pure American metal!”, he exclaimed. I cannot disagree and look forward to something new from SANHEDRIN.

Next up was one of the bands I was most looking forward to, St. Louis’ epic black metal warriors STORMRULER. This band’s music was unlike anybody else playing the fest and in fact, there are few bands in the States doing this kind of material anymore, making their presence even more welcome. They hit the stage with FAST but melodic black metal. Their recent album was so full of cinematic soundscapes, I wondered if they could pull it off live. They did….to a certain point. Keyboard overdubs helped in that regard, but the sound couldn’t quite match what’s on record. That was of little concern, because they made up for it with extra aggression. Tons of ripping trebly riffs and harsh vocals. The band are storytellers above all else so check out their albums for the full experience. I am glad they made the trip to Madison.

Blades of Steel has a tradition of having bands from the Latino world delivering great sets...I recall AGGRESOR from last year’s show. All the way from Chile, the metal hotbed of South America, came ACERO LETAL to blow all of us hopeless gringos away with a blazing display of speed metal insanity. ACERO LETAL translates to “Lethal Steel” and that band fit that name perfectly. Man oh man, are these fuckers FAST! Not only fast but catchy as well. There were great vocal hooks that you could easily shout out, even though the lyrics were all Spanish. The lead singer had just the right voice for this kind of material and he was also the lead guitarist. The strings were smoking during A.L.’s set!

There is an actual difference between true speed metal and straight up thrash. These guys were firmly on the speed metal side of the equation. It was like PRIEST, MAIDEN and SAXON played at insane velocity. Even Johnny V was headbanging like a fiend to ACERO LETAL and you don’t see that too often. This was an inspired choice for Blades and a highlight for the whole weekend!

Next up was another band that fit that description, DEXTER WARD from the sunny climes of Greece. Few countries are more devoted to “true” metal than Greece and DEXTER WARD was 100% proof of that. Named after an H.P. Lovecraft tale, their frontman was a virtual clone of Rob Halford during the “Painkiller” days and kept the true metal flowing through songs like “Stone Age Warrior” and “In Times of Epic Metal”. I was reminded of a lot of bands during their set, but for me, MANILLA ROAD and early OMEN stand out as some of the biggest influences. Lots of singalongs and audience participation. Johnny was sour on these guys, but that was a pretty lonely opinion, as the crowd really went wild for a band few of us had ever heard of before. Corny? Sure, but brilliantly so. DEXTER’s set went on for quite a long time and ended with them talking a giant selfie with the crowd.

After DEXTER WARD, we had a band that tests my vocabulary past the breaking point. I still don’t think I can really describe North Carolina’s AETHER REALM or the style of metal they play. This band was so musically fractured and over the top, it was almost brilliant. But in the end, their super eclectic mix of sounds just plain lost me. I mean, they went from straight power/thrash metal to something that sounded like an Irish jig to low-key post-metal droning. Toss in melodic death metal and ALESTORM-style pirate metal silliness, almost NEIL DIAMOND balladry...do you get the picture? This was a musical Frankenstein, stitched together from a million different corpses. Johnny, me and Ed Knecht spent a lot of time staring at each other in disbelief while these guys plied their...unique...wares.

The lead singer had some of the weirdest crowd banter I’ve ever heard, at some points sounding like a sad emo guy and downhome philosopher mixed with a typical metal frontman. “Never trust a guy wearing a cut off plaid flannel vest,” exclaimed Johnny. The point is taken and I would add, also to be wary of a guy with a pointy hipster mustache as well. I was just about converted to AETHER REALM’s strange music, but they decided to play their last song which went on...and on…and on… Ad infinitum. It also included a long stretch of what sounded like a country music ballad. Fuck it, that’s about all of AETHER REALM I can handle.

There would be no such confusion regarding Friday’s headliners, the legendary CIRITH UNGOL. This gig had a melancholy air to it, as the band has stated this would be their final year playing live. If that’s the case, they went out pleasing their fans with a set that focused heavily on their classic tunes.

Opening with the balladic yet anthemic “I’m Alive”, the first thing that strikes you about the band is the incredible vocal power of Tim Baker, who has always been the voice of CIRITH. He’s one of these guys like SATAN’s Brian Ross that seems immune to the passage of time. Wearing shades and a leather jacket, Baker’s voice is every bit as powerful now as it was in the early 80’s. He’s got that unique “sandpaper banshee” sound that puts extra force into his singing. The closest approximation I can make is a cross between NAZARETH’s Dan McCafferty and PRIEST’s Rob Halford. When you hear Baker screaming out classic lyrics for tracks like “Black Machine” and “Frost and Fire”, you’re hearing one of metal’s top voices. That makes the fact that this could be the end for him live doubly poignant.

This is the first time I’ve seen guitarist Armand Anthony with the band and he did a fine job, handling the sometimes bluesy soloing with aplomb. Drumming was still handled by Robert Garven, who’s been with the band since 1972 (!!!) while bass was done by Jarvis Leatherby, fresh off the NIGHT DEMON set of the night before. Jarvis demands full marks for getting the band back together and having them put out new material like “Dark Parade” and “Forever Black”, both of which had songs from them played tonight. Lots of classic tracks were played, but the quintessential CIRITH UNGOL track will now and forever remain “Atom Smasher”. This sucker is as iconic as anything PRIEST and SABBATH ever played! The band got a great respectful sendoff from the crowd, who knew the significance of the gig very well. Many hails to the great CIRITH UNGOL! I do hope we can still get an album or two out of them.

That wrapped up the 2nd night of the Fest. Back for the final stretch tomorrow!

SATURDAY AUGUST 31

The last day of Blades was the longest and got started about 2:30 in the afternoon. First band up was the rather hard to pin down OLD SPIRIT, featuring Jason Hartman from my hometown of Rockford, who’s a veteran of bands like VANISHING KIDS, JEX THOTH and NIGHT EYEZ. Alas, this eclectic outfit had a pretty thin crowd, which was understandable given the earliness of their start time and the fact that most headbangers were in recovery mode from the night before. Despite that, the band played their unique mixture of psychedelic garage rock, CELTIC FROST-style riffage and classic metal mayhem. Hartman, who handles pretty much everything on the band’s recordings, had a full band playing with him here. Singer Brian was all over the place, ranging from deep growls to yelps to even piercing KING DIAMOND type screams. I got to talk to him after the gig and he was a pretty cool character. I got the impression some of the fans didn’t know quite what to make of them, but I preferred their off the wall approach a lot more than AETHER REALM’s scattershot set earlier.

A new band TREAZON traveled up from Kentucky for the Fest. I think these guys have their heart in the right place, as they are very much a band in the style of the NWOBHM and even 70’s hard rock. I have to say, they need more work before they can say they’ve mastered the style. There was just something off with the lead guitar playing...it just didn’t sound quite right. The bearded front man admitted that he had only been with the band a week and was just filling in to help out some buddies. That explained some of the vocal hiccups I heard during the set. These guys might blow off doors on their album, but live, they just don’t have it together yet.

Madison’s own YOTUMA were next up and they were the heaviest band of the festival. Nobody else was close! This is the first time I experienced them and after their pile-driving set, I headed over to their merch booth and immediately picked up their CD “Otherworldly Incarnate”. This four piece delivered an absolute beatdown with some of the grooviest hooks you could ever hope to hear. The bass work was ungodly and their manic frontman had the deepest growls this side of STABBING. Yet despite heaviness which often reached slam levels, there was a kind of bounce to their riffs that reminded me almost of Southern rock. Hard to describe, but also pretty original. Along with ACERO LETAL, I’d say YOTUMA were one of the most pleasant surprises of the fest. And the fact that there wasn’t a ton of death metal at the test actually made them seem even heavier.

Following YOTUMA’s brutal set couldn’t have been easy, but TELOMYRAS from the Pacific Northwest gave it their best shot. They stated that this was the first festival they ever played. The Wizard of Watertown has a keen ear for new bands and proved it again with these guys. Modern progressive power metal with female vocals is how I would describe their sound. Lead singer Sammie had an almost operatic voice that occasionally gave way to harsh croaks. For their first actual fest performance, they were a bit green but more than acceptable. I would describe the TELOMYRAS sound as being halfway between the fruity power metal of QUEEN OF DREAMS and the more earthy approach of SANHEDRIN. Maybe a name to watch…

Made my way outside on a very pleasant day to check out one of the food trucks servicing Blades. Cinn City Burgers had some pretty tasty burgers but their truffle fries are absolutely out of this world good. The bar inside served pizza that resembled grade school cafeteria stuff, so the truck was doubly appreciated by this hungry physician.

BRAY ROAD played last year’s edition of Blades as well. Perhaps these local Wisconsin metalheads will become the new version of MEMORIES WITHER, the band that used to play every edition of Spring Bash until their break-up. BRAY ROAD play a meat and potatoes brand of metal that is satisfying on record, but twice as powerful live. Their music sometimes hits thrash intensity, but can more honestly be described as “fast true metal” with hooks that are easy to bang to. Wouldn’t bother me if they played every year. Guitarist/vocalist Nino and drummer Metal Pete were busy all weekend helping out with stagework and they kept things running smoothly. I wish Milwaukee Metalfest would transition from band to band as trouble free as Blades did this year.

Next up was a band I was very much looking forward to, GRAVE RIPPER from the red-hot Indianapolis metal scene. That town has really exploded with some great bands as of late, but none are more intense than these blackened thrash maniacs. Their debut album was one of my favorites of 2023 and I was interested if they could match that intensity live. No sweat on that score, brother! When they hit the stage, there were about 10 people around, but by the end of the set, the room had filled considerably and there were pits busting out. This was just an example of pure raging speed with extremely bad attitude and tight playing. Three man thrash bands are rare, but GRAVE RIPPER carried it off with ease. I think there have been some changes since I got the debut. Like YOTUMA, this was one of the heavier bands of the weekend and a great choice. I look forward to these guys moving up the latter rapidly!

When KILLER DWARFS pulled out of the fest with only a couple of weeks notice, Randy came up with an unorthodox solution that would appeal to diehard local metal heads. I’ve heard the name of SLAUTER XSTROYES spoken as an underground legend for years, but never really sampled them before. Well, the Wizard managed to get them on fairly short notice and they wound up being one of the hits of the weekend. 

How can you describe these guys? Like 70’s RUSH on steroids? Like early FATES WARNING at twice the speed? MANILLA ROAD’s whacky cousins? This was progressive classic metal at a VERY high level and with a lot of eccentricity. The musicianship of these guys was off the chart. Steven Reimer’s vocals were absolutely piercing, almost glass-breaking soprano, but well articulated. Richard Krull and Brent Sullivan delivered drum/bass interplay somewhere between RUSH and WATCHTOWER, while Paul Kratky was pretty much the definition of a guitar maestro. I was not familiar with their material, but all-around good guy and Metal Haven owner Mark Weigarz filled me in on some of it. Despite having a song that spoke copiously of Jesus, the band is not specifically Christian. They indulged into some almost jazz fusion movements between bursts of classic metal. Well, it took me long enough to sample SLAUTER XSTROYES, but it was worth the wait. Amazing band!

We were now approaching the finish line of Blades of Steel and the old Doctor was beginning to run out of gas. But not quite yet. EXHORDER is a band I’ve long been indifferent about, but they sure have their fans and the prevailing opinion is that PANTERA knocked off much of their style with their heavier material. Well, I was curious...let’s see what EXHORDER’s got.

Turns out they have quite a bit of gas in the tank. Kyle Thomas, also of TROUBLE and ALABAMA THUNDERPUSSY, was their frontman and he was a great one. These guys came out and kicked ass with a no fuss extreme metal attack. Not quite death metal, a little bit groovier than straight thrash, EXHORDER still plays a bone-breaking set. Amazingly, they have former CANNIBAL CORPSE guitarist Pat O’Brien (aka “The Human Arsenal”) among their ranks and he seemed to enjoy dishing out EXHORDER tunes from all phases of their career. The band is rounded out by veteran drummer Sasha Horn and bassist Jason Viebrooks (ex GRIP INC./HEATHEN). The group hit the classics from their older albums “Slaughter In the Vatican” and “The Law”, but didn’t ignore their quite powerful new album, “Defectum Omnium”. I enjoyed EXHORDER a lot more than I thought I would and so did most of the crowd, which was now at its peak.

Out of the many bands playing Blades of Steel, I was most interested in the return of LIEGE LORD by far. This was one of the true/power metal bands to lead the American scene in the 80’s. With their superb album “Master Control”, I thought they were on the verge of being major players. Then, of course, the bottom fell out of the metal scene and LIEGE LORD was one of many bands to fall by the wayside.

Of course, they were going to return, it was only a matter of when. Well, it looks like 2024 is the year. The new version of the band features original members Tony Truglio and Joe DiBiase (no relation to Ted), along with the singer of “Master Control”, the great Joe Comeau, drummer Van Williams formerly of NEVERMORE and guitarist Danny Wacker. Joe Comeau was hardly recognizable compared to his “Master Control” band picture, but who the hell looks the same after 30 years. His voice held up very well, although maybe not quite at total peak level. All things said, this version of LIEGE LORD does the name proud and apparently is poised to put out an album of new material in the near future.

That wasn’t what we got with this gig, though. Much of it was pure nostalgia. Opening with the excellent “Fear Itself”, there were a lot of “Master Control” tunes played like “Eye of the Storm”, “Feel The Blade” and their awesome cover of RAINBOW’s “Kill The King”. That last track is so good that it’s one of the few covers to possibly match or even surpass the original. 

Surprisingly, the earlier LIEGE LORD albums were not ignored. I’d forgotten how great those were, too, but hearing the likes of “Wielding Iron Fists” and “Rage of Angels” brought it all back to me and Comeau’s vocals fit them like a glove. Now I do think they snuck a newer track in there, but I can’t recall the name of it. I do recall that it sounded like classic LIEGE LORD, though.

After the epic LIEGE LORD set, the air went out of me like a balloon hit by a steel-tipped spear. The last band of the fest were legendary NOLA sludgelords EYEHATEGOD and I must apologize to them, because I made the decision to pack it in. I’m sure enough of the faithful remained to make their set a rousing success. I had a long drive back home and then a 12 hour shift at the lab the next day. The ol’ Doc ain’t a spring chicken anymore, so that was the conclusion of BLADES OF STEEL IV.

My assessment of the festival? Always fun, always entertaining, great to see friends of the metal world. Randy looked ready for about a week in bed at the end of it all, but without this guy, there is no real metal scene in Southern Wisconsin, so full props to him. I do think I preferred the 2023 lineup a bit more, but the variety in band styles...all heavy, but all different...helped elevate this. Will there be a 2025 version? No official word yet, but I’d bet a paycheck on it. Once you go to one of these fests, they get in your blood.