by Sam Doucet<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some things change, some things don\u2019t. Winnipeg has gained and lost untold bands, venues, and concertgoers over the years, and though a shiny new toy always turns heads, it is heartening to be able to bank on ol\u2019 reliability. To wit, quickly becoming the most reliable event on the Winnipeg cultural calendar is Manitoba Metalfest, which in early May once again drew in hundreds of black-clad ne\u2019er-do-wells to the Park Theatre. Hell, even the venue itself, which has hosted the (usually) two-day affair for many years, has undergone a few facelifts and even birthed a satellite venue next door. But unperturbed by the constantly changing world around it, Metalfest continues to provide excitement and comfort in equal measure under the stewardship of Ninjacat Productions\u2019 Cory Thomas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following last year\u2019s three-day beast of a fest was never going to be an easy task, but getting the chance to do so was not an opportunity these bands were going to sneeze at. As always, big-name touring acts provide excitement and sell tickets, and local outfits eagerly fill out the line-up and play to larger, rowdier crowds than usual. The 2025 edition of Manitoba Metalfest demonstrated a knack for catering to a diverse set of metal tastes while staying true to the styles that have underpinned heavy genres for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The weekend was kicked off by the rough-and-tumble death metal stylings of Defenestration, a new-ish Winnipeg quartet currently riding the wake of their excellent debut EP Mortal Cremation<\/em>. That four-song offering \u2014 whose title leads one to wonder what other kinds of cremation there are \u2014 caught my ear in a big way, chiefly due to its over-the-top fuzzy production that makes it seem like it was recorded underwater. As is frequently the case with old-school death metal sets, it was a no-frills affair, with stage banter and individual flair eschewed in favour of tortured growls and crushing riffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Up next, an almost too-obvious pairing with the opener, was Regurgitated Guts, stalwarts of Winnipeg death metal for several years now. As well-traveled members of other prolific bands, RG have not spent much time in the studio since their formation, but are always a sure bet for an opening slot when heavy-hitting death metal bands pass through town. With a crowd primed for crunchy riffs and nightmarishly-delivered vocals, they delivered as promised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first out-of-towner act to grace the Park Theatre\u2019s stage was Calgary\u2019s Dying Remains, a relatively new trio signed to Maggot Stomp Records, a leading light in death metal that sounds exactly like its name would suggest. Now, I\u2019ve long held the belief that death metal has a very high enjoyment floor. That is to say, even bad death metal bands are usually palatable, whereas, for instance, there are untold hundreds of straight-up terrible black metal projects. I\u2019m sorry to say that Dying Remains bear out my belief \u2014 I found their set to be static and unmemorable. Not enough variety in tempos, tone, or riffage. But even the most tedious death metal offers ample opportunities to bang one\u2019s head, and in spite of my gripes, I was given that privilege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vancouver\u2019s ATR\u00c6 BILIS steered us into the latter half of the evening with a set of forward-thinking tech death that stopped short of the pinpoint-precise wizardry that would be on display on night two. Their two albums Apexapien <\/em>and Aumicide<\/em>, released on the usually meat-and-potatoes label 20 Buck Spin, offer a dissonant but focused approach to death, with glimpses of tremolo needlework but the grounded songwriting of a band that can still paint within the lines. They delivered on stage, with a style of death metal that was challenging but still dumb enough to fit in with the loutish moshing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, what came next was a change of pace in both musical styles, historical background, and audience expectation. The mighty Malefaction, once a leading light in Winnipeg\u2019s extreme music underground, took the stage for their first show since \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 a previous one-off appearance at the 2010 edition of Manitoba Metalfest. Only this time, undaunted by rust and ripening, the four-piece appears to be primed to stick around, pairing their keenly-anticipated set with the release of their first album in 22 years, aptly titled Rebirth<\/em>. Already, a follow-up performance is scheduled for late August, when Japanese legends Unholy Grave roll through Winnipeg. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Future plans aside, Malefaction\u2019s return was responsible for a noticeable tremor in the Metalfest crowd. Not only were there more than a few well-seasoned (revving up my euphemism machine here) faces in the crowd, but eagle-eyed members of the press noticed some heartwarming multi-generational attendees as well, which I can only assume included children, parents, and other family and friends of the band. A band reforming after essentially two decades of hiatus sometimes means that one or two members got bored and hired some pals to pad the lineup \u2014 and such ersatz reunions inspire the same kind of responses. But Malefaction staged their rebirth with the exact same faces that put Winnipeg grind on the map in the 1990s, and the significance of this event was evidently not lost on their supporters old and new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their brand of punk-rooted grindcore took the room by storm, on a night where theatrics and fluff were clearly surplus to requirements. They ripped through one- and two-minute songs at an admirable pace, pausing only for vocalist Travis Tomchuk to deliver occasional context to their lyrics, such as deploring the spread of misogynistic influencers online and delivering a land acknowledgement \u2014 a rare and refreshing action by a band during a live set. Many death metal aficionados, myself for one, became fans of the genre through the punk backdoor, always looking for faster and angrier versions of our old favourites. Malefaction provided the decidedly death-loving crowd with a stripped-down, no-nonsense onslaught that delighted old-heads and greenhorns alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Night one\u2019s headliner was a band that has spilled lots of ink since their 2019 eruption on the scene \u2014 Columbus, Ohio\u2019s Sanguisugabogg. Many would characterize them as the prime example of so-called \u201ccaveman death,\u201d i.e., the unabashedly lowbrow variety of death metal that delights in goregrind-esque aesthetics, brutal down-tuned guitars, pingy snares, and more questionable moustaches than you can be bothered to count. They\u2019ve been accused of prioritizing style over substance in the past \u2014 especially in their early days when their novelty merch items outnumbered their musical output by several orders of magnitude \u2014 but have since released two well-received full-length albums with another on the way this fall. Ultimately, as the saying goes, it does what it says on the tin: Bogg delivered a set worthy of a festival headliner, with breakdowns and blast beats as far as the ear could hear. A funny \u2014 and wholesome \u2014 inclusion was the vocalist chiming in about the Jets\u2019 ongoing game against the Dallas Stars and asking the crowd if they \u201cwatched puck.\u201d The Jets did win that night \u2014 as did the audience on hand at the Park Theatre. One more win was yet to come the following day, which is more than what the Jets could muster during those playoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cback nine\u201d of 2025\u2019s festival was an even more closely-curated affair than the deathy-death-death first night, owing to the fact that all five out-of-town acts were touring together. Earning the sole local opening spot was fresh-faced deathcore act Spineless, no doubt wanting to make the most of a particularly momentous opportunity. My own tastes steer clear of the offerings Spineless presented to the early Saturday crowd, but some well-placed black metal influence and an emotionally-charged doomy showstopper with a guest vocalist gave me a good deal to appreciate from this outfit, poised for success in Winnipeg to be sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first of the aforementioned touring cavalry to step onto the stage was France\u2019s Fractal Universe, who ply their trade in a refined, jazz-influenced progressive metal, light-years away from the gurgling gore and zombie tropes of their frequent stagemates. For the first time at this year\u2019s Metalfest, the crowd was having a hard time getting a handle on what they were seeing, with clean vocals and a few skronky saxophone passages providing a significant change of pace and tone to proceedings, though not in an unwelcome way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Decrepit Birth came on next, staking their claim as the most old-school of the embarrassment of tech-death riches on hand that evening. With a sound firmly rooted in classic American brutality in the vein of Suffocation and Deeds of Flesh, they swung the pendulum back to the grizzly, depraved brutality that got the crowd moving. Funnily enough, this was the first set to feature one of the frontmen hyping up Shredfest (the name of the tour) and asking us how we were enjoying it, awkwardly forgetting that they were, in fact, playing a different fest called Manitoba something-or-other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With three bands left before the conclusion of 2025\u2019s Metalfest, brutal death masterminds Origin came forth and delivered the set of the weekend, bar none. Now, it\u2019s almost clich\u00e9 for a review of a brutal\/technical death metal set to highlight the performance of the drummer, so I won\u2019t be doing that. Not often enough do we shout out the work of the humble bassist, and Origin\u2019s Mike Flores had me so spellbound with his impossibly fast and meticulous fingerwork that I at times forgot he had three bandmates. Make no mistake, the rest of the band is just as impressive, and their forty-five minutes was a non-stop onslaught of uncompromising numbers. I feel like it\u2019s lazy journalism to tell you to seek out a video of Mike Flores playing bass, but I\u2019ll stake my Pulitzer nomination on it \u2014 go to your favourite video-sharing website and feast your eyes on his unbelievable skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know I made mention of cheap reunion gimmicks above, and I was thus wary of how Atheist\u2019s set was going to come across. Here we had a band that released a trio of pioneering progressive death\/thrash albums in the early \u201990s that all other bands on the bill will cite as influences. Since reforming in 2010, they\u2019ve done their fair share of touring, but upon their arrival in Winnipeg this time around, vocalist Kelly Shaefer was the only original member, and his supporting cast featured only one member who was even alive when they dropped Piece of Time<\/em>. To his credit, Shaefer recruited the help of young musicians making serious waves in the progressive death underground, notably the guitarist Jerry Witunsky of Ancient Death and drummer Dylan Marks of VoidCeremony. My suspicions did not take long to evaporate as Atheist launched into their set, well-populated with some of their most beloved hits from their salad days. Shaefer seemed to be having the time of his life, and his hired hands were putting their youthful chops to good use and delivering spirited performances. Maybe legacy bands aren\u2019t inherently evil after all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cherry on top of Manitoba Metalfest\u2019s sundae was Germany\u2019s Obscura, who have been trading on the name of Gorguts\u2019 seminal 1998 tech death heel turn since 2002. Having recently released their seventh album A Sonication<\/em> on Nuclear Blast, they\u2019re at the top of their game and hard to begrudge the headlining spot, though I knew following the last two sets would be a tall order. Calling it a lead balloon would be a bit harsh, as it\u2019s hard to fault them on any specific point, but I feel their sound lacks the sheer power of Origin and the bright catchiness of Atheist, leaving a somewhat middle-of-the-road tech death experience on stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As always, Cory Thomas did a bang-up job wrangling touring acts and pairing them with local flavour for another successful edition of Manitoba Metalfest, this time with the satellite venue Sidestage serving as the merch area (and Jets viewing party). Who knows what\u2019s to come next year? Shrewd Metalfesters will keep their eyes out for North American tours being announced this fall. But I\u2019m going to throw a few Canadian names out into the void and hope for Mitochondrion, Adversarial, Tomb Mold, or Spectral Wound to be among the names on the poster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Sam Doucet Some things change, some things don\u2019t. Winnipeg has gained and lost untold bands, venues, and concertgoers over the years, and though a shiny new toy always turns heads, it is heartening to be able to bank on ol\u2019 reliability. To wit, quickly becoming the most reliable event on the Winnipeg cultural calendar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13171,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13164\/revisions\/13171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}