ZAGREB DEATH FEST proved to be a great starting point of promotion on newer bands on a larger scale and at the venue the bands deserve in order to gain additional bust and inspiration for even greater achievements. It’s been absolutely fucking great seeing the venue fully packed with youngsters and old familiar faces, including other musicians that came to support the bands. The festival was a full success taking into consideration that included few bands that had a debut performance in Močvara and the festival doesn’t have a tradition as such. Turnout and feedback from the audience was great and the atmosphere was very exciting, friendly and positive.
In Dakhma (death metal, Zagreb) and Gutswamp (death metal, Zagreb) were the first two bands to open the festival and we were sincerely amazed by the youthful energy the bands emitted and transferred to the audience. In Dakhma is a completely new band with modern old-school variation on the death metal themes combined with doom-inspired low guitar tunings and elements and it sounded very interesting live. Gutswamp has been around since late 2023 and this is their first swamp performance and I couldn’t tell that just by observing as they put up a professional show with no mistakes.
Ka’rah (death thrash metal, Zagreb) represent another young band that just recorded their first tracks but made a very good impression live as the audience feedback was just firing up and exceeded expectations.
Expirium (death groove thrash metal, Koprivnica) was formed in mid-2023 and last light the band promoted materials from the album “Abomination of Flesh”, which is to be published. Their performance was in the top three of the best ones from last night as they managed to exhibit combination of modern and traditional and many styles within metal. We have big expectations from the band in the future!
Grave Infestation (death metal, Kanada) was formed in 2018 and gave probably the best performance of the evening. Their release “Persecution of the Living” marked its way on the scene and the band is slowly but steadily gathering new followers! Its impossible to be objective and bands cannot be compared as we all have personal loves and inclinations to certain genres but the energy of the band was contagious and all was lifted to even higher level by contagious energy of the drummer Anju Singh, but others also functioned very coherently as a driving force to depths of hell. A real treat!
Sedimentum (death metal, Kanada) began in the winter of 2018 and in 2022 released their first full-length album “Suppuration morphogénésiaque”. The band had their debut show at Močvara and we were impressed as they could be the best or second-best performance of the evening. Their sound is a powerful dive into the past, deeply inspired by Scandinavian and English OSDM bands. It seamlessly weaves together blistering tempos, crushingly slow sections, and distinctive Finnish-style riffs, creating a modern death metal experience. The band sounded like a powerful tank crushing slowly but steadily all in front of them and surely new fans were forced to become the followers of this merciless Canadian death metal machine!
Metuzalem (death doom metal, Zagreb) released its debut full-length album “Infra”, establishing a distinct artistic vision and musical identity. With twisted, sinister melodies, a mournful funeral crawl juxtaposed against razor-sharp death metal riffs and bursts of relentless blast beats they caught a lot of attention and gained the honour of the last performance of the evening. Methuselah created a decayed, eerie atmosphere we were hoping from and took us to a place where we could just close our eyes and imagine abandoned cemetery and complete peace.
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