Backfire And All Shall Perish Live At Hellfest

Saturday June The 20th

Jul 14, 2009 Tim Bolitho-Jones

American hardcore and death metal bands unleash the fury on the fourth stage

Tucked away in the corner of the festival, the Terroriser tent provides a welcome alternative to the bigger stages. On the Saturday it has a distinctly hardcore flavour and the attractions seem to be rooted heavily in the breakdowns and spin-kicking camp. Terror and Kickback are due to play late in the afternoon and the legendary Cro-Mags are set to headline. Two of the smaller bands though proved to be just as worthy of attention in the early afternoon.

Backfire: Live In Clisson

Taking the stage just after lunchtime, Americans Backfire demonstrate exactly why they are generating such a buzz at the moment with a manic forty minute set. Sounding not too dissimilar to Comeback Kid, they play a youthful blast of melodic hardcore that draws a crowd that is impressively large, especially seeing as the massively popular Dagoba are currently tearing up the main arena.

Not to be undone, Backfire make the smallest stage of the festival their own, the bandana clad faithful chanting back every word like their lives depended on it. It is testament to their ability that by the end of the set, young and old fans alike are cheering just as loud.

All Shall Perish: The Monster Awakes

If the audience was large for Backfire though, it positively overflows for death metal upstarts All Shall Perish. Beloved of Robb Flynn, watching them play is like getting the first terrifying sight of some unspeakable behemoth rising from centuries of slumber and the floor immediately becomes the scene of a violently over the top mosh pit.

Plenty of bands for instance would get fans climbing the support struts to watch them this weekend, but All Shall Perish were the only ones to have people diving off them to go crowd surfing to the front. There were also enough Walls of Death to recreate the battle scenes in Braveheart, but not even the one Soulfly generate later in the day comes close to the one All Shall Perish create here, stretching all the way to the sound desk and slamming together in an impossible display of brutality.

All of which makes for one incredible sight but the music itself is just as vicious. Their Leonidas-lookalike singer growls like a caged beast and the drums smash home with all the impact of hammers striking anvils. This is death metal at its most intensely primal and while it’d be hard to claim they were the best band of the weekend, they certainly drew the most intense crowd.

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