Live Review : Badgerfest - Sunday, October 17th 2021 at the Bread Shed, Manchester

It’s day three of Badgerfest and our Sarah has taken a well earnt early bath and gone home to put her feet up. I’ve taken on the reviewing baton and steel myself for a full on day of metal. As said, this is the third and final day and as an urban city-based festival it is always going to be a struggle to get punters out of their own beds/ hotel rooms / friend’s couches and into the venue for a 1.30pm start. The answer is simple. You stick the most hyped local band in decades into that opening slot.

There is not just a buzz about Tortured Demon, there is a shrieking alarm. Yes, their combined age is LESS than my veritable forty-nine years, but god can they play. They demand a pit for the first number and get it (it may be five valiant souls but, it is still a pit). Theirs is a wonderful vibrant and brutal take on thrash. It is derivative enough to provide a warm feeling of familiarity, but there is a enough variation and creativity to make it interesting, very interesting indeed. The watchword with Tortured Demon is expectation, they are not the full package yet. But my gods when they are, the world is theirs for the taking.

Iron Altar are far too big for the ridiculously tiny second stage. This is both in terms of stature and intent. They seem crammed in, like a full-grown adult on a kid’s tricycle. But the material just sores off the stage. Theirs is a wonderful mix of the modern and the traditional, essentially an ill-gotten rendezvous between Maiden and Gojira. Next time guys we really do need a big platform!

Clashmute fall foul of the old adage of technical issues (malfunctioning sampler) and on such a tightly timetabled day this means that they eat into their already titchy stage time. They do get going in the end and their brand of pulsating riff-based metalcore seems to go down well with the hometown faithful. This includes the organisers as compare Steve leaps on stage to join them for a frantic Deadbeat. 

Badgerfest is very much the place to get your steps in even if you are a stand stock still and watch the bands sort of person, as after every “main stage” every act you need to shift your position to the other stage so you can catch the next band. 

Scare Tactics are next on the tidily stage and they, like Iron Altar seem to have a particular penchant for mixing the old with the new. The twin guitar attack is typical Priest but there is a groove underneath the duelling riffs that gives it a more rugged texture. Really really interesting indeed….

Beyond Grace’s new album “our Kingdom Undone” is bloody excellent. A stunningly inventive mix of feral death metal and technical proficiency. Live they are everything that I hoped for. Clear concise riff after clear concise riff rain down. Death metal is at its best when the savagery is allowed space to breath and Beyond Grace manage to create a pulsating maelstrom of noise that is minimalist but highly effective. It is very much a case of follow that.

But Vice are up for their challenge. By now the place is heaving and the reception they receive is frankly quite staggering. There is nothing new to their anthemic, thrash-tinged metal, but it provides the perfect soundtrack for flaying limbs and heaving bodies. 

Ghosts of Atlantis mark the end of part one of day three (keep up at the back) and after them there is a thirty-minute intermission to allow hungover punters to purloin food from one of the many local vendors (we are in student central, so you are never more than a stone’s throw from a Kebab shop). I had real high hopes for Ghosts of Atlantis. They were one of my unexpected highlights of Bloodstock (unexpected in the truest sense of the word as they were moved to the Sophie tent with no prior announcement) but tonight they seem disjointed and lacking in the urgency and epic nature that they had in August. 

Returning from a quick walk around the block, I so want Zebedy to be a ball of bouncy fun but actually they are quite a thoughtful slow burner of a band. Basically an indie Dream Theatre, this is prog but without any of its more pompous or flamboyant tendencies. 

Harbinger in complete contrast are as brutal as hell. A corrosive and caustic ball of incendiary anger, they proceed to scream into the audiences faces for half an hour. Muscular, weighty and utterly unrepentant, they produce music that is designed to run around in a circle to. 

Dygora are using Death Metal as tool of political dissent. They have abandoned the genre’s gore obsession, to instead challenge white supremacy and to rebel against the ills they see in the world. Omar Swaby is an utter firebrand of a front-person and he burns off the stage like some fire and brimstone preacher. His style is a magnificent amalgamation of anguished screams and free-form rap.

Borders are on the verge of something very special indeed. Their nu-metal/metalcore hybrid lands incredibly well will the baying mob inside The Bread Shed. Other acts during the day have got a good reception, but this is the first time where it will feels like the band on stage owns the audience, this very much is the Borders crowd. There is also a fantastic air of professionalism about them. This may be punchy heavyweight stuff, but is produced in such a slick, commercialised manner that you would swear that you are watching some arena bothering veterans, rather than a bunch of lads from Lincoln. 

 Ramage Inc provide a real shift in gear and (if we are going to be honest) an opportunity for many to go to the bar. It isn’t bad what they do and some of the guitar rock is utterly exquisite, it just feels like a jolting change in direction after the utter geostorm that was Borders. 

Raging Speedhorn need this to be good. Social Media has been all abuzz about their cataclysmic performance in Nottingham the previous Saturday and the rumour mill is working overtime. Needless to say they have upped their game and a revived (and most importantly Frank fronted) Speedhorn roar on stage to bring Badgerfest to a fitting close. When their back is against the wall and others have counted them out, Speedhorn will always come swinging. Tonight they have brought their A game and then some.. As always, the beauty of Speedhorn is that fine line between organised chaos and catastrophe.

Thankfully tonight they stay just the right side of that line. Daniel, with his fine locks of hair flowing, takes point and positions himself at the barrier whipping up the troops into an utter frenzy. ‘Fuck the Voodoo Man’ is as incendiary now as it was when it first melted faces twenty years ago. And that is the point, when the mood takes them (and boy does it tonight) no one can hold a candle to Speedhorn. They are juggernaut of scuzzy riffs and ramble rousing choruses. I cant think of more metal way to bring today’s celebration of metal to a close. Just utter class.