Bloodstock Festival 2018: 10 Things We Learnt
5. Old-School Death Metal Is Still As Alive As Ever
Bloodbath. Memoriam. Cannibal Corpse. All of these names are stalwarts of vintage, ‘80s-style death metal. All of them played at Bloodstock 2018.
All of them nailed it.
With death metal music having come so far in recent years thanks to progressive names like Gojira, Opeth, Bloodshot Dawn and Between the Buried & Me, it is fair to say that the subgenre has changed a great deal since its origins in the mid-1980s. However, when the veteran favourites listed above all descended on Bloodstock’s Dio Stage last weekend, they proved that classic, brutal, simple, OG death metal may be old, but it is still damn good!
Memoriam were the first of the trio to wow, led into battle on the Friday by ex-Bolt Thrower frontman Karl Willetts and delivering a cavalcade of stomping drums, guttural riffs and ear-smashing growls. Bloodbath followed very soon after and upped the ante with darkly theatrical face-paint and the low, evil pipes of Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes.
Cannibal Corpse, of course, were in a league of their own on the Saturday, attacking Bloodstock with a gory axe made only of roars and some of the most ingenious percussion work known to metal before passing the torch to subsequent main-stage headliners Gojira.