Acts are traveling from as far as Colorado to play, but even more than the geographic pull, the stylistic breadth of the inaugural Shadow Woods Metal Fest and the concept of the event are what really stun. Set to take place Sept. 25, 26 and 26 in White Hall, Maryland, the festival brings together bands from black metal, various incarnations of dark folk, psychedelia and doom for a three-day camp-out that’s as much an experiment in form as in style. Midnight headline — and if the thought of watching Midnight in the woods doesn’t appeal to you, you’ve probably never heard the band — and the likes of Iron Man, Heavy Temple, The Flight of Sleipnir, Occultation, Hercyn and Hivelords will play, among many others, on two stages that come complemented by workshops of various kinds, food and even yoga sessions.

Tickets are only being sold in advance, and if the thought of doing ritual black metal yoga in the forest isn’t enough for you, the whole thing is BYOB, so you can basically roll up with a cooler in your trunk and fantasize about an underground metal utopia where everything’s off the grid and everyone who sucks lives somewhere else. There are only 350 spots available, and I have no idea how many are left.

There is a lot of information below. If you take away anything from this, though, take away how fucking impressive I think the scope of this whole thing is and how deeply I hope they pull it off with no snags and it becomes an annual event. Also take away the ticket link, or, you know, click it.

Dig it:

SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST: Inaugural East Coast US Open Air/Camping Metal Fest

In just two weeks, the inaugural installation of SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST — the new mid-Atlantic, open-air, camping-based metal fest — kicks off, the gathering running from September 25th – 27th, 2015, in White Hall, Maryland, about thirty minutes north of Baltimore.

At the debut SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST, thirty-six bands will perform over Friday and Saturday, with lead performances from Midnight, Falls of Rauros, Occultation, Velnias, Iron Man, The Flight of Sleipnir, Dweller In The Valley, Dreadlords, Stone Breath, and many more. SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST will also be the first live performance for the surviving members of Wormreich since their tragic vehicle crash in April. The gathering showcases underground black, doom, death, and noise and experimental metal bands on three alternating stages all day Friday and Saturday. Camping and workshops on topics such as runes, guitar maintenance, yoga and more will be offered and are included in the ticket price. Artists and record labels will be vending alongside several onsite food stands.

Ticket purchasers will be given the exact street address. There will be ZERO ticket sales at the gate for SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST — advance presales to those 21 years of age and older is the only way into the fest, which is also BYOB. Tickets go off sale at 9 am on Friday, September 25th, the official time the gates open. There are only 350 tickets in total to be sold, and three-quarters have already been snapped up. For complete details and links to tickets and the fest merch store with exclusive art prints and t-shirt designs, go to www.shadowwoodsmetalfest.com

The bands chosen to perform SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST reflect the diversity of the underground music scene in the mid-Atlantic region plus a few from across the country. Official sponsors for the fest include Grimoire Records and MusicfortheDead.com.

SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST is a production of Metallomusikum.com of Baltimore, with promotional support from Lokvlt Productions in Philadelphia, WinterForge Promotions in Pittsburgh, Leftover Pizza Productions in Frederick, Maryland and Slimehole/Strange Matter in Richmond, Virginia.

SHADOW WOODS METAL FEST 2015 Alphabetical Lineup:

Anicon (New York, NY)
–black metal

Ashagal (New Hope, PA)
–Ritual folk

Black Table (NJ/NY)
–Experimental metal

Bridesmaid (Columbus, OH)
–Instrumental Doom-Sludge

Cladonia Rangiferina (MD, VA)
— ritual black metal, doom, acid rock

Dendritic Arbor (Pittsburgh, PA)
–metal; Grimoire Records

Destroying Angel (Philadelphia, PA)-
–Folk music for exorcisms

Dreadlords (Philadelphia, PA)
–Ritual black metal blues; Not Just Religious Music

Dweller in the Valley (Frederick, MD)
–Black, death, doom; Grimoire Records

Existentium (Baltimore, MD)
–melodic technical death metal

Falls of Rauros (Portland, ME)
–folk/atmospheric black metal; Bindrune Recordings

Fin (Chicago, IL)
–black metal; Behold Barbarity

Heavy Temple (Philadelphia, PA)
–psychedelic doom; Vàn Records

Hercyn (Jersey City, NJ)
–atmospheric black metal/post-rock

Hivelords (Philadephia, PA)
— experimental psychedelic black doom; Anthropic Records

Immortal Bird (Chicago, IL)
–black/death metal; Broken Limbs, Manatee Rampage

Iron Man (MD)
–doom metal/heavy rock; Rise Above Records

Midnight (Cleveland, Ohio)
–Black heavy metal; Hells Headbangers Records

Occultation (New York, NY)
–doom metal; Profound Lore Records

Oneirogen (New York, NY)
— dark, doom, drone; Denovali, Shinkoyo

Psalm Zero (New York, NY)
–experimental black doom; Profound Lore Records

Sangharsha (New York, NY)
–blackened hardcore; Alerta Antifascista Records

Sentience (Woodland Park, NJ)
–death metal

Slagstorm (Hagerstown, MD)
–prehistoric doom thrash

Snakefeast (Baltimore, MD)
–jazz metal sludge; Grimoire Records

Stone Breath (Red Lion, PA)
–experimental folk; Hand/Eye Records

The Day of the Beast (Virginia Beach, VA)
–blackened death metal

The Expanding Man (Baltimore, MD)
–solo improvisational electronic soundscapes

The Flight of Sleipnir (Denver, CO)
–black metal; Napalm Records

The Osedax (Leesburg, Va)
–black doom; Dullest Records

The Owls Are Not What They Seem (York, PA)
–experimental ritual soundscapes; Eleventh Key

Unsacred (Richmond, VA)
–savage black metal; Forcefield

Velnias (Denver, CO)
–blackened folk/doom metal; Eisenwald

Wormreich (Huntsville, AL & Nashville, TN)
–black metal; Moribund Records

Wrath of Typhon (York, PA)
–heavy metal; Eleventh KEY

ZUD (Portland, ME)
–bluesy outlaw black metal

http://shadowwoodsmetalfest.com
http://www.facebook.com/shadowwoodsmetalfest

Heavy Temple, Live in Hagerstown, MD, March 15, 2015

The Saint Vitus Bar stage is as tall as my leg just a little bit above the knee. This is a thing I know because when I returned to the by-now-infamous Brooklyn venue for the second of YOB‘s two nights this past Saturday and was once again pressed up against the stage by the packed-in crowd, I could feel the bruises from when the same thing happened the evening prior. Apart from a standard-operating-procedure stiff neck and maybe lingering road fatigue, I was unailing. I’d taken better care during the day to drink water, brought ibuprofen, ate some food of substance. Friday night’s amateur-hour shit was out the window. Like I’ve never done this before. Embarrassing.

Support acts were switched, Kings Destroy and Tombs tagging out and Occultation and Ecstatic Vision tagging in, the latter making their way up from Philadelphia to open with added intrigue because of their recent signing to Relapse Records, through which they’ll issue their debut full-length next year. I’d hit protest traffic on my way across Manhattan, a sign-carrying sea of humanity flanked and backed by police escort, but couldn’t even hold it against them. I’ve protested before and have found it ultimately a hollow reminder of how little voice a public can actually have, but I get the impulse to get in public and shout your cause into that unlistening, unconcerned abyss. When I got to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, I saw a police staging area with cops decked out in riot gear, the shields, the plastic masks, the batons out and at the ready. It was not hard to identify one side’s position on the other.

Got to the venue early anyway. Ecstatic Vision went on a little before nine amid murmurings of the Vitus Bar‘s midnight karaoke start time and kicked smoothly into a heavy psych groove that, while formative, only became more engaging as their set went on. The trio recently-down-from-a-four-piece have been announced as openers for YOB‘s upcoming March 2015 major-market tour with Enslaved, so the two acts will feature on the same bill again soon enough, but their space-rock push propelled by rope-lit drummer Jordan Crouse meshed well with their flashing lightshow, colors bouncing off the black walls and curtains of the Vitus Bar stage, guitarist/vocalist Doug Sabolik (who, like Crouse, is a veteran of metal outliers A Life Once Lost) periodically running the headstock of his guitar through the chimes hanging off his mic stand, eventually hard enough to knock one or two off them off.

Sabolik‘s effects and pile of amps were impressive enough, but as with most heavy psych, it’s the low end holding it all together, and bassist Michael Connor did so fluidly, his lines providing the foundation of Ecstatic Vision‘s Hawkwindian-style jams while still finding room for righteous fills. It was my first time seeing the band. It won’t be my last. They played a somewhat abbreviated opening set, but it was a prime sampling of an emergent sound and stage presence that seems likely to continue to grow in all the right directions as their instrumental dynamic takes shape. No doubt by the time they get off that March tour, they’ll be even more on their way. Occultation, who followed, would boast a significantly less colorful aesthetic.

Native to Brooklyn, Occultation released their second album, Silence in the Ancestral House, this year on Profound Lore. A cult-rocking studio trio, live they play as a four-piece with Viveca Butler (ex-Aquila) on vocals and keys, Annu Lilja on bass, Edward “Nameless Void” Miller on guitar, and M.D.V. on drums, and much of what they hit into seemed to come from the new record. Fair enough. They’re a name that has been tossed about more and more as the year has started to wind down, and they brought a significant sense of atmosphere to their live presentation, their sound somewhere between Ghost‘s clean riffing and more extreme metallic forms. It was a leap in aesthetic from where Ecstatic Vision had started things off, but clearly that was the intent, and no stretch to hear why they’ve gotten the critical response they have.

They played longer than had the openers, and the Vitus Bar crowd knew them and welcomed them, and what they had in common with Ecstatic Vision was a current of potential. I was on the fence for most of the set, but eventually their hoods-up cultistry and hooks won me over, as well as the variety they brought to their songs. Whatever it was they closed with, they picked the right tune. Their style is in a tough spot and it can be hard for a group with similar influences to really distinguish itself from the pack, I saw nothing to make me think Occultation couldn’t get to that point. The room was packed by the time they finished, and they gave a solid local lead-in to YOB, who took the stage greeted as returning heroes.

I don’t know how many people in the crowd had also been there on Friday night, but I imagine it was a decent portion. Last time YOB were in Brooklyn, early in 2013, they did a similar two-show stint (review here), and I know from that they got a lot of return business. Provided one doesn’t have any pressing real-life obligation, who wouldn’t want to see YOB two nights in a row? Or 15? They changed the setlist some from the evening prior, pulling back from playing this year’s Clearing the Path to Ascend (review here) in full by switching out “Unmask the Spectre” for churning The Great Cessation opener “Burning the Altar,” which, following “Marrow,” felt like the beginning of a second set more than the continuation of one already in progress. “Prepare the Ground,” which opened 2011’s Atma, led the way into the newer cuts — “In Our Blood,” “Nothing to Win” and the aforementioned “Marrow” — and “Burning the Altar” was itself backed by Atma‘s “Adrift in the Ocean” and set-closer “Quantum Mystic,” from 2005’s The Unreal Never Lived.

If nothing else, the set emphasized YOB‘s propensity for badass opening tracks. Between “Prepare the Ground,” “In Our Blood” (which is more stylistically ranging than some of their bigger-riff-focused hooks of the past, but still fits the bill), “Burning the Altar” and “Quantum Mystic,” four out of the seven songs guitarist/vocalist Mike Scheidt, bassist Aaron Rieseberg and drummer Travis Foster played were album leadoffs. That material has always been some of the band’s most immediate and, in their way, accessible, so it’s exceedingly satisfying live. I’d argue “Nothing to Win” works in a similar vein, albeit more angrily and with Foster‘s drums and Scheidt‘s misconception-shattering screams as its primary modes of impact.

Positioned with the contrast of “Marrow” and “Adrift in the Ocean” — two longer pieces marked out by sections of quiet, finger-plucked guitar exploration and a sense of linear build — it was as dynamic a YOB set as I’ve seen, showcasing both their sonic individuality and their presence on stage as one of the foremost American heavy acts of their generation, relentlessly forward moving with aural heft and passion to match, whether it’s Scheidt throwing two fists in the air to share in the audience’s excitement, Rieseberg sharing a between-song chuckle with the front row before his face once again disappeared into his hair or Foster raising his arms high over his head for the next crash. Whatever else they may be — and on the heels of Clearing the Path to Ascend, they’ve been met with a swell of critical and fan acclaim, with more to come I’m sure — YOB are a special band. You could hear it in how quiet the Saint Vitus Bar crowd got after cheering each song, waiting to hear the first note of what was coming next.

This time, I managed to stay up front the whole set, and I’m glad I did. They made the trip down to Brooklyn and back to Massachusetts easily worthwhile, and since there’s a good chance the Saturday show was the last gig I’ll see in 2014, I couldn’t think of a better way for the year to go out, so thoroughly consumed by YOB as it has been.

More pics after the jump. Thank you (again) for reading.

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