(Live Review) METAL THREAT FESTIVAL - Day 3 (Messiah + Nasty Savage + more!)
Metal Threat Festival
Part Three
Day Three 4-16-23
The Brauer House
Lombard, Illinois
By The Beard & Little Johnny
Once more we enter the Brauer House in Lombard Illinois for stop 11 and bands number 64-70 on The Reviews Never Stop Tour 2023. The Metal Threat Festival has already brought us a full day of death metal, and then a full day of black metal, now it’s time to see what day three holds in store. Word is a lot of thrash.
Credit to Metal Threat Festival for truly bringing bands from all over the world this weekend. These are bands that The Beard has never seen before and may never get the chance to see again, so great job to the festival organizers and promoters.
Opening day three on the main stage were Portland’s Black Thrash act:
CEMETARY LUST
Thrash metal is less brutal than Death Metal, and slightly more understandable, but with songs like “Piss on your grave” or “I am Trash”, Cemetery Lust was closer to death than thrash on many fronts, (although the guitar sound was indeed thrash in style). As an opener, not a bad start to the day. 78/100
Next up some more American thrash/death with Kansas City’s ...
ARES KINGDOM
Ares Kingdom was a three piece definitely more traditional thrash metal style, but with death metal sounding vocals. They have been around since the early 2000’s and are currently touring behind their sixth release, In Darkness at Last.
Ares Kingdom started off a little sloppy. These guys have been together over twenty years, so cohesiveness I would imagine is not usually a problem, but during this set, they felt to me like three parts, rather than one band. I too often felt the continuity wasn’t fully there. Props for being old school style thrash, and Johnny certainly loved jumping around in the circle pits, but for me Ares Kingdom just missed.
75/100
Next up: Chilean black metal with ...
SLAUGHTBBATH
Another three-piece band. Slaughtbbath was more cohesive, but their brand of brutal black/death was somewhat over the top for me. Drumming was pretty much a machine gun mixed with stampeding ponies. Guitars were tornados of notes and vocally it was growling death.
Essentially, the whole approach was on the other side of my brutal meter tolerances. That said, the crowd was into it, and I must respect the thoughts of the audience who paid to see them.
Slaughtbbath gets a ...
77/100
Fourth up today were Norwegian Thrash act:
NEKROMANTHEON
(Which in Greek is loosely translated as “Oracle of the Dead”)
On first glance, while several bands in the black metal genre this weekend have looked pretty evil, I have to say the bass player for these guys looks like he might be meeting Wally & The Beaver after the set for some milk and cookies. Check out the video, TikTok thebeard0728 or #thebeardandlittlejohnny
That look AND in a black betal band? THAT is actually the guy you need to be legitimately frightened of.
Looks aside, musically Nekromantheon is definitely thrash/black as evidenced by the pits breaking out all around the floor. They are cohesive and the drumming and guitar all mesh well. Vocally, its thrash with some black/death seasoning, but semi-understandable. All in all, a decent performance and my first 80+ of the day with 85/100
Fifth up tonight are California Thrash act:
DETENTE
Detente were originally from the mid 1980’s. Reforming just a few years ago with their 2009 second vocalist Tiina Teal, they are performing their 1980’s classic album “Recognize no Authority” in its entirety, making this a seminal set and the first band of the weekend with a female singer.
Detente strikes quite the appearance, with guitarist Caleb Quinn, (looking like Bobby Munson from Sons of Anarchy), and bassist Steve Hotchheiser, (looking like a cross between Pluto from the original Hills Have Eyes and Hirsch, Mama Carlson’s butler from WKRP in Cincinnati), being centered by vocalist Tiina Teal who looks like if Marvel's Medusa (she of the living hair) crossed with Pippi Longstocking had decided to front a metal band.
The music is 1980’s thrash which means it makes sense to me, but I don’t love her voice. Additionally, as it has been 13 years since they played live, the set did have a few foibles in it. Credit for a spirited effort, and playing a full album (especially one from thirty-seven years ago), but I’m going to have to limit this to 80/100
Sixth on the stage was another blast from the past as Ronnie Galletti’s 1980’s band Nasty Savage hit the stage.
NASTY SAVAGE
Galletti is now a “hefty” dude, and about every other song he apparently needed to dump an entire bottle of water on his head, which when you are holding a microphone seems a bit chancy to me, still, it was the first clean vocals I’ve heard all weekend, and definitely 80’s thrash style music, so I’m going to suspend disbelief and try to get into this.
Go Johnny! Run in circles little dude.
Nasty Savage does try hard to give a show including masks and beating the shit out of stuff with a chain to get the crowd into it. It’s a bit hokey, but the music is still entertaining in that 1980’s way, and Ronnie seems to genuinely believe what he’s saying in between songs.
I must give some credit here. The crowd is definitely into this set. The chants of:
NASTY!!!
SAVAGE!!!
NASTY!!!
SAVAGE!!!
Were regular and loud, so people were having a good time.
During one song, Nasty just dropped a tv set onto his face over and over until it exploded, and he bled all over from it. That’s both pretty impressive and pretty stupid at the same time. I am, however, awarding points for it as even Johnny went, “Man that fat dude up there is pretty crazy!”
“Is Everybody In??” Nasty kept yelling. Yep, you sold The Beard today, Ronnie.
Let’s call it 86/100 for best “unexpected” show of the day.
Next up was another old time Swiss Metal band, that reformed in 2017.
MESSIAH
Although vocalist Andy Kaina passed away last year and the group is being fronted by Christopher Johnson for this show, they did not take a step back as Johnson was great in the front man role.
Messiah plays a form of metal that touches on death, thrash, and black, but doesn’t fully embrace any of them. It’s more like a kind of Viking metal. Pretty clear lyrics, good heavy sound good pacing, The Beard has no idea if I would have liked Messiah back in the day (1986-94), but they were best in show today. The Beards only 90+ ranking of the festival.
92/100
So, that ends the three-day twenty-three band, thirty plus hour weekend. The Beard watched WAY more death and black metal than I am used to, as a matter of fact of the seventy bands Johnny & I have covered this year, over half of them were from these sub-genres. Apparently, The Beard needs to take back the booking reins from Little Johnny occasionally to keep up a full variety (like at Hell’s Heroes), but for now, we end another wild weekend and earn a little rest before the Metal Bus rolls again for the Chaos & Carnage tour next week.
Remember you can read The Beard & Little Johnny reviews every Wednesday right here on themightydecibel.com, and check out videos from all seventy bands we have reviewed so far this year, plus hundreds from last season on TikTok thebeard0728, or #thebeardandlittlejohnny.
From the Metal Threat Festival in Lombard Illinois, this is The Beard & Little Johnny saying:
Horns Up!!!