(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