So that was fun. Festival organizers estimated that some 2,700 people attended this year’s (incredibly well-run) Maryland Deathfest. I missed the first day, but will post more about Saturday and Sunday of MDF VII later. For now, here are a few photos and my thoughts in superlative form, after the jump.

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Maryland Deathfest is about to kick off its first day in a couple hours, but better late than never, right? I’ll be covering Saturday and Sunday, but for anyone still thinking about heading up to Baltimore (tickets are still available, but not many of them!), here is my absolutely non-comprehensive and subjective preview of select bands I want to see. Keep in mind that my knowledge of classic 90s death metal is limited, and I’m more into the modern grindcore and experimental stuff.

MDF takes place at Sonar, 407 East Saratoga St Baltimore, MD 21202, today through Sunday, on the main stage inside as well as an outdoor stage. Tickets will be available at the door for varying prices depending on the day.

FRIDAY (today!)

• Cattle Decapitation – outside – 6:35-7:10 – Pretty good modern grindcore. Their latest album throws some curveballs, including the inclusion of Jarboe and Grayceon cellist Jackie Perez-Gratz, but I still like their old stuff best (Karma Bloody Karma etc). Listen at Myspace.
• Mayhem – outside – 8:30-9:30 – Mayhem was at the center of the violent early-90s Norwegian black metal circus, with two original members murdered by other musicians in the scene. Somehow they’re still going and still scary. Expect fake human heads impaled on stakes onstage. Listen at Myspace.
• Cephalic Carnage – inside – 12:40-end of night – My favorite song of theirs is indicative: “Black Metal Sabbath,” a tongue-in-cheek spoof of black metal’s tremolo riffing and screeching vocals that then transforms into an equally tongue-in-cheek but totally awesome Sabbathy sludge riff. Listen at Myspace.

Check out my Saturday and Sunday picks after the jump. Photo above of Bolt Thrower (playing Saturday) courtesy their Myspace page.

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In my show preview I said these two bands were musically way over the top. Turns out, they’re visually way over the top too: Sigh featured an extremely energetic frontwoman on sax and vocals, and while she naturally drew the bulk of attention (her choice of wardrobe was likely a factor here), bandleader Mirai Kawashima, pictured above, was one of the more animated keyboardists I’ve ever seen. Before them, Unexpect left the entire stage in front of the drum riser wide open—pedals, mic stands, etc all shoved to the side—to give them room to dance, headbang, and generally jump around spastically with massive amounts of hair flying everywhere.

Musically, Sigh were fun, although much more guitar-oriented than they are on record—though that might have just been because the keyboard and sax were mixed way too low. Unexpect’s live show seems to be getting better all the time, which makes sense since they never seem to stop touring. The two opening bands were both pretty solid. All in all a good night for a metalhead; shame the club wasn’t anywhere near packed (it was actually the emptiest I’ve ever seen Jaxx, which usually seems to get good attendance).

Tons more photos are here at Flickr, but here are some highlights from Sigh:

And a few from Unexpect:

If you’re in the mood for some absurd circus metal, tonight’s your night to head out to the ‘burbs. Two of the most ridiculously over-the-top experimental metal acts you’ll ever hear are headlining a night at Jaxx in Springfield. Japan’s Sigh and Quebec’s Unexpect (pictured) play the kind of symphonic metal that you can’t help but laugh at, at least at first, because it’s just so bombastic and (some might say) pretentious.

But criticizing either of these groups for being too bombastic is kind of like criticizing Britney Spears for being too pop. It might be a meaningful statement of opinion, but as any kind of objective description or evaluation it just misses the point. These bands revel in their shamelessness and take bombast to the level of art form. If there was ever anything deserving of the slightly horrifying label “prog metal,” these guys are it.

If that sounds awful, consider this: I’ve seen Unexpect play Jaxx twice already this year, and each time I saw them I came away a bigger fan. After spending enough time with their records to actually figure out what’s going on in their insanely twisty compositions, a certain naive charm emerges. You have to admire bands like these who are completely unafraid to throw it all out on the table at once – hitting the listener with obvious jazz, rock, metal and classical influences one after the other.

Additionally, Sigh are kind of a historically significant band, as the only non-Scandinavian group that was signed by the infamous and short-lived Øystein Aarseth (aka Euronymous) to his infamous and short-lived Deathlike Silence Productions label. If that’s not black metal cred, nothing is.