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.

• Favorite performances: Crowpath did not disappoint this fanboy. Kill the Client was ridiculously amazing. Singers that crowdsurf and mosh = big fun. In the more traditional death metal vein, Bolt Thrower's two sets (they headlined on Saturday and then played an impromptu 45 minutes on Sunday to fill in for Pestilence, who were no-shows for visa reasons) were both crushingly awesome.
• Worst performance: Despise You, whose music might have been ok were it not for the vocalists. Their female vocalist was shouting into the mic in a voice that sounded like your little sister whining at you at the top of her lungs, only amped to maximum volume by the sound system in a 1000-capacity rock club. No thanks.
• Biggest surprises: Weekend Nachos, holy shit. The singer had a completely crazed look on his face for the entire set, which was a 15-minute blowout of epic hardcore intensity. Destroyer 666, who effectively headlined Sunday – wasn't familiar with them beforehand but they put on a pretty amazing show.
• Biggest disappointment: I was really looking forward to Brutal Truth, not having heard much of their stuff but knowing they are classic grindcore right up my alley. But they just seemed a little off and the sound was really muddy. Too bad.
• Best theatrics: It's hard to top Mikannibal of Sigh breathing fire to close out the entire fest (that's the headline photo above). But Kill the Client's singer crowdsurfing constantly was up there, or General Surgery's bloody lab coats (with the fake blood reapplied twice during their set by women in bloody nurse costumes), or Birdflesh's absurd costumes... there's some competition here.
• Coolest experience: Getting to watch Napalm Death perform (and rant against torture, Dick Cheney, homophobia, fascism etc) outdoors at dusk, with the sky turning a deep blue. See photo below.
• Potentially great shows I was too fried to appreciate: Devourment, Wolves in the Throne Room, Antigama, Trap Them.
• Most popular T-shirt color: Black.

More to come!

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.

SATURDAY

• Crowpath – inside – 2:10-2:40 – probably my most anticipated band on the bill. Avant-garde death metal from Sweden and one of the more genuinely experimental bands in the extreme metal scene. Their latest, One With Filth, topped my best-of list from last year. Listen at Myspace.
• Misery Index – inside – 6:15-6:50 – Baltimore/DC grindcore; I hear they're Caps fans. Listen at Myspace.
• Pig Destroyer – inside – 8:10-8:40 – Unquestionably DC's most famous grindcore outfit, and for good reason. Live shows are a rarity for Scott Hull's flagship band, and not to be missed. Phantom Limb was at the top of many critics' best-of-2007 lists. Listen at Myspace.
• Napalm Death – outside – 8:40-9:25 – Arguably the father of the entire grindcore genre, the UK's politically outspoken greats are on a lengthy tour of the States, having played at Jaxx earlier this month. Amazing that a band this intense is still releasing music just as great as their classic-period stuff. Listen at Myspace.
• Bolt Thrower – outside – 9:40-11:00 – This is the main draw of the festival for many. Classic UK midtempo death metal with lyrics based on the Warhammer 40K universe. Nerdy enough for you? Listen at Myspace.
• Wolves in the Throne Room – inside – 12:40-end of night – Yes, hipster black metal exists, and none embody it better than Wolves in the Throne Room, with their creepy, soundscapey forest music. Don't tell them that, though. Listen at Myspace.

SUNDAY

• Kill the Client – inside – 2:55-3:25 – My bet is on this Texan grindcore band for the title of most violent, whiplash-inducing music at MDF. As you might expect, that's quite a distinction. Listen at Myspace.
• Yakuza – inside – 5:10-5:40 – This Chicago death metal group initially came to my attention because of their collaborations with avant-jazz saxphonist Ken Vandermark. Another of the more experimental groups on this bill, they haven't released much new music in the last couple years and it'll be interesting to see what they have up their sleeves. Listen at Myspace.
• Krallice – inside – 7:10-7:40 – Ridiculously proficient tech-death musicians play black metal, with dizzying, complex results. Don't miss. Listen at Myspace.
• Antigama – inside – 8:10-8:40 – Polish technical grind; one of those bands that drives purists crazy by drawing all kinds of weird influences into their music. Hell, they prominently feature a tribute to Goblin on their Myspace page. Listen at Myspace.
• Sigh – inside – 11:50-end of night – Classic Japanese black metal featuring a relatively new band member, "Dr. Mikannibal," who holds a Ph.D in physics, plays sax, screams, dresses provocatively, eats worms, drinks blood, and records in the nude. No surprise that she tends to hog all the headlines. Listen at Myspace.

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.