Research for a metal festival always proves particularly vexing, especially when the fest’s website offers no band links whatsoever. For instance, Encyclopaedia Metallum, the metal community’s most respected internet resource, lists nine groups named “Wraith;” even a seemingly harmless word like “Nest” has been co-opted by at least four different metal bands of note (not including The Nest, Fever Nest, Tiger Nest, Nest of Plagues, Nest of Scum, etc. etc.). Furthermore, the hallowed arbiter of metal standards doesn’t typically catalog metalcore, the increasingly popular genre which continued its gradual takeover of Milwaukee Metal Fest this year.
This may have been the plan all along. Jamey Jasta, frontman of metalcore outfit Hatebreed, brought Metal Fest back from the grave in 2023; he’s been a visible spokesman for the general idea of metal for some time now, hosting MTV’s Headbangers Ball for several years and currently helming a long-running metal-themed podcast (The Jasta Show). Now, the metal and hardcore scenes have been co-mingling since the ‘80s, and Metallum aside, fewer and fewer fans and musicians get hung up on such distinctions anyway. However, metal is a vast and varied genre, and aside from the usual generous helpings of death and thrash, this year’s festivities were extremely heavy on metalcore and light on everything else.
We’d like to point out that there ARE lots and lots of metal bands in the Brew City; however, the only hometown artist in the Milwaukee Metal Fest lineup was Surefire, a metalcore outfit who opened Friday’s festivities on the main stage at The Rave. Clad in matching black jackets with green band logos, their sound showcased the extremely down-tuned guitars and announced breakdowns and nu-metal flourishes that are currently trending in the genre. (They’ll also be playing Milwaukee Pride Metal Fest, by the way, for anyone craving a bigger taste of local talent.)
Surefire
There were plenty of Chicago bands, of course, and decent representation from the rest of Wisconsin as well. Madison death metalers Ruin Dweller played early Friday as well, and Bongzilla played the Rave Bar later in the evening. The Mad City stoner-metal legends have always been one of the grooviest groups on the heavy scene; the groove has been even more emphatic since frontman Mike “Muleboy” Makela switched from guitar to bass in 2020, following the departure of Cooter “Black Bong” Brown. His harsh vocal screech was still intact; otherwise the set would’ve easily mesmerized fans at a Riot Fest or even a Bonnaroo, inspiring more bodily movement below the neck than any other band at the festival.
Bongzilla
If there were any strictly black metal fans at the fest, they probably only bought a Friday ticket, as Wolves In The Throne Room were the only legitimate representatives this year, a third consecutive year of metal’s most diverse subgenre being relegated to token status at this event. The set Wolves played that evening, however, might’ve been worth the whole ticket price. Although the group has been dabbling in gentler, dungeon-synth-y sounds in recent years, this was a stripped-down, ferocious set; its loudest crescendos rivaled old-school Mogwai in intensity.
Wolves In The Throne Room
Some black metal fans might be yelling at their screens right now: “What about Rotting Christ?? What about Enslaved??” Yes, these two groups have roots in black metal; the music they make nowadays could hardly be categorized as such, though. Still, their sets were both highlights of Friday as well, benefiting from the overall superb sound mixes in the Rave proper. When Rotting Christ concluded with a massive “Grandis Spiritus Diavolos,” it was the closest thing to a dark mass we experienced at the fest; the crowd was entranced. This was the Greek group’s only scheduled U.S. date, and its first visit to Milwaukee in over 25 years; Enslaved similarly only has three U.S. shows scheduled this year, and some fans in the crowd may have recalled the band’s first American tour stopping at this very festival back in 1995. Still led by founding members Grutle Kjellson and Ivar Bjørnson, the band was incredibly tight, and even their more polished proggy material sounded positively vicious live. Old-school fans got their thrills as well, as the band reached back to ’94 for the caustic “Jotunblod” and blew away the studio version; in fact, every song blew away the studio version.
Rotting Christ
Enslaved
As we hear of more and more tours being canceled due to visa issues and the very prospect of touring seems dicier by the day, fans had to be especially grateful for these European bookings; this was a major part of what made MMF such a special event in the ‘80s and ‘90s as well, and bringing Paradise Lost to Milwaukee for the first time ever was another major score. The British goth-metal pioneers opened with “Enchantment” off their 1995 landmark album Draconian Times on Friday night and you could feel black hearts melting throughout the room. Coming as a sort of bookend to an excellent early showing by Chicago death/doom stalwarts Avernus, Paradise Lost’s set was triumphant; Nick Holmes seemingly hasn’t lost a bit of his vocal range, and the band (all original members other than drummer Guido Montanarini) was perfect, although fans hoping for a glimpse of new material (the band had just announced that its new album will be out in the fall) will have to wait.
Paradise Lost
Avernus
The booking of Down to headline night one might’ve caused controversy a few years ago; not so much any more. Frontman Phil Anselmo has been in plenty of hot water over the years for racist actions, but Metallica invited his reincarnated Pantera on tour and made it all go away apparently. Anselmo has at least denounced his most detestable mistakes; that may be enough to pacify a majority of metalheads, but for the third year running, you couldn’t even enter Metal Fest without getting a big eyeful of the Hells Headbangers merch stand, metal’s foremost unrepentant distributor of nazi music. So anybody avoiding this festival on principle has more than enough reason; it’s very unfortunate that Jasta can’t seem to divest his brand from this stain on the metal community.
Down
Regardless, Down is just a very boring band, and one that didn’t seem very well-rehearsed Friday night. They had to restart their biggest hit, “Stone The Crow,” twice, and Anselmo seemed even more ornery than usual. That all changed for the “Bury Me In Smoke” finale, though, when the stage was overrun by kids! Scott Ian’s 13-year-old son Revel, who’d played drums earlier for the S.O.D. tribute set (“Stormbreeders Of Death”—Jasta taking vocal duties), was behind the kit, and a few other VIPs of varying ages were running around the stage during the final jam, Anselmo conducting Ian through the dynamics. The kid was damn good—probably too good for a band like Down, in all honesty.
Saturday’s lineup was very thrash-n-death meat-and-potatoes, with one major exception: England’s TesseracT, a technical prog-metal outfit from the U.K. currently on only its second U.S. tour. We wouldn’t hear this type of buzzsaw guitar tones in any other set all weekend, and drummer Jay Postones executed some of the craziest double-bass rolls imaginable in perfect time with the mathy riffage of “War Of Being.” The band was like a combination of Porcupine Tree and Linkin Park only much heavier; they surely won some fans with this set. The other Saturday outlier was BRAT, the self-described “bimboviolence” quartet out of New Orleans. You can guess the gimmick: vocalist Liz Selfish did not look the part of a grindcore vocalist, yet she definitely sounded like one, although she was so dominant in the mix that we could rarely tell if the riffs were actually any good.
TesseracT
BRAT
On the death end of things, the afternoon pairing of Gorgasm and Necrot provided an interesting study in the contrasting potentials of the genre. Gorgasm was an onslaught of grim, precision brutality, featuring a punishing trio of guttural growlers (and unfortunately a lot of equipment issues). Necrot on the other hand put on one of the most fun sets of the weekend; frontman Luca Indrio humorously egged the crowd on throughout, even singling out a fellow in a red shirt for being “too young to just be standing there.” The moshing duly intensified. “They got four security guards,” said Indrio prior to the “Sinister Will” set-closer. “And we got about 500 of you. I wanna see you guys crowd surf! Whoever gets onstage gets a kiss from [guitarist] Sonny [Reinhardt].” Sadly, despite the crowd’s best efforts, Sonny’s romantic quest went unfulfilled.
Gorgasm
Necrot
Another major surprise on the lineup was Oppressor; the legendary Chicago death metalers broke up in 1999 and then mostly reformed as nu-metal act Soil, reuniting Oppressor only once last year for Maryland Deathfest and then Saturday in Milwaukee for a second time. They were known for adding keyboards to their sound when keyboards were anathema in death metal, and onstage they definitely looked more like Korn than Cannibal Corpse, but their set in the Eagles Ballroom was as potent and crushing as fans could’ve hoped. They preceded another reformed ‘90s band, New York’s Demolition Hammer, who inspired one of the hugest and most violent circle pits we witnessed all weekend.
Oppressor
Demolition Hammer
The thrash continued in the Rave Bar with Evildead, another reformed ‘90s band, and they seemed a bit taken aback by how well the packed crowd knew their songs. After a delayed start that had fans tossing an inner tube around as a game to try and ring unsuspecting attendees, the atmosphere was unexpectedly frolick-y when Evildead started playing, and the stage-diving never ceased throughout their set, one of the best of the day.
Evildead
The Rave proper hosted the other major highlights of Saturday: a one-two punch of Bay Area thrash legends. Death Angel were summoned when Destruction had to cancel, and they came prepared; frontman Mark Osegueda put almost any vocalist of his era to shame both in terms of singing and between-song presence. As far as he was concerned, The Rave was a giant field swarming with tens of thousands of fans, and by the end of Death Angel’s set it became inconceivable as to why this band never hit the heights of fame of its ’80s contemporaries. Plenty of metalheads would say the same about Exodus, who closed out the main floor Saturday. The band is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its classic debut Bonded By Blood and they put on a killer set, inviting Osegueda back to the stage to help out on “A Lesson In Violence.” Exodus recently kicked out vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza, ending his third stint with the band, and welcomed Rob Dukes back for his second. Dukes did an admirable job, but he couldn’t get the crowd quite as riled as Osegueda, and the band simply wasn’t quite as intense as Death Angel.
Death Angel
Exodus
If we grant that maybe 2025 is simply “the metalcore year” at Metal Fest, Jasta definitely brought in two of the best to ever do it: The Dillinger Escape Plan (who played Sunday and we unfortunately couldn’t attend), and Between The Buried And Me, masters of a style that blurs the lines between metal, post-hardcore and prog in a way no one else does. Their set in the Ballroom proved electrifying if a bit sparsely attended; it was one of the best-sounding performances upstairs all weekend, the set split between two of their best-loved albums, Alaska and Coma Ecliptic. Paul Waggoner’s guitar solos cut through beautifully and the band seemed to pack a full show’s energy into about a third of their usual time allotment.
Between The Buried And Me
Devin Townsend kept the energy high for the penultimate upstairs performance Saturday. The prog-metal legend recently announced that he’s taking a break from touring, and Milwaukee showed up to send him on his way. There were certainly some cheesy moments (unsurprisingly), but fans went especially nuts for a couple of Strapping Young Lads nuggets, “Love?” and “Aftermath,” the project having been on ice since 2007. Townsend is a fascinating figure who seems to love the spotlight when he’s in it and then shun it in every interview; he gave fans everything he could squeeze into his hourlong slot and gushed gratitude for decades of support.
Devin Townsend
Headlining the Ballroom Saturday was Black Label Society, the southern-metal project helmed by the last of the premier guitar heroes, Zakk Wylde. Resplendent in yellow kilt and black leather vest, Wylde took every possible opportunity to perch on monitors and wail away gloriously. The music, not unlike Down’s set the previous night, was fairly bland compared to the rest of the fest, although they did debut a fun new song called “Lord Humungous” to start the show, surely a thrill for hardcore Zakkheads.
Black Label Society
Now, it would’ve been really easy to catapult this set to legendary status; after all, Wylde is currently the guitarist for Pantera, and Anselmo would be returning to the stage Sunday with his other other side band, Scour. It seemed almost inevitable that we’d see Phil emerge; why not do a couple of the many Black Sabbath tunes they’ve variously covered over the years, in honor of Ozzy’s impending retirement? Instead, we watched the crowd gradually diminish, as it was all Black Label originals, and Wylde, while undeniably one of the most enjoyable living performers on the guitar, is only a passable songwriter.
While GWAR would almost certainly close the fest explosively on Sunday, the headliners the first two nights were about the only legitimate musical letdowns of the weekend. Performers and fans alike still remember when Metal Fest was the premier event in the country for extreme music; there’s still plenty of room for improvement, but the prospect of Milwaukee becoming a metal mecca once again seems more attainable with each year.
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