BEER & LOATHING IN THE ROCKIES: DECIBEL METAL AND BEER FEST DENVER, 2023, DAY 2

(Denver-based NCS writer Gonzo didn’t miss the Decibel Metal & Beer Fest in Denver on December 1st and 2nd. We’ve already published his report on the fest’s first day (here), and today we present his report on Day 2.)

Festivals are always full of surprises. Most of the time, these surprises are new bands I discover or friends I meet for the first time, but when I woke up in the morning after day 1 of Decibel Metal & Beer Fest, the true surprise was that I didn’t have a crippling fucking hangover.

Ah, but there was still time. Tonight would be a glorious second installment of the festivities orchestrated by the Philly-based Decibel crew. And if last night was any indicator of what I could expect this evening, there was much reason for excitement.

We scurried into the Summit as dusk was slowly siphoning what little daylight was left on this Saturday afternoon. In the dead of winter in Colorado, the sun completes its descent beneath the horizon at around 4:30 pm. And right on cue, local death trio Astral Tomb was here to accompany us into that darkness.

Featuring unpredictable song structures and dizzying musicianship, the talented trio looked comfortable and collected playing what may have been their biggest show yet. Listening to an Astral Tomb song is like navigating a hellish subterranean cavern. Monster riffs are just around every corner, but you never know when they’ll lurch from the darkness to take a piece out of your jugular.

As they closed out their set, Tomb received a roaring ovation from the transfixed crowd. We were off to a solid fucking start tonight already.

Pairs well with: Astral Tomb ESB, Black Sky Brewery

 

Even though our brains were just scrambled by 30 minutes of dissonant death, tonight’s lineup was significantly goddamn doomier than it was on Friday. Mother of Graves, The Keening, and Primitive Man would be a formidable trio to behold. Fortunately, I found a nice spot to the right of the stage to get comfortable. Said spot had the added advantage of being directly in front of those Viking maniacs at Brimming Horn Meadery, who were wasting no time in pouring some of the finest examples of their preferred ancient beverage that I’ve ever tasted – including one they called Nuclear Blast Beats, a carbonated mead that went down a bit too easily.

As I settled in with what would be my first pour of many, Indiana’s Mother of Graves took the stage and effortlessly ripped into material from last year’s superb Where the Shadows Adorn.

Graves is one of those bands that sounds more like they’re from Finland than the US. With a mid-paced doom/death sound that harkens back to the glory days of Amorphis and early Insomnium, the band showcased layers of melody, harmony, and some seriously catchy-ass hooks. “Rain” was a highlight of the set, as was the commanding stage presence of vocalist/Jason Momoa lookalike Brandon Howe. I’m looking forward to catching them next year at Northwest Terror Fest already.

Pairs well with: The Emptiness of Eyes Schwarzbier, Little Cottage Brewery

 

The dissolving of Salt Lake City’s SubRosa, while a total bummer on paper, has also spawned a couple of incredible new projects in its ashes. One of them is The Keening, a chamber doom outfit led by the talented Rebecca Vernon. Their album Little Bird, released in October, was received well enough to make several last-minute appearances on best-of lists throughout the metal community, and rightfully so.

Their appearance tonight would ostensibly be the least “heavy” act we’d see all weekend, but I think that word gets thrown around too haphazardly at times. This music is still very heavy, just not in the same way as, say, Primitive Man. With haunting passages of darkened folk, Vernon’s ethereal voice, and a reliance on mostly acoustic guitars, The Keening made me want to cozy up by a warm fire while drinking what I could only guess was my fifth or sixth pour of Nuclear Blast Beats.

Pairs well with: Mead, but also Silent Grave imperial stout from Magnanimous Brewing

 

After hearing what sounded like a band hailing from Finland with Mother of Graves, the festival was about to be treated to a band that was actually from Finland: Krypts.

Admittedly, I knew next to nothing about these shadowy death bringers until the week of the festival. The modicum of knowledge I did have was that their brand of cave-dwelling doom/death has been lurking around the underground circuit since 2008, and their sound shares common ground with the likes of Incantation and fellow Finns Hooded Menace.

Tonight, Krypts showed they didn’t fly halfway across the world to fart into a beer-soaked microphone for 30 minutes. The fearsome quartet laid into songs that sounded downright vicious, sending the well-lubricated beer drinkers in the pit into a frenzy. Tempos vacillated between swirling tempests and slow, terrifying breakdowns. I love discoveries at festivals that wow me the way Krypts did during their set. It’s a testament to how devoted Albert Mudrian and his Decibel minions are to searching the globe for bands that fit the bill of this coveted festival.

Pairs well with: More fucking mead. *urp*

 

This was the point in the festival in which the chaos was escalating. I bumped into a guy I’d shared a blunt with during Emperor’s set at Psycho Las Vegas almost two years ago, and our unlikely reunion seemed to function as some kind of bizarre gravity well for every mead-drinking maniac in attendance. Albert Mudrian himself even stumbled in our direction for a quick hello, and it was nice to finally meet the man whose writing and related work I’d been consistently reading and admiring for the better part of the past 15 years.

When Albert scurried off into the crowd, a wild-eyed dude from the pit sauntered up to us.

“What are you drinking?!” he asked me and my compatriot.

“It’s mead, and it’s fucking amazing. Get yourself a pour back there,” I replied, gesturing behind me.

He obliged and disappeared. When he came back moments later, his face told me he was having some kind of esoteric spiritual experience.

“This stuff is INTENSE,” he said, holding his cup of Dark Sorcery mead from Brimming Horn.

“Of course. I’m not here to spout LIES, man!” I drunkenly squawked.

“I wonder what it feels like to have this in my eyeball.”

I blinked. “Um…. probably fucking painful?”

Without even so much as hesitating, he pulled down his left eyelid and carefully poured a few drops of carbonated mead into it.

“JESUS, it burns!” he wailed as he scampered back towards the pit. My friend stared, speechless.

“It’s getting weird in this place,” I said out loud to nobody in particular.

 

Meanwhile, Colorado’s finest sludge lords Primitive Man were just a few tunings away from getting started. They need no introduction on these pages, of course, but I just want to reiterate that seeing this band live is like taking a 20-mile hike through knee-deep tar. It’s slow, it’s brutal, and it might even hurt a little.

Sticking entirely to material from albums Caustic and Immersion through their five-song set (which was still pushing 45 minutes), the boys lumbered through “My Will” and “Victim” with all the ominous gusto you’d expect by now. By the time they were closing things out with “The Lifer,” I felt like dragging my knuckles across the floor in solidarity. How can music this slow and menacing be so engaging and immersive?

Pairs well with: Death Sludge dark lager, KCBC Brooklyn

 

After almost three solid hours of slow, soul-crushing doom, the hooded lunatics in Midnight were due up next.

“It’s gonna get fucking wild in here,” said my compatriot.

“Yeah,” I replied, “they’ve been aching for a pit for a while now. Here we go.”

Just then, Jesse from KEN Mode appeared. I hadn’t seen him since yesterday, but he said he’d be sticking around to try some of the pours on tap tonight.

“Did you try the marshmallow handjee yet?” I asked, gesturing toward the 3 Floyds table.

“Marshmallows. It’s what the body craves,” he said, fixing his gaze on the description.

It was our unanimous opinion that anyone who didn’t try this beer had really fucked up. 3 Floyds never ceases to impress, and they had outdone themselves at this festival once again.

 

Midnight wasted no time in getting down to brass tacks, injecting a ferocious bit of black metal into their Motörhead-like sound from the first chord they played. “Fucking Speed and Darkness” got the pit moving after hours of slow head nods and half-time grooves.

Vocalist/band mastermind Athenar even threw a bag of weed into the crowd after casually holding it up and saying “I don’t smoke this shit, anyone want it?”

There’s knowing your audience, and then there’s… that. I could’ve blown a chef’s kiss at the sheer ridiculous perfection of that moment.

Pairs well with: Violator dark lager, Decibel Metal & Beer Fest limited pour

 

Normally at this point in a festival, I am in a state. It could be anything from road-weary to jetlagged to ripped to the tits on whatever substance of choice on which I’d chosen to imbibe. But those things don’t really factor in when you live three miles from the festival venue. If anything, I felt spoiled.

The mighty Agalloch was now set to play their first Colorado show in almost a decade, and that was cause for celebration in itself. Obviously, this called for more mead – this time, the Agalloch collab. The huge Viking-looking man refilling our cups was starting to look worried.

You know those moments during shows when the grandeur of the performance in front of you just seems to melt away the rest of the world? And in that moment, nothing else matters except the music being played by the human beings in front of you?

The opening notes of “Limbs” put me there, in that indeterminate void between realms. The outside world ceased to exist. The haunting opening guitars of that gorgeously bleak sonic soliloquy were just as captivating as when I’d first heard them on Ashes Against the Grain in 2006. Even though every part of my collective inner being (and some of the outer) was saturated with mead, it took nothing away from just how glorious it was to see Agalloch together again.

Even during an unfortunate bit of technical difficulties that kicked off “Into the Painted Gray” (probably my favorite song of theirs), vocalist/guitarist John Haughm handled it smoothly. The issues were quickly corrected, and the band didn’t miss a beat when they gave the song another go. The rest of the set was everything I’d dreamed about.

Pairs well with: More. Fucking. Mead.

 

Look, I know reunions are all the rage these days – they’ve pretty much become the metal equivalent of Hollywood reboots by now. But when executed gracefully and intentionally, such reunions feel far less forced. Agalloch has proven that they’re either time-traveling wizards or just really fucking good at what they do, and in their case, I’m not convinced it’s not both.

When the set closed, I tried to squeeze in as many drunken goodbyes as I could, but it was never going to be enough. With the demise or hiatus of some West Coast metal fests recently, it truly feels like Decibel is building something irreplaceable in the metal community with what they’ve established here in Denver. And if the hype is to be believed, the third installment of Decibel Metal & Beer Fest, Denver is going to be one for the ages.