LIVE REVIEW: Metal Battle Portugal 2024 @ Dinaamo, Barroselas (15-16/12/2023)
An early Xmas metal party, 'Zelas style.
That was the programme - six bands spread over two days, half of which will go through to the final round of the Portuguese Metal Battles that will take place during the great SWR - Barroselas Metalfest in late April, where the final winner will be picked and move on to play at the legendary Wacken Open Air in August. A great opportunity to sample some of the finest young - and in some cases, not so young! - talent to pop up in the scene, but also part of the fascination for this year’s format, it has to be said, is the excuse to visit the small northern village of Barroselas in the winter. A place that has earned its spot in every Portuguese (and beyond!) metalhead’s heart, but that most of us rarely get the chance to sample outside of the festival.
The Dinaamo, for those who have been there, is none other than the SWR Cafe, an indoor bar where you typically go to sit down with a drink and rest a bit when the main event is on in April, which is now being turned into a proper venue itself for shows by the organization after a first experiment during the shortened post-pandemic version of the event, dubbed SWR Feast, in 2022. Though it was really strange to see the desolate emptiness of the site where the main tent and the outside stage and food area usually are - not to mention contending with the extra biting December cold of northern Portugal -, the vibe of the shows was totally SWR already, that familiar, welcoming, supporting environment where everyone is just there to enjoy some good loud metal, is as palpable during the holiday season as it is in April every year, which is a great thing.
Though this was a competition, the atmosphere between the bands was friendly and everyone gave it their best shot. Congratulations to the three winners, and we hope to see the other three acts soon as well.
DAY 1
VøidWomb
If I use the expression “local talent” in this post, you will probably, and rightly so, assume that I’m talking about Portuguese bands. However, in VøidWomb’s case, it means much more than that, as tonight they were as local as Ed and Tubbs’ Local Shop was to Royston Vasey in The League Of Gentlemen, hailing from Barroselas itself. Not that you would have known, mind you, just for their show - given the warped, creepily astral qualities of their swirling death/black metal, they might as well come from somewhere beyond Alpha Centauri. Though they only have a short seventeen minute EP to their name, 2021’s excellent ‘Altars Of Cosmic Devotion’, they behaved like veterans and enveloped the whole Dinaamo in a shroud of cosmic darkness. In the end, they went through to the next round at SWR, a well-deserved prize for an excellent performance.
Spiralist
By far and away the most stylistically adventurous band of the whole two-day bunch, Spiralist can be a jarring listen for newcomers, as the angular sharpness of their jazz-infused, electronics-drenched punked-up prog (if you can piece all that together in your head) usually take unexpected turns. A certain monochrome quality to project founder Bruno Costa’s vocals might be their only slight Achilles heel in the middle of the sonic maelstrom they are able to create, but still, it was great to make such an unexpected sonic detour within a more “conventional” metal atmosphere. Unfortunately they were without their bassplayer Daniel Sampaio due to illness, which meant that probably we heard a less potent version of their melting pot of sound, but they still decided to soldier on with the show, so all kudos to them. They’re not going through to the next stage, but we’re still looking forward to the next Spiralist appearance - and also the exciting new album they are going to be writing (and hopefully releasing it too) in 2024.
Law Of Contagion
A supergroup of sorts within the Portuguese underground, as all four musicians play or have played in very important acts, some of which having even transcended borders and gathered international success, such as bassist Zé Pedro’s Holocausto Canibal, to mention but the most obvious. Also guitarist Carlos’ past in the sorely missed E.A.K., drummer Rúben Silva’s presence in Vircator, Koltum and Innards and frontman Ishkur’s more shoegazy solo side-project Wistful are all worthy of note, among many others. When the four of them congregate these days, however, it is under the unholy banner of Law Of Contagion, who let loose a very crusty, agile brand of death/black. Their show offered plenty of enjoyable headbanging moments and a wonderfully dark atmosphere all round. It was surely a tough call to leave them out of the next stage, but still, with two excellent records out already in the form of 2020’s ‘Woeful Litanies From The Nether Realms’ and 2022’s ‘Oecumenical Rites For The Antichrist‘, Law Of Contagion are a fully established act that we’ll be seeing a lot of in the future.
DAY 2
Neuropsy
Hailing from Setúbal, deathsters Neuropsy had the longest drive to get to Barroselas, but that didn’t dampen their spirits and they spent most of their show trying to encourage the audience to participate a bit more. It wasn’t really that kind of night, though, but that doesn’t mean their technical, intricate songs (you know what you’re getting when you see a bass on stage with more strings than a regular guitar, right?) lost any of its inherent impact - especially during the parts where bassist Jorge Leitner unleashes a surprisingly rousing clean voice to contrast with the overall death grunts of João Martins and Fily Carvalho. As a band that has been through a terrible recent setback, having lost their original vocalist last year 2022 in truly tragic circumstances, it was good to see them back to being excited (with a human drummer and everything, fully maximizing the potency of their output) and enthusiastic about their metal. It wasn’t enough to push through to the next round, but they set the tone for a great second night.
Alpha Warhead
“This isn’t a Megadeth cover band, I just have a cold!”, warned Alpha Warhead frontman Diogo Pereira hilariously after the first song. It’s okay, we wouldn’t have mistaken them anyway - even if these southerners shamelessly thrash out like there’s no tomorrow, they still manage to do it with enough personality and youthful enthusiasm as to never feel like a deliberate copy of anyone or even like a retro fad just trying to catch in on nostalgia value. No, these young dudes are all about thrashing away in mighty cavalcades, headbanging all the way and never letting boredom settle for a minute. Sure, they like Metallica and Death Angel and yeah, Megadeth too, but their speedy riffs and ripping solos are all their own, and after two demos, their forthcoming album is being released next week and they seem to have a bright future. They have some pizzazz too, as evidenced by their bassplayer letting loose some fireworks from his instrument at the end, in a wild culmination of a great show. “Just for that, you guys have won already!”, someone jokingly screamed from the back. Well, for now, they’ll at least be deservedly playing SWR Fest in April on the next stage of the Metal Battles. Congratulations!
Verme
“Verme” means “worm”, yeah, and Verme sound just like what you’d imagine a band called that might sound - filthy, slithering and insidiously aggressive. Appropriate as a closer to these two very noisy nights, they were perhaps the best band of the whole bunch and laid waste to a tired, cold and overall understandingly unresponsive crowd to an extent that even a slightly timid pit was formed in front of the stage. Just a few dudes bumping into each other, but trust me, Slayer wouldn’t have done any better in the circumstances. With unrelenting intensity, channeling the groovy violence of Trap Them as much as the sludgy beatings of people like Vermin Womb and the punk simplicity of Phobia, Verme kicked their way into the finals like big boys. It will be quite a fight come next April - can’t wait!
All live band photos: Estefânia Silva
Check them out:
SWR - Barroselas Metalfest: Facebook | Instagram
Alpha Warhead: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Law Of Contagion: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Neuropsy: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Spiralist: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Verme: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
VøidWomb: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
