[Gig Review] Brutefest 2026 @ Tote Hotel, Melbourne (AU), 25.04.
Event: Brutefest 2026
Artist/s:
Warbringer (US - Headliners), Destruktor, Anoxia, Ratlord, Circle of Blood, Munitions, Monoliyth, Desecrator, Harlott, MUNT, Virulent Invocation (AU)
Organiser:
Your Mate Bookings/ Brutefest
Location:
The Tote Hotel, Collingwood, Melbourne (AU)
Date:
Saturday, 25th April 2026
Author Pit-Injuries:
Nearly septic, but thankfully not quite…
Photography:
Richie Black Photography
Writing:
Brady Irwin
Foreword/Photos & Footage/Thanks:
This has definitely been the most we’ve put into a festival review in a good long time! Get ready for a long one that’s what she s- between getting all the photography and footage together plus writing the review itself, editing, etc, this one took over a week to complete!
Speaking of - I’m sitting here on our Music Monday, still nursing a busted-open toe, a minor cut on my arse and a bung ankle and shoulder. Goddamn. As you’ll read later, there ain’t no Tote pit like a Warbringer pit, apparently!
See below for what is our biggest Gallery of Brewicide photo/gig footage coverage yet! Two articles jam-packed with a whole heap of amazing photos from Richie Black Photography and some additional footage from each band via Yours Truly. Richie himself put a good portion of his working week after-hours into getting tons of fantastic snaps; give the man and the artists their credit due and check the remainder not posted here out, at the links below.
HUGE thank-you to Anthony Blayney and Co. from Your Mate Bookings/Brutefest, The Tote Hotel staff, Warbringer and all supports and punters in attendance, for making this afternoon/evening a real one. I’ve been waiting more than 20 years to see Warbringer, and to finally catch them live is a thrash-metallers’ catharsis I can’t successfully put into words - check those out in Part II but for now, steep yourself in the glorious lore that is live heavy music Australiana. Cheers, mate!
Remember - putting gigs such as these on involves massive coordination, logistics and steeply mounting costs for artists and industry alike?
Want more Brutefests and similar in future?
Vote with your ticket, support your local scene.
As Always,
Peace, Love and Grindcore - Brady/Richie.
Photo/Footage Galleries:
(see below for Gig Review)
Brutefest 2026 Gallery Part I:
Ratlord, Munitions, Virulent Invocation, Monoliyth, Anoxia (AU)
LINK
Brutefest 2026 Gallery Part II:
Munt, Harlott, Destruktor, Circle Of Blood, Desecrator (AU), Warbringer (AU)
LINK
Heading on up to Melbourne with a stacked playlist for Brutefest on a fine April afternoon, I was both excited as hell and filled with some trepidation. Anthony and Co. know how to stack a bill, and from the looks of the run-times, Richie and I would be taking that term seriously. All great bands, all afternoon and into the evening. Gulp.
Now, let’s talk about our place of residence for a second, shall we? It’s as iconic as it is derided, and there were no shortage of folks bemoaning the venue choice on the day.
I get it - if you’re a non-enjoyer of social anxiety, claustrophobia and cloying past sweaty throngs every time you need to piss, drink a beer and chase after Old Mate (who you know’s probably already halfway through tonguing the last remnants of the bag and exactly three beers from a discombobulated ‘business proposal’)? Well, let’s just say you’re ‘in for a time’ doesn’t even hope to encapsulate the confusing and cramped corridors, multiple stages littering a comparatively small space.
Remembering a few gigs like Despise You and indeed, Brutefest 2025 (Oh whaddyaknow? Turns out we reviewed that too - scooch over here and have a squiz if interested) and just how straight-up choked of oxygen and personal space it can get? Yeah, wasn’t looking forward to that. Relief abounds when I poke my head out the back to check in with the not-glam-but-definitely-spicy Motley Crew I attended with - and see those corrugated gates open a bit wider.
‘cause I like ya and I wanna regale ya comprehensively - here’s a couple of snaps of the outdoors environ, with some free Warbringer promo from one happy thrash-camper’s merch choice. Solid tees all ‘round, and it’s my lament that my current financial sitch wasn’t amenable to cleaning up Warbringer’s table (beer money, decisions, all that adult boring stuff).
I went for the Brutefest official design, but there was plentiful, boundless opportunities to engage in wallet-sadomachism across multiple stacked merch desks, both inside and outdoors.
[imagined in David Attenborough accent] ‘Observe. Our BBQ Man cooks internally with impatience as he awaits the stage, a carefree merman supervisor cutout grinning close by, keeping vigilant watch. Nearby, a young lad from rural Vic treasures his latest addition to a plentiful nest of black shirts. Together, they seem restless and eager for pit/stage violence’.
True to form, Melbourne’s favourite sausage-slinger Jimbo (Jim Luxford) is indeed on the case, a close eye kept by the wistful stare of his boss-turned merman via that totally-accurate lifelike cutout nearby. The waft of our simple carbs-n-meat Australian fare mixing with an already tangible pang of spilt booze. The ping of an odd pint glass here and there already shattering, too, with a resounding ‘Tax-iiiii!’ from amused friends, an early clang that would only act as a translucent, Road Dog-infused portent of some… smashing times to come, later. (Smashed my toe at least, it’s looking gnarly).
I’m not one to distract a man on a meat-mission, instead ambling through a growing throng to peep at some of the additional merch desks and other goodies on display out back. Being an afternoon start, there’s at least an opportunity to roleplay it still being summer with barbeque and beers outside. We’re not yet deep into the Siberian throes of Melbourne winter, thankfully.
Before long, however, the emergent throng filters and siphons like a gravitational vortex towards the front-bar, a heap of early attendees posting straight up in the confined quarters as they filter in. It’s as cramped as it is iconic, my hippocampus injecting visual flashes and Slatts/Youngy’s acerbically Aussie exchange to a certain King Parrot film clip. None of us are here to copulate with arachnids, either. And if you are, I hope to Beelzebub you somehow found a private space for such caper.
I take both the safest and unsafest route on the floor for our first band by pulling up a stool-pew front-centre. It’s a position of putting myself in clear beer-jeopardy, fully expecting (and receiving) a face full of beer-love from one of the nuttiest of Melbourne frontmen.
Chug an ale, pull up a pew and get yourselves ready, ‘cause Brutefest takes no prisoners from go-to-woe — and our openers are especially unconcerned with your bored, generic, tired metalhead posturing.
(Signed: Me, probably more generic a metalhead than I’d care to admit. Something-Chuck Pahlaniuk-something-Brad Pitt unique snowflakes but here, we’re made of iron filings).
Seems I paid an early price for my front-row position, but it’s to be expected around Old Mate.
Those who’ve seen rabble-rousing grindcore mess-providers CHOOF live know what’s next - probably why they’re not sat in this particular spot. Others such as myself? We never learn. As our manic frontman moves forward arms-crossed in a ‘fuck-your-metal-gods’ routine, fake pouting at sullen metalheads behind me, I already know what’s to come next as the bloke stuck on the corner. ‘Thank the gods I closed my mouth at least’, I think, turning to the Tote bar staff for a refill of Cherry Sour with a face soaked in tinnie like a crust-punk fresh from a beer version of the casting couch. Now that’s punk rock, kids - can’t remember the last time I saw a power metal band do that (or at all, really).
A few of us copped the blue whale’s spray of majestic venue-creature Jake (of CHOOF fame), however he was thankfully a little more reserved on the beer-spouting here than in his other act. Well.. sort of. There were quite a few healthy arcs of mouth garden hose set to both spray and jet, liquid particles sifting down to grace us like acrid snow. Did this change mean any drop in intensity? Absolutely not. Eschewing the more monotonal bark-roar utilised in his other band, Jake instead is a gnashing, limb-flailing screechy parrot, distortion pedals coating his vocals in a waxy shriek as he dons black leather gloves, wielding a pointed hammer instrument alongside an array of pedals on the ricketiest ironing board this side of my house.
The devil-may-care fuckery of the frontman melds well with the intensity of the band, a mix of beaming grins and focused intensity. By the time second track ‘Zadok’s Stupor’ rifles off in a thick wall of distortion-soaked feedback, thudding bass and drums frantically mish-mashing d-beat and blast, Jake’s already sporting a fresh forehead graze and that omnipresent stage accessory of his - a single half-beer, half-saliva strand of fluids dangling a good foot-plus in length from the bushy, beer-drenched beard. Don’t all rush the stage for a taste at once, folks, let the man do his thing.
Emily cops all manner of shouts of appreciation during sporadic bassline breaks, the isolated lines closest you’ll get to traditional metal soloing. From both guitar and bass though, there’s all sorts of tasty arpeggiations rising out of the muck. Top that off with dalliance with a bit of reverb and effects, Jake twisting at the knobs like a laundry DJ on an ironing board that looks about as stable as your ex, and you’ve got a very different first-act flavour. Which I’m grateful for, honestly. Better that than, I don’t know, Turnstile wannabes or something? All the while, there’s not a skerrick of unused space, guitarist and drummer just as keen to flail wildly and show the earlybirds Ratlord might be on first, but they still mean bus-i-ness.
Now that’s a shower beer.
It’s somewhere in between the chaotic caterwaul of ‘Necropunx’ off the self-titled EP and the resounding tower of feedback between songs that bro approaches. Ah, shit. At first, he’s gesturing to others behind in a pout that’d make you think you’re his uncle who just scarfed the entire six-piece McNuggets meal in front of his eager face. Sheer indignation. Elbows throw up in a rendition of that oh-so-serious metalhead pose as he leers over those more immobile.
That’s when the eyes lock and a grin turns - I’ve got precisely 1-2 seconds to reflexively cover my mouth and beer and yep - there it is. The tinnie shotgun, the beerkakke. Look, I’m up the front in a thrash metal shirt recording half the bloody thing. I gave the Fat Pizza coded head-flick like Pauly himself. Did it to myself. The bar staff only knowingly smirk as I turn back to them, quaffing my protected red remnants and motioning for another of those too-easily-drinkable Venom Cherry Sours (something of an Achilles heel for me, but then again so is booze full-stop with a lot of us metal-folk).
Being my first time seeing these guys, I’m as impressed musically as I am with the stage performance. Whispering a hope that I don’t cop yet another round of Spicy Cough from the tinnie-to-frontman fluids transfer, I amble off the stool and wait airline-style for the packed front-bar to filter back out like a drain plug. An initial tentative feedback loop, but by the end our brave and keen early punters were layering hoots of applause and appreciation.
Clearly some new fans were made today, including myself. Now bring the Norwegian grindcore act Ratlord over and do a double-header!
With sudden silence and a black-gloved hand-wave, Jake asserts “Youse can all fuck off and drink some beer now if you want now. Go on!”.
It's those cheeky calls and fake pouts that make me love Brutefest as this glorious shitshow of metal and its rowdy, just as ugly cousins—eclectic as hell, brute-al, one might say. Nothing beats the guilty glee of watching metalheads' egos get gleefully curb-stomped (especially one’s own); even the diehards should crack a smile and lean in. We’re Australians and metalheads, after all - most of us lean into or even lead with the self-deprecation, but it’s fun to watch cracks appear in that carefully-manicured, made for social media machismo armour, too.
Precious minutes ticking down, bands already hauling gear through the chaos, everything in slippery motion, shoulders and elbows a labyrinth to navigate carefully (or not carefully) nursed beers. A few flecks of the many litres of beer (and probably wine and spirits) adorning my shoulder, gifts from a considerate and crowded room. Gotta hustle. I dart outside, cracking a canned lungful of sugary nicotinergic poison-gas for that emergency buzz. It's a brutal endurance slog ahead if 2025’s fest was an indicator. I'll need every hit, especially considering the idiocy of my impulse-control (or lack thereof) the night prior now telling grim portents about why you never attend Brutefest on hair of the dog and hungover prayer (I implore, take it from me - it was rough for a good while there).
For the uninitiated, peek at the thoroughfare by the Tote's beer garden (I'd only ever seen it sealed off before): crammed left is Jimbo, Your Mate Bookings' sausage-sizzle wizard, flipping snags beside a gloriously tacky cardboard cutout of the head promoter, flanked by merch piles, food stalls and an already-competitive game of musical chairs for coveted smoke-and-yarn spots. ‘Least no one’s brazenly shelfing pills, twirling the glass barbie or dry-humping The Little Anthmaid… yet. You never know with these shindigs, and we are in Collingwood after all. Sorry gentrification, but you can’t un-crust-punk a beautiful festival turd all over your pristine cardboard cutout stucco apartments. If the nearby unwashed ‘poors’ don’t get you with your nose up, us rowdy brutes will finish the job. Do your market research next time and suck it up, we’re here to be loud.
All up, the outside accoutrement feels marginally derived from one of your more approachable Golden Plains or Bluesfest normie-circuses—sunhats, influencers, the works—but squished into a gritty pocket with way gruffer, sweat-crusted heavy-heads instead of pastel-shirted NPC’s. These are my folks, this is my tribe. Our colourful albeit primarily black-shirted tribe.
I don’t need to run SocialScript.exe or try to hazily recall work, news or other bullshit I’m frankly not interested in. Everyone’s sharing a cultural purpose, and they’re far more approachable as usual than the years of Melbourne stereotyping I copped up north prior to moving down late-2010’s.
Sure, a bunch of people in black coming together to violently shove and swing their heads to gruff folks bleating about death, destruction and the like ain’t everyone’s cup of tea.
But it’s ours, and boy we do love ourselves some brutali-tea.
No time for commiserations, reflections, questions, comments or concerns, though. No time for pretty much anything, all afternoon and night, but frantic trips to the bar, bathroom and smoker’s area between 11 bands packed right up in there. Really rammed, crammed and slammed back-to-back with nil pauses between.
Successfully incrementally bursting a few more capillaries with popcorn-lung or whatever, I exhale and bolt inside - like a rat out of an aqueduct, to quote The Life of Brian.
Kid you not, the setup-teardown machine runs so slick that even hustling toward the main stage, I'm already a beat late to the next act. Blink and it's gone—don't hog Nana's Quaaludes if you wanna hang on through the night. The Life of Richie Black is a busy one, and our golden-haired lensman’s already propping in rifle-fire position for the second act in death-thrash aficionados Munitions.
The sun hasn't quite dipped below the city-scape horizon, neither its’ metaphorical death-knell over neoliberal capitalism's drawn-out funeral. We’re all going through own private and shared litanies of utter trash, fake news, AI slop, psychological concerns, social gripes and economic woes, and spaces like Brutefest present a novel and non-judgemental way to get those demons out - boogeying on down, metal-style.
For that, I’ll credit a pack of rowdy no-named rapscallions (-cough- let’s call them Sammy, Levi, Max, Paul, and the usual mosh-stimming suspects -cough-) for firing up that late-afternoon Munitions pit with the far more generous helping of main-stage floor space. How could you not? Jakey Boy/The Human Beer Blowhole can posture all he wants at the more stone-faced, stoic Easter Island black-shirt statues up the back—when Munitions unleash their razor-honed, militaristic death-thrash revival, though? Headbanging ought to be state-mandated, full-tilt minimum, and this be presented as Parliamentary evidence.
The intrepid and watertight troupe ditches the prior set's foggy, knob-fiddling fuzz for something with more gnarled sheen, brutally precise and gleaming. It's a stark flip, almost disorienting; one minute you're drowning in the front-bar's woolly acoustics, the next Erik Ritli's tone-sharpened 5-string skronk cracks your skull like a heavy-gauge whip alongside a snare so tight it’d make the most conservative investment banker weep. Swap out the Converge-worshipping murk of sludgy power chords and arpeggio chaos for Dave Collins and Marcus Ritli's locked-in fireworks—militant riffs that bloom with melody, pulling from similar Melburnian act Battlegrave's blast-furnace death metal modus operandi, and some glossy late-90s/early-00s Nightrage-coded hooks, solos soaring just shy of excess, coagulating in sharp lead stabs throughout.
In front of them all, vocalist Tim Wright brings a focused but heavily smirk-laden retention of all this five/six+-stringed chaos, ardently pushing and pulling with both full-tilt blastbeat power and thick, mosh-ready swing. Surveying primarily from the rickety foldbacks that might as well be on a staircase, the singer blasts a torrid helping of gnarled, guttural barks, piercing shrieks and even some brodown-inflected shouting barks. There’s multiple and increasingly pained calls for folks to move up, however the back portion stay affixed. Like moths to flame, however, an appreciable amount surge forward at his beckoning.
True to the usual form of a Your Mate Bookings sermon, pulpit-preacher Clint resounds the first of many hymnal appraisals to Anthony Blayney and the Your Mate Bookings team. I’m making a note of this ongoing; you’ll see we’ve covered quite a few YMB media coverage spots across our Gig Review canon in the past 12+ months, and it’s basically a guarantee that these organisers get shouted out by every act. The statistics don’t lie - ten out of the eleven bands on offer tonight sung similar appraisals, and I only mention it’s ten because I missed out on one.
Having just ripped two tracks into us with only the briefest of gratitudes for stage banter, they launch again into ‘Latent Image’ right after blistering through two speed-laden tracks like no one’s business. The dual/triplicate vocal snarls and grunts warble in a pointed choral effect, like the choir of the death/thrash damned.
Sometimes three ain’t a crowd, huh?
‘Machine Elves’ blurs by quicker than I can stab out half-assed notes for it on my phone, but who cares? Not with the onstage chaos dialed to mouthwatering precision— that’s what I’m here for, after all. Plus, bit hard to pontificate in bullet-form point to yourself for later with such squirrel-on-a-speed-binge maniacs owning every inch of stage, refusing to phone it in just 'cause the night's not even crept in through the large glass windows to their left. The frenzy only ramps from there into ‘Manufactured Demise,’ my absolute standout: a vicious mash of post-hardcore bile and death metal rage, vocals snarling like Poison The Well got body-slammed by The Crown. The sudden punky inflection works almost like a nice honorary throwback to our punkier/grindier openers Ratlord, too.
By the end, we’ve gotten a sizeable circle cleared and going, consistent headbanging and owl-like hoots and jeers of applause on conclusion. We’ve had a certain tall gentleman of note grabbed by the shoulders, spinning his endoparasitic back-climbing buddy like a human spinning top (go check Gallery Part I above, for that in video form). Clint’s momentarily frustrated at times with the lack of motion down the steps into the concrete den, but is admirable and proud nonetheless of front-facing punters and room-wide howls of appreciation for their craft.
Looks like Big Boss over here’s about to get pushed back into the… Slime Dimension.
The sun's still hanging on by amber-yellow sinews, and we've already eaten two riff-monster haymakers to the face. That bittersweet ache flickers across my grin and everyone else's—pure "hell yeah" ecstasy twisted with a quiet "oh God, there's so much more." Brutefest nails you like that: a frantic sprint that morphs into a grueling marathon, the promise of endless bands sparking equal parts savage hype and weary dread. I damn near bolt up the creaky, claustrophobic staircase to the top bar for my night's surprise jaw-dropper—Virulent Invocation. Holy shit.
Still wondering if Clints’ assertion that vocalist is in fact doodleburger (of those infamous Alf Stewart Youtube ad-libs fame - please god be true, just lie to me someone and confirm?), we’re at half-jog pace up the well-worn stairs. The the first guttural, soul wrenching roar emanates from upstairs, a cavernous bellowing like that of a trapped dire bear. Passers-by outside are given a free pass on visualising whatever form of experimental animal hybridization’s happening up here, but they can also keep jogging right friggin’ on if they’re not joining the fray.
With The Amenta fronting up stage-side soon with original vocalist Celsium 137 (Mark Bevan), as support for Ulcerate (god yes), that’s one vocalist you can definitely draw an exemplary comparison to here. The belching, guttural roars are animalistic, demonic, all flavour of inhumanity rolled into one. A smidge of reverb/delay dialled into the man’s baritone, gruff roars adds a subtle but tangible boomy etherealness to the presence, almost Lovecraftian in overwhelming fury.
Which isn’t to say he upstaged any of his bandmates, either. Filled with beer, sausages and bravado, our very own intrepid snag-chef Jim Luxford puts down the spatula’n’tongs, absolutely throwing himself (literally) into the performance. To be second-row behind the lad at any gig whilst the man’s headbang-sway is going? That’s already asking for a headbang-headbutt concussion as is, but tonight he’s giving it the real bassist business. None of this quiet, bemused prog-metal-guy-with-a-Dingwall aloof ponderance over the fretboard; man’s an organic washing-machine of windmills and full body sway. It’s an interesting juxtaposition between that and the more stoic poise struck by the imposing vocalist, but the combo works.
(A… Lux-taposition? No? I’ll see myself out).
TFW you remember you did, indeed, turn the burners off the barbie - all’s well in bass-land.
“Yeah, yeah - fuckin’ not a bad lookin’ rooster, either!” grins Bell after we get a solid choral ‘JIMBO!’ chant going. Hey, us Australians got to pay respect to the chef, even if the fare’s mostly dead pig in a tube or mashed veggies on bread with onions and butter (still tasty, also confirmed by this reviewer). Damn, writing that makes me hungry again. And they say us Aussies have little to no culture as a younger nation. Uhmm, sweetie - what do you call this blazing backyard-concocted inferno of blackened-death, then?!
Tough to eyeball unless you're jammed up front, but sonically he's a goddamn freight train: one-man drum apocalypse Ben Eberheard goes full ballistic. He spins and heaves through his own blur of fills, endurance blasts, and vicious china-cymbal cracks that threaten to shred the kit under raw fury. Jim's warm bass throb doubles down on those pistoning double-kicks, slamming straight into your gut. These guys roar massive—the puny upstairs stage feels like a cruel joke next to the size of the four-piece’s brutal onslaught.
You can’t wipe the proverbial-eating (or rather, beer-receiving) grin off my face, now. The uptick in brutality has a contrasting effect to that of your average reasonable person, the thudding of double-kicks and sharp snare-cracks acting as a cool, embalming atonement for Friday nights’ rowdiness. Plus there’s already well enough punters getting their sillies on later as the heckles get cheekier, more shoulder-barges and playful pit pushes.
For these guys, however? We’re all fairly transfixed, heads either in ‘bang motion or with pretty universally agape mouths. Folks are impressed, and hi, I’m also very much included in said folks.
Deo F.A. Aguanta unloads a killer barrage of choppy, warped Morbid Angel-Suffocation-bastard-child riffs, wielding an encyclopedia of extreme metal tricks: your old-school punky crushers, serpentine tech-twists, dissonant stabs, feverish palm-muted death-thrash/blackened tremolo runs—all right there in the mix. Modern extreme metal's got that scattershot, ADHD genius about it thanks to technology, globalisation and the like…. and damn if it doesn't slay here amid the blistering barrage.
With a nascent, emerging discography of a COVID Demo and EP V.I., there’s always the risk of a paucity of material impacting the bands’ perceived place in the lineup. Sure, they’re on early, but these guys deserve all the heady praise they unanimously cop. Between tracks, the crowd erupt in stunned whoops and hollers ("You guys are fuckin' SICK!" and “Holy fuck”s echoing everywhere). Cheers swelled through the set, and the post-show buzz had the black-n-death diehards hooked, dissecting every riff as though imperative to their survival. You got me, dudes. I’m glad I went in blind for this one - such a blistering live rendition was the perfect introduction, and hopefully the first of more engagements IRL in future.
Out with the fresh blood, in with the gods of Melburnian death metal folklore —veteran legends Monoliyth are up next.
But don't sleep on the elders thinking they can't hang and lay waste to those among you only just past pimples and cigarettes puffed out by the bike racks away from prying teachers’ eyes. That's a rookie trap, as you'd learn sprinting downstairs to the main stage.
This is starting to feel a little like Metal Musical Chairs, honestly. Ah well, suck it up Vape Princess - you’ve a job to do and so do they.
I catch Richie Black with a knowing look that says, “Damn bro, this is already unhinged, ay?” and he fires back with a carbon-copied facsimile of my own grin—completely, utterly professional, of course. It’s the kind of expression you trade with strangers when pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in the pit. Randoms who later become mates, friendship forged in pure disbelief at how good this all is. A moment later, we’re swallowed by a surge of locals making a beeline to pay respects to one of a number of Melbourne metal institutions on the bill. Monoliyth.
With a recent LP still sizzling off the press to critical acclaim and the incremental reputational backing of so, so many gigs, the caught-out surprise that was VI ebbs into familiarity. I’d say this is my third or fourth time seeing the band total, and tonight’s the most fevered rush I’ve witnessed for the band. Again, with good cause.
“The Killing Floor” delivers exactly what it promises: a jagged blast furnace of frantic riffing, with palm-mutes and tremolo runs vibrating so fast the guitars feel like industrial fans. Andrew Parkinson’s stage delivery feels like an older, meaner, more concentrated version of Sam from Lo!/Hadal Maw - concentrated here primarily within a madly-grinning face and full-machismo attitude, no wasted motion as he prowls and lurks the stage. He’s right up front over the foldbacks, leering, grinning, staring wide-eyed into the pit, pulling every death-metal gurn in the vocalist playbook while the amps and PA bury us in noise. He stomps around like Donkey Kong on a bad comedown, and the whole set comes with constant calls to drop the shyness, “get in the pit!”, and make some damn noise. Fair enough, Andrew—we’re with you, as the growing stack of bodies filtering less cautiously past those damned shallow steps onto the concrete floor indicates.
Then they lurch back to the late-aughts with ‘Imminent Demise’, swapping pure velocity for a heap of Nightmares Made Flesh-era Bloodbath-style groove, broken up by frantic bursts of blast speed. The shift lands beautifully, both musically and in the pit, where a few more pints have clearly done their work and people are finally getting stuck in. I take the path of least resistance for now, hands busily pretending to tap anywhere near as accurately as the human octopus behind the kit, my neck straining from headbanging divined as law by the Gods themselves. I give up the ghost and throw my already-aching vertebrae into it with the others.
The family that slays together stays together, and father-son pair Mick Barr and Zakk Barr are hardly treating this like a few Boxing Day tins and snags over the latest droll cricket-slog. They’re doing their own brand of Man Bonding Stuff, thrashing away with reckless abandon, firing off riffs that tip hats to classic Deicide as much as slam, thrash, and even a bit of Euro-flavoured melodeath. ‘Sanity,’ from the latest LP He Who Kills, is anything but: a surging chain of clanging riffs that feels like a time-travel novel fed through a death-metal shredder, cobbled together with nothing but duct tape, tempo and Parkinson’s raving-mad, bug-eyed grin of pit appreciation.
Trent Calvert’s bass deserves a mention too, cutting cleanly through the drums and guitars without ever overpowering them, punctuating moments of dead air with that deliciously metal-specific oomph-clack that just… oh god, muh bass-tone heart. He stays locked in with Tim Wright with the precision of an SAS sniper, the latter once again sounding inhuman behind the kit. The pair have their hands full as the band barrels into a killer one-two finish with ‘Excised Unborn’ and the raucously well-received title track, He Who Kills. Talking to people after the set, it felt like the consensus was clear: from seasoned locals to newcomers like me, this was one of the best Monoliyth shows in a good while. Can confirm (unless you’re all a pack of liars, but I wouldn’t see the incentive to), they made quite a few eager new fans tonight too.
Pretty freaking good innings for a band who’ve been around in some capacity since most of us ‘elder millenials’ were trading Pokemon cards in primary school, eh?
There’s little time for temporal/nostalgic pontification about my misspent education, however.
The first crackles and soundcheck drum-thwacks resound from another stage, and with both eager anticipation and a sense of growing endurance, we hit the front-bar as the daylight-savings-free Sun has bid a farewell. The same colour adorns the sky as most of our collective shirts, and I’ve barely even noticed the transition. That’s metal baby, a rare source of hyperfocus for these otherwise heinously attention-straining times. It’s like brutal mindfulness, and we’re about it. Time for another headbang yoga sesh.
Ah, Anoxia.
I’ve written about these guys a few times now; they’re signed to Your Mate Management, so they naturally get a decent look-in on Anthony’s tours. But they earn it. They absolutely rip, and they’ve long been one of my favourite death metal bands out of Sydney right now, with good reason. Whispers on the music-industry wind and feedback from the promoter himself both indicate that if you want in a tour, especially as an incursionary force into the Victorian state, you’ll need to have earnt some live-stripes as proof. Well, in that case - these dudes are the furthest from a paper tiger as possible. None of this local generic bland metalcore opener ‘Big Things Coming’ social media energy, followed by something more limp-wristed - these blokes are as controlled a demolition as they are shrapnel-spraying, and far too many folks are aware of that fact, it seems. No seriously, the front-bar is past heaving now. It’s a packed cloister of flesh and Gildan cotton.
By the time I’ve ducked to the men’s room, the half-full front bar has turned into a packed crush of sweaty, beer-gulping sardines. I’ve been drinking a few here and there too, so it’s not exactly a quick pit-stop either. I’m almost stunned on my return to an impassable front of black-shirt, but mostly just stoked that their repeated Melbourne visits seem to be paying off. The crowd’s compressed so tightly front-to-back that I can’t get much further than the bar runner on one side, but I’ve still got a view of whirling heads and heaving torsos. Whether that counts as ‘half a review’ of their set is a Dad joke I’ll both leave hanging and give you an offer to pitch in a better alternative.
My head was feeling fuzzy anyway - their set really does… Anoxia around, HEH. **shows self out**
What isn’t a joke (thankfully) is just how savage these guys are. Joey Scott, all wiry beard and knife-edge stare, has an aura best described as pure beast mode. He’s looking like Kurt Cobain’s potent Floridian death-metal cousin, all long hair, malice and mirthful sadism between belching growls. His vocals lurch out in a gargling baritone roar, then snap upward into piercing shrieks that cut through even the brightest, most treble-heavy aspects of the fuzzy, cramped acoustic mix. Wedged into a brutal squeeze of bodies, he still manages his full-body swivel, bending and whipping around like he’s being gutted with a WWE “folding chaaaaair!”. It’s a wonder he doesn’t catch a wayward headstock concussion from James Taylor’s equally animated bass flailing, while Marco Alvarez swings cats on drums behind them with enough force to flatten band and front row alike, lack of feline-swinging space be damned. Anchoring it all with pure posture alone, Elias Niahos stands almost unnervingly still, planted in place as he tears through riff after tumultuous riff, a deathly stoic counterpoint to the writhing (mild Melbourne DM pun not intended…?) chaos around him.
The mosh-happy crew I came in with waste no time getting a circle pit going right at the front, shoving aside a few unimpressed arm-crossers in the process. After a couple of brow-beaten fisticuff death-metal flurries to the face comes ‘Blood of the Altar’ — one of my favourites from Revel in Sin, and usually the one that gets the room moving the quickest — just as Joey lets out a wolf-whistle: “Look-ing goo-ood, Melbourne!” More people keep pushing in, still trying to find space, while the entrance gets swallowed by bodies spilling past the runner and into the bathroom area. I’m now physically stood virtually inside the bar area, raising and moving elbows and shoulders to be less of a hassle to the crew frantically trying to keep up with a room full of black-shirted beer-swilling pirates. The whole room answers with hoots and applause as a glorious, inhuman slab of tech, old-school, doom and modern dissonant death metal crushes everything in sight.
What makes Anoxia work so well, I think, is the way they fuse all those extreme styles with riffs, breakdowns and solos that featuring almost, just almost, enough groove to get an appreciative eyebrow-raise from even the most Reagonomics/PMRC-pilled Boomer out there. To us, it’s funky groove-laden death mayhem, and I can’t help laughing at how many people are breaking out their best drunk-uncles-on-a-cruise hip-shaking to music this ferocious. This is my third or maybe fourth time seeing them in about 12 months, and it still feels as fresh as the first.
They finish by earning a shrill, ear-splitting wall of clamouring audience feedback, easily the loudest of the day so far. It’s a clear sign the Sydney invasions from this gruff modern DM splinter-cell are building real momentum, off the back of strong live shows and a growing studio reputation.
Nice one, lads.
But if we payers think the punishment’s nearly over? We’re kidding ourselves. Gulp.
We’re not even halfway through the fest, and the main stage is about to get hit by another rising storm: local blackened-grinders MUNT. Swilling the glass and remembering how much being between employment doesn’t exactly provide for as bottomless-brunch-coded a consumption rate as more cashed-up peers, I nonetheless fix up another vain attempt to hair of the dog. A few sips indicates that canine’s had all its’ hair follicles lasered off, so I opt for the healing power of local blackened grindcore instead.
Last year I had MUNT frontman Tim Richmond on the Inner-Strength Check Podcast (link here, conveniently). Not dropping it to flog anything—music blogs aren’t exactly a font of money-spinning—but more to reiterate how much Tim was itching to unleash their 2025 LP The World Is Not Yours live. Even the excitedness present then betrays the true underlying level of sheer, mutual chomping at the bit they must’ve been feeling today, judging by the performance. MUNT beat my head in with a cudgel at random a while back in Cherry Bar, and I was instantly a fan of their eclectic meld of some of my faves - black metal, grindcore, death metal, and some real metallic-hardcore riffs and breakdowns, Nicolas Cage Fighter style. Such a tasty, nasty, visceral mix. Yummy.
Mates, you bloody well delivered and then some, you and your wandering troupe of grindcore-gypsies! You can rest easy, Tim.
After enough interviews, you get used to the gap between a band's chatty/agreeable offstage self and the more infernal stage-facing incarnation. Less so with Tim - the difference is stark. He's all polite and switched-on in conversation or at the bar, but up there, bug-eyed on the foldbacks with that thousand-yard mental-health-consumer-deep-in-crisis psychotic stare, he looks swallowed by his own wiring. It’s a look that drudges up many wild, untamed pairs of eyes from my own hippocampal storage, so many psychiatrically-loosened minds requiring intervention poste-haste. And yet, here’s a man poignantly throwing himself into a coherent recall of a setlists’ worth of lyrics with that same look. Simple black gear and a cap somehow amp the menace, like a demon in streetwear. It’s an almost jarring mix, and and affront to the image of us grind-heads being booger-eating junkies with a syringe hanging off two knotted arms.
Clearly, man’s here for similar utility as us in the crowd - a socially-sanctioned (by us in attendance, anyway) means of spewing out vitriol and catharsis in a blistering roar. And we love ‘em all for it. They’re fierce too, those belching, blistering vocals: bassy gargles like Matt from Virulent Invocation or Joey from Anoxia before him, all spiked with shrieks, post-hardcore wails, and barked bellowing. Shoutouts to "Spud" David Robertson for rocking the Descent tee (killer Brisbane death/crust)—fits perfectly with their own mix of razor-wire clean tone and grittier amp-sludge. ‘Apostate’ and ‘Dark Future' rip through in a blast-storm barrage, the whole band swinging wild while the crowd head-nods in sync, Jared Roberts' chops gnashing through the mix to cut and slice like his barbed-wire bandmates with full-tilt, unyielding precision and lethality.
‘Dominion’ lands like two murderous fists on a newborn from a madman on bath-salts, cranking the chaos. Ron Dixon (bass) and Sol Lakowski (guitar) purvey their full Class Traitor punk frenzy alongside Spud, Tim teetering on mic stand and foldback like he's about to shank someone or hurl onstage. White-hot grind savagery throughout, the crew all swiveling like puppets into a crushing breakdown closeout that pulls fevered cheers. Beers are clearly greasing the faithful psalms, but the priests gain an ever-increasing throng of very curious, appreciative new tutelage across the set.
They gargle and roar through ‘Fractures’, ‘Lords of Excess’, ‘Prison Planet’ and a Mortal Kombat-tier brutal ‘Noose Dragger’ finisher, racking up cheers all set long, ending in feedback and pedal-fiddling over hollering praise. The World Is Not Yours bangs hard as is on phone speakers—live, these guys demolish.
The demolition-mission is far from finishin’, though - we’ve got a whole new level of old-school-cool melding with molten metal fury in yet another jam-packed front-bar appearance. This time, it’s rising death metal ingrates Circle of Blood! Teeth grit, neck self-massaged. Come on gang, we got this.
Wracked by that very neurodivergent, overcompensatory irrational guilt of missing even one second of a 7-hour, 11-band marathon, I thank Richie for at least nailing the photos on Harlott’s behalf. A timely Berocca hit (cheers Paul and your gig bag—I owe you that pint!) steels me to not flake on Circle of Blood.
Even perched three stools back from the rowdy local death crew, I'm quickly crushed by a booze-fueled influx, the veritable ‘Meat Sandwich’ GWAR warned me about many years ago (I feel ‘crucify-y-y-ied’, at least). Plenty have crossed the happy-hour tipping point, so the wall of thick distortion cuts perfect through the packed, noisy front bar while I nurse a flat dog-hair brew, pleading and thankful amplification wins out over crowd-din.
Shameless plug (mostly for them, not us—Patreon's down the page if you're keen): I just reviewed their killer debut LP here. Had to hype this venomous, tightly wound beast—masterful crush of modern production and old-school snarl. Bloody brilliant first go from the CoB lads (not the Finnish lot).
But gigs, not blogs: the live version of those LP/demo cuts hits like a sledge. Reece Hickey’s a paradox—short, stocky, all smiles and easy chats offstage. Then he unleashes hyper-tremolo shreds and frantic licks, face twisting into a death-vomit grimace. Imagine an exorcist clocking this…
He hunches over the mic, flicking intense stares between crowd picks and his blur of hands. No such stillness from guitarist Dave McCarthy not bassist Chris Green—hulking brutish figures thrashing like kelp in a storm, pausing only to gargle-shriek infernal harmonies. Loving the Floating tee, Dave, glimpsed where I could between headbang lumberjacking motions.
Behind them, Peter Colaiaco might be the chillest drummer in the scene, grinning calm through hellfire blast-barrages. Jarring as hell, like my first time catching them at the Old Bar, but the good kind—ripping artillery like it's a lazy bowls-club arvo with the rellies.
Reece kicks off with a proper Welcome to Country for our First Nations folks, the Tote's true keepers, reminding us this land was never ceded: "Pay the Rent!"—right before the opener drowns it in caustic death din. ‘Defiler’ snarls with jagged, lilting urgency that'd make Erik Rutan nod, all Hate Eternal-level brutality. Like Anoxia, they chase grooves beyond boring 4/4 chugs: hooky, warped breakdowns laced with snappy solos.
Everything surges in perpetual motion, now. ‘Legions Rise’ and ‘Tentacular Invasion’ (easy, channers) bleed into one technical bruise-fest through death metal's wildest echelons like a real-life Pandora bringe. ‘Dethronement’'s isolated dual-vocal hooks deliver real hard, not a dull beat anywhere. The sardine-tin bar roars unholy praise per track, exploding in a final applause at set's end.
Fuck yeah. Hope Circle keep swinging for more LPs and shows. Truly. They own that OSDM gap with style, teeth, smiles, snarls and fangs. Grab the album, catch 'em live.
The grind is really kicking in now. It's a long slog if you're chasing most acts; sheer lunacy trying to hit them all. I'd planned to catch Harlott upstairs, but plenty of y’all beat me to it. By the time I'd shovelled in some food and my penultimate second-last of a fair few, increasingly-disagreeable beer PRN’s, a conga line was already snaking down the cramped causeway stairs, all thirsty for another hit of local thrash gospel. “Christ… has Richie even bloody stopped?” I muse to myself. There’s certainly plenty enough punters who haven’t yet, it seems.
This review's about the gig, not my lethargic venue-shuffle, but let's just say poor decisions from the night before didn't help. Same dumb move I always pull pre-fest meetups: pounding cheap drinks like a mangled ADHD half-humanoid, as though that might give me cause to dodge more of the $15+ pint average asking-price. Pro tip for next year? Skip the hangover, pay the damage, support the venue. Take it from my stomach and my head. Ugh.
Nevertheless, the spirit of metal conquers all, and there’s an unrelenting focus AND excitement permeating through myself and an increasingly boozy, weary audience. An injection of half-cut latecomers also helps reinvigorate the aura too, even if those poor saps missed some damn quality sets. I get it - life, a long festival, etc.
I choke down another Venom Cherry Sour—half-grimacing in a moment of extremely rare booze-hesitation—while chugging water and Berocca (shoutout to my saviour Paul and his bum-bag of ‘you just got fucked by that band, huh?’ aftercare). Harlott's queue stretched past the pool table, security metering one-in, one-out like we’re meeting the Politburo in an undisclosed bunker. After 10 or 15 minutes of barely budging, I bailed for fresher air that didn't carry so much of the swampish reek of many metalheads, self included.
Lucky for you, Richie wasn't slacking, so check his shots from Gallery Part II which I’ve added back in below for reference.
Not leaving a Melbourne thrash cornerstone out to dry, I pieced together feedback from friends known and randoms alike crowd for takes on the set— especially compared to their usual brand of chaos. Word was unanimous: I missed a frantic ripper of a frenzied set, with Harlott seemingly imbued with an additional layer of manic energy that these mini-festivals often incite.
Commentary on the setlist was sparse, but I think that’s more an indicator of our collective familiarity with the band after so many years and so many more gigs. Plus, all of us Melbourne metalheads are intuitively aware of their gleaming mosh-ready warning: ‘Dropbears Are Real’.
RIGHT!
We’ve still half the bands on the festival, and it’s a fool’s errand to jam all of the coverage into one article, expecting anything less than fatigue from yourselves, Dear Readers.
Part II will be out within the same evening as the current review.
Stick around, check out our social media and other goodies across 2021 to now, but fret not - you won’t be waiting long.
Sincere thanks for sticking out what’s a bit more over-inclusive and verbose than your usual fest reviews, that’s just my unhinged shtyle I guess.
Stay tuned for Part II, where we dissect Circle of Blood, Destruktor and one hell of an intense thrash-metal headliner in my modern heroes, Warbringer.
Once again giving a clarion-call to go check out Richie’s works in the two Gallery articles above - he was generous with the photography, and I’ve uploaded a ton of footage throughout as well.
As Always,
Peace, Love and Grindcore - Brady/Richie.
LINKS:
(aka Wait, This Guy Actually Shuts Up, Ever? Thank God I hit the ‘End’ Key, I Was Worried For A Minute)
ratlord - LINKS:
Ratlord Self-Titled LP (Primitive Moth Records - Bandcamp)
MUNITIONS - LINKS:
Virulent invocation -LINKS:
MONOLIYTH - LINKS:
(contains all socials links, plus press kit, He Who Kills LP stream, merch, contact/bookings, etc)
ANOXIA - LINKS:
MUNT - links:
Facebook:www.facebook.com/MuntOfficial
Instagram:Instagram: @muntofficial
HARLOTT - LINKS:
your mate bookings:
richie black photography:
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Peace, Love and Grindcore - Brady & The ISC Team.