[Review] BRUTEFEST 2025 @ The Tote Hotel, Melbourne (AU), 17.05.
INTRO: EVERYTHING HURTS, AND I’M BETTER OFF FOR IT!*
Don’t you just love it when you make the opposite of a decision you later completely regret?
This here review is exactly one of those hypothetical opposites. We weren’t slated to provide coverage for this event, at first. Then, like the French John Cleese when the wooden rabbit appears from the forest, freshly-chainsawed, I snapped bolt-upright randomly and decided ‘nah, actually - let’s just do this’.
It’s two days on from when I first jostled through the crowded front-bar for the first of many, many talented, frantic and energetic artists from the very-packed day, venue and evening. And whilst the metal-pain is less acute than yesterday, such a pit-packed and headbangable event leaves few totally scot-free.
Sporting not one but two busted lips, a body surface area covered with enough bruising to pass off as the 102nd Dalmation, and an upper spinal column that has essentially been ground to dust. Heck, even my Municipal Waste shirt got some welcome souvenirs in the form of both pizza sauce and my own nose-blood (more on that later). And I consider myself to be one of the most tame out of those stacked up against the riser.
There may be some residual groans and pains, but accompanying those are some great memories, and a shit-eating grin.
If you were present during the fest and have any of your own thoughts, clips, pics, reviews, ACKSHUALLY’s (maybe save those, but hey - we are metalheads) and the like? Drop those in the comments here and/or reach out to us on socials! Democratise gig reviews. The floor-space is for you, too!
As for you unholy, unanointed and unaware of the artists discussed today? Go to the links included with each artists’ coverage, sample some wares, and throw accusations of being great at them directly! Then, break out your Google Calendar, abacus or trusted local eunuch and pencil in some dates around many of their upcoming tours.
To Anthony of Your Mate Bookings, I’m extremely thankful - not only for facilitating the descent of myself and esteemed lensman Richie Black into the labyrinthine bowels of The Tote last Saturday, but also (and more importantly) pulling off such a marathon gauntlet of local and international heavy-music goodness.
Big, big ups to Anth, merch staff and associated touring crew - many, if not pretty much all bands on the day called for similar credence, provided in kind by an equally appreciative crowd. Massive thanks as well to The Tote, the staff of which were supremely patient amidst less of a ‘clientele’ and more ‘a horde of desperately-thirsty black-shirts clamouring for more Road Dog’.
Now that thanks have been made, reviewing is in order.
Let’s get to it.
Strap in, it’s a big one! (that’s what s-
Peace, Love and Slowly Developing Corpsegrinder-Neck, Sans-Muscles xoxo - Brady.
*- Editor’s Note: Title is NOT, in fact, lyrics from a mid-aughts emo album. Just an unfit millenial reminding himself to do a hell of a lot more cardio for Brutefest 2026…
Gig: Brutefest 2025
Courtesy of:
YourMateBookings (Official Site/ YMB Instagram/ YMB Facebook)
Lineup:
(Stalker (NZ), Abigail (JP) + Local Supports: Resistance, Black Jesus, Burnout, Permafog, Sufferance, Mortuary Sickness, Vexation, Bastardizer, Choof, Pizza Death. (individual artist links below - check ‘em out!)
Venue:
The Tote Hotel, Collingwood, Melbourne (AU)
Date:
Saturday, 17th May 2025
Questionable-Quality Words:
Me (Brady Irwin)
Really Fucking Good Photos:
Richie Black Photography (Website Link / Instagram/ Facebook)
BLACK JESUS:
Embattled by the usual gridlock that is Melburnian traffic as the nations’ fastest-growing city, I was admittedly a bundle of very, very activated neurons upon my entry to The Tote at 4pm. Hurrying past the renewed Bendi with not one iota of though towards head-craning to briefly peep the reopened interior, my visual field was effectively zeroed in on that freaking Tote side-door.
Seeing a thronged mass occupying the front-bar area, coupled with drumsticks raising and falling to the toe-tapping and nodding of already-eager punters, it was plain-as-day that the mission had begun in-media-res. No atmospheric progressive-metal interlude in written form, fam - it’s mid-afternoon on a rainy Saturday and an otherwise docile Melbourne was experiencing what would ultimately amount to a 9-hour volcanic eruption.
The first plumes of roiling magma and debris launching in waves across shuddering taps and coasters, to a very packed front-bar, were the punk-laden caustic antics of death-thrashers Black Jesus. Sporting a name that gives all sorts of connotations, they’re as transparent as the glass of The Only Not-Beer-Coloured-Beer I Like (those goddamn tasty, tempting Venom Cherry Sours) from the first sip about what they’re all about: going fast, going hard, and giving absolutely zero fucks in the meantime.
Awaiting some proof of entry as the credible but also certainly not mainstream-media-clothed duo in myself and Richie, we both opted to cramp near to the entry booth, up the far-end of the front-bars’ pool table. Normally, a questionable decision in terms of comfort, sure. That said, this precious metre-square of personal space was essentially the only square inch of floor surface not tightly packed by a damn-impressive 4pm turnout.
We don’t begrudge others meeting up for pre-drinks, dinner and pre-kick-on kick-ons, but the pair of us were both flustered and in awe at just how hard ‘Tote was already crammed with punter-bodies. Multiple jeers of appreciation from the band were given for showing punctuality, a favoured repaid in kind with the sloshing of beers, hoots and hollers.
Pouring us all shot after shot of their own black-label, Black Jesus pummelled out frantic menagerie of bark-and-scream-laden riffage which would have Peter Dolving of The Haunted nodding with serious praise (and intimidation). Spiritually (pun intended, I guess) grounded in a modern interpretation of death/thrash/black metal, these guys always put on a delectably wide spread of metal influences, both in sound and performance.
The four members planted firmly to the floor seemed ready to shake the building from its’ foundation. With his back arched cat-like for extra emphasis, vocalist/guitarist Adrian Naudi is able to wrench perfectly-audible caterwauls of aggressive fury from an impressive distance to the mic. Adjoining the growl-heavy rasp attack (inclusive of additional vocals, sneered gang-chants and more from the others) was a relentless hammering of riff-gumbo-soup - everything from early Sepultura and Slayer through to Suffocation and d-beat/hardcore, grindcore and black metal seems shoehorned into relatively short order, lengthwise.
It’s how you use it, they say - and boy-howdy did the additional guitarist, bassist and drummer utilise every inch of kinetic force in the room to expel a truly blasting first offering for the day.
Sometimes when it’s this early in the piece at such an event, the first band themselves might be feeling/playing fairly conservatively. They’ve got a big night ahead, same as us, and oft-times the first crowd might be a slow crawl.
Nope, nope, nope. The lads, curtailed to a small corner by their own eager devotees, spared no physical-energy expense indeed, blazing out the solo/riff-strewn technical feats such as ‘Beyond Reconciled’ with nary a moment of stillness between them. With one last hard-rock/arena-ready groovy breakdown trailing off the blackened, charred and thrashy end of a set, a colony of owls seemed to descend upon the venue: “YOOOO! HOOOO! WOOOO-OOOOO!!”. Adrian’s insistence to “Have fun and get wrecked!” ended up a prophetic decree from our first acolytes.
OFFER HYMNAL PRAISE TO BLACK JESUS HERE, MY CHILD:
BURNOUT:
My attention split into about twenty different social directions (“Where’s Richie? Where’s Anth? Where’s XYZ? Who’s Doing Wh-”), I opted to simplify the solution to my already-fragmented social-compass - damn the torpedoes, I’ll catch em later. I hear riffs and I must go, my planet… doesn’t need me, but I’ve got to act as such to cover all these bands, dude!
Receiving our non-invasive YMB-logoed cattle-branding, myself and intrepid photographer colleague Richie had to fight through the awkward causeway that is the broom-cupboard width separating front, back and upper bars. The mirth and jolliness from a number of punters was already set to ‘Dwarven’, so the ante had to be upped on the ‘EX-SCUSE, THANKS MATE’ meter.
Feeling less like we travelled to the backstage for Burnout’s set on foot and more via some kind of wormhole-fuckery, relief washed over us once more from that ever-calming, ASMR balm of psychological calm, excitement and reassurance - The Riff.
Like Black Jesus only moments prior, Lady Riff was also onside for the day’s second act. With a frontman sporting more use of the forward-outstretched fists than pretty much any metal vocalist I’ve seen outside of Amon Amarth, vocalist Dose Overload was the full trad-metal package. Bullet-belt? Check. Chops and stache? Check. Eye-watering, teste-clutching levels of King Diamond-esque wails over a blend of churning thrash, NWOBHM and straight up r o c k, Dose’s pitch-wavering was complemented perfectly by a nimble accompaniment of Hogg Hoggson (bass), Max Abuse (guitars), Nasty Fasty (guitars) around himself - all the while, Tekk Hevi belting out a very-much-not-static octopi-coded physical thrashing of the drums behind them.
Not just for our own promo, I’d actually encourage you to skip back and listen to our interview with the devout true-metal devotee that is of Enforcer. He would’ve had a freaking field-day with these guys.
“HOWYAGARN (Aussie to English Translation: ‘How are you going?’), we’re fucking Burnout!” was the only stipulation needed ahead of the set, with a resounding roar from the growing throng a signal to keep firing those tasty riffs off indeed, please. Introducing “a song about our previous drummer who got locked up” seemed a fitting preface to the near-punk stylings of ‘Heavy Hauler’, a sanctimony of riffs our dearly-departed Dio (who was blasting all night, as tribute) and the Priest grandfathers would’ve given two big opposable-thumbs-up to.
Progressing on to “fuckin’, this one’s called fuckin’ ‘Keep On!'“, Dose and co. closed out a raucous set chock-full of banger riffs that felt like the perfect follow-up accompaniment to the ‘Jesus experience just prior. Settling the mood in for a bit more of a variety-hour, none in attendance seemed to mind ball-tearing classic-metal amongst the extreme-metal mix today. If a knuckle-dragging crust-enjoyer like me can get down on this level of classic/trad-metal pomp, you can too.
BURNT-OUT? REFRESH YOURSELF WITH SOME ZESTY TRAD-METAL TASTINGS AT:
RESISTANCE:
We’ve previously covered Resistance’s fantastic melding of crust, d-beat, punk and hardcore in our coverage of Nervosa’s 15 Years of Nervosa Australian Tour show at The Northcote Social (peep here for it, if you wish) in late-April. Did that stop me from double-dosing on some punk-leaning Melburnian fury/fun at Brutefest? Nope, nope, neeeerp.
Proving themselves not a one-trick-pony, these Discharge-rs held a good portion if not the total majority of that crowded room firmly in place. Call that the sunk-cost fallacy of having to wade through fifty people to drain the lizard, but with lived experience of what these a-capella punky thrashers have on offer, it’s the set that was the literal (good) sticking-point.
With a more consistent albeit still breakneck pace, I was pleasantly surprised upon re-emergence at the front-bar to see it basically as tightly-packed as we’d just left it. And why wouldn’t it be? With such a stellar roster of extreme-metal Australiana, a power-trio performing full vocal duties across the board (major props on nailing that behind the kit of all places, especially!), Resistance were as eager to provide festival-wide praise as the audience were to jeer in both acknowledgement and a side order of hoots-for-thee, too.
I mentioned in the prior review, and mention a lot in general really, around how spaces like thrash metal gigs and to the same extent, Brutefest, are often inhabited by folks who aren’t going to snub their noses up at some good ol’ flat-stick power-chord heavy riffin’. They’re especially not going to do that when there’s also a whole Cu Chi Tunnels-styled serpentine network of banger black/death metal riffs strewn between those brodown-ready moments.
Nay, if anything, Resistance’s current position on the early end of proceedings is one I prophetically predict to start creeping further and further up the bill/s with time. Absolutely so if we cop any more like today’s performance from bassist-vocalist Slick Rodgers, guitarist-vocalist Riley Strong and drummer-vocalist Jay Allen!
THE PUN’S RIGHT THERE IN THE BAND NAME.
NO FUTILITY FROM YOU - JUST CLICKS:
MORTUARY SICKNESS:
As one from Mid North Coast NSW, now near Pivot City and forever wanting more extreme-metal in my regional Australia, these Geelong brutalisers were a truly savage slap in the face to the metropolitan hegemony on brutal death.
Prowling back and forth in the apprehensive and widening crescent-moon semi-circle gifted to him by a curious audience, we had a vocalist making circles not unlike the moment before someone in the movie truly snaps (“I’m gonna kill ‘em!”, etc). Did this stop a steady flow of brave souls breaking from the person-wall nearby and joining said vocalist in the fray? Absolutely not.
Speaking of fray, the upstairs stage at The Tote has always looked like a complete shitfight to navigate in terms of bodily space. Crammed on a low riser into a polyhedral space barely big enough to fit my arse after a night at Sizzler’s, the Pivotonian muck-raisers made it work, and damn well at that. Unfettered by the stage space, the entire band was alight, waving branches of perpetual motion throughout.
Introducing the odd atmospheric interlude here and there if only for a second - an arpeggio here, a more pensive riff there - the set was otherwise a head-on collision between Tagtren/Akerfeldt-era Bloodbath, Hate Eternal and a healthy dollop of chunky, fat grooves to boot.
Tracks such as ‘Wrath’ (dedicated to shoes, no less!) and 'Cosmic Tides of Damnation’ were strewn about the upper area like a mixture between feverish anti-air flak and surgical-precision airstrikes. Chaotic but controlled and technical, these guys got a resounding applause for their brutal efforts on conclusion. They earnt it, too!
Geelongians, it’s time to wake up and start making more of THIS noise.
DON’T CARE ABOUT DETROIT ROCK CITY? NEITHER.
YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT GEETROIT DEATH METAL, THOUGH:
SUFFERANCE:
With the lineup seeming to warm up in terms of aural intensity, like some sort of musical soup comprised primarily of tremolo, blastbeats and shred, we weren’t done with the straight-up ballsy death metal just yet. I mean, the sign literally says Brutefest, right?
And thus, the equally barbaric Sufferance offered a back-to-back run of technical, brutal yet also highly-moshable tunes!
Editor’s Note: Richie, you’re a damn commando - I didn’t even see you when this one was taken!
I’d heard a lot of buzz about the place regarding these guys - based off the absolute face-melter of a set they had on tonight, my only response to said buzz is to unleash more hype-locusts. Oh and by the by, fam, I think we’ve found our very own version of Deeds of Flesh out here in Melbourne!
Straightened up in a posture that seemed to engulf the sizeable fret-weapon strapped to his person, vocalist/bassist Andrew Voysey pulled off a bevy of barks alongside the sheer busy-ness of his left and right hands. Coating the sticky upstairs flooring with a grid of bass-guitar rebar, the man’s vocal delivery spent a lot of time in similar sonic territory. Guttural bellows, roars and the occasional snarky shriek boomed outwards from the intently-staring frontman, whilst guitarists Adrian von Ahlen/Taylor Winch were caught in almost imperceptible visual whirl, sledgehammering a caustic barrage of riffage and solos from opposite stage-sides. Doubling up on the brutality today, Jed Arklay remained firmly behind the kit in a firestorm of blasts, tight fills and general snare-abuse. And big props to Jed for bashing out two completely frantic and unrepentant death-metal drumming sets in such short order, I must say!
By this stage, we had a small posse of eager punters forming some of the day’s first circle-pits, with more space granted to perform one of our most sacred tribal rituals. Honestly, as much as I felt compelled to keep swirling around in that washing-machine, I just had to have a decent musician’s perv and be straight mirin’ the speed and technicality of what was happening onstage. I’m reminded of Wallet Inspector and many, many other local heavy acts during their set, enamoured by the sheer cliff-face of skill, practice and time it takes to get brutal death-metal this tight and humbly employ it on a Melbourne matinee.
Unsurprisingly and in alignment with the band just prior, breaks between tracks called for applause before the vocalist even could - such was the gratitude on offer by punters.
PERMAFOG:
My neck already demanding the executive board of the body’s pilot organ to maybe chill out for a second on all this headbanging, I could feel the reflexive gravity-stoop as we descend downstairs for yet another arse-whooping of blastbeat balefire.
This time, rather than bother wrangling black metal into the riffs in a more alchemical and experimental sense, Tasmania’s Permafog had arrived onstage, corpse-painted, to give us a huge heaping of furious black metal per-tradition. Sporting some cream of the Tassie extreme-metal crop underneath the sad-panda, spikes, bullet-belts and gauntlets, frontman King Erebus and crew were nevertheless preoccupied with shovelling out multiple sheets of unrelenting blackened fury.
‘Spitting Venom’ with righteous fury, the King gave his subjects a shrieked proclamation of “this one’s for that street-cunt Tone The Bone” for the vitriolic ‘Night of Eternal Blizzard’. Sporting similar levels of bone-chilling intensity as the brass-monkeys sideways-rain outside, cuts such as these and more were received with loud aplomb. Paradoxically, the frozen’n’grim Norwegian stylings of these true black metallers was delivered with firestorm intensity.
With just about every addition to the black-metal canon rifled out amidst more than a few smatterings of death/thrash riff-cousins, the sets’ conclusion brough hearty (pained, even) howls of agreement from an audience I think very, very keen to have them jump the Strait for another Melbourne show soon.
VEXATION
Those looking for a break, a tidy intermission, some sort of pat-on-the-back breather between bands would be feeling quite… vexed. Not myself, nor the audience - not for one of my personal Melbourne death-metal live faves in Vexation! No time like the present, and no cause for a break when there’s heads to be banged/moshes to be had.
We covered their searing New Dead Festival set a few years prior (link here, if interested) and, between then, shows caught between and today’s set? They’re somehow upping an ante which was already raised with a pretty high stack of chips, performance-wise. Gotta love it when local bands you first catch were already fantastic, but somehow just get even better with time. The fine-wine experience, in extreme-metal form.
Not an easy feat when your own benchmark starts off at impressive, but the local death-thrashers were more than up to such a task. Like the other bands on offer today, it really did seem like an additional layer of reverence, care and enthusiasm went into their set.
Merging late-90’s/early-aughts death-thrash (think early The Haunted, Dew Scented and The Crown) with the brutish thuggery of Obituary, Jungle Rot etc, this extreme-metal panoply was frantically-paced for sure. Mingled throughout the blinding solos and blistering palm-muted riffage were moments of ample, chonky space within which band and crowd swivelled as one, whole-body-ranged headbangs in unison as though controlled by an unseen metal-master.
With calls to punching birthday-drummer Storm Mahan “in the cock, or maybe even the tits”, vocalist/guitarist Rhys Bailey and crew were a light-hearted unit for one also brandishing such a finely-cut sword of jagged, thrashing death. Complemented by Sam Gilfillan’s bass with some of the gnarliest, crispiest tone I’d heard all day, and double-soloing-agogo via fellow shredder Ryan Butler, the organism as a whole belched out cuts such as ‘Messiah of Death’ (“it’s a bit slower, it’s a real toe-tapper”), relatively fresh slice ‘Spineless’ and others.
[INTERMISSION].
Editor’s Note: I was taking notes, aight? Props to Richie for going so gonzo with today’s pics that I barely saw him, save for throwing his body on the line for frontline shots by the riser!
Phew. Let’s take a topical breather for a minute, lest this thing ends up sounding like a BuzzFeed listicle just with more waffle (oh, God).
Riffing off the back off Vexation’s set just now, I had a moment of epiphany strike me. Typically, on days like this, you’ll get at least one vocalist/band who decides to take a detour into spokesmanship and play United Nations ambassador. You know, the well-warranted and well-received but often lengthy shoutout speech/es. The ones which we’ll give time and day for, but can at times feel like the metaphorical cartoon scroll from which said speech is being orated should be rolling out the door and into the street.
Other than some elaborate pun-based setups for Pizza Death’s song titles (which work for those guys brilliantly), I came to the realisation that four-ish hours just straight vanished. It wasn’t just the mad dash between sequential bands. It wasn’t the fact I left my physician-endorsed controlled-dose meth (Hi AFP! It’s medication. I’m talking about ADHD medication) back in the car in another suburb, and thus was now rendered back to default time-blindness.
Nah. There was a real festival-wide sense of focus, today.
Every band we’d seen had dispensed very little time with frivolity, speeches or diatribes, making the litany of sets so far feel honed, fast, focussed. I’d call this a very punk-rock ethos, but the unspoken agreement between band and audience today seemed across the board to be ‘let’s just shut the fuck up and riff’.
Is that just me? I’m not sure, I was too busy destroying my smartphone’s battery feverishly jabbing notes and taking snaps. I’m sure those present at the time would agree this was noticeable, yeah? A level of no-frills, no-bullshit, no lollygaggin’ was at play here, and something tells me it’s both the lineup and event itself that inculcated such a sense of urgency. Not just the jam-packed-sardine tin that was the schedule.
And that’s when the stomach started. Oh, shit, Brady - Mr. Smart over here pretty much forgot to eat since 11am. And there’s another band about to play… shit, shit, shit. Sauntering down to Thin Slizzy’s for a desperately-needed slice of carbohydrates, sauces, meats and cheese, I was reminded by myself, friends and basically everyone that starving for whatever Sword-of-Damacles perfectionism going on in the brain-department was perhaps less of a pressing issues than oh, I don’t know, eating something other than beer (?!).
There’s my story about feeling bad for skipping out on one band from the whole run. Thanks guys, like and subscribe. I’d fly my private jet to receive my Pulitzer prize, but I’ve gotta save those bucks for pesky things like ‘utilities’ and ‘rent’.
Tangent over - more bands ahoy! Cheers, kampai, salut, prost, etc.
CHOOF-ING, IN ABSENTIA:
Ergo and alack, Choof’s set was the one where the trigger was pulled for said satiety. Not an easy decision, mind you - like a certain pizza-thrash band about to gain a mention, these grinding loose-units up the aforementioned fun and banter factor by magnitudes. They’re a ripping addition to any lineup, a huge portion of the enjoyment also coming from how much they spit (and piss, throw tinnies at, etc) in the face of heavy music’s sneering, raised-chin, folded-arms Oh So Serious Metal Dude archetypes.
That said, I’m never one to just ‘ah well’ on a band who bothered to purchase instruments, lug said instruments to jams and gigs such as the one in question. Without sticking a mic in people’s faces, it admittedly still feels weird crowd-sourcing opinions from the odd gig-goer in my absence. Richie and others confirmed for instance there was, indeed, the presence of naked audience-member buttocks, and a near-applying of vocalist-face to said buttocks. (Average Choof-gig energy, from my experience).
And that’s the fun thing about a Choof show. It’s as reliably predictable as it is near-hazardous. One minute, you might cop a variation on any number of heckles often given to The Most Serious Folded-Arms Metal Guy imposing too much seriousness on their punk-fuelled, grindcore-enhanced mayhemic live shows. You’ll statistically very much likely get water or beer applied to your face by the singer - a positively-skewed correlation that turns into sheer cause-and-effect if you’re standing up the front. It’s again great schadenfreude to witness this with first-timers, including one I spoke to who reported feeling fresher and more beer-showered from the experience.
Like my own many run-ins with this self-professed ‘OUTLAW GRIND’ collective, from third-party feedback, Choof as a unit were as paradoxically tight and precise musically as they were physically all over the shop (my response being vaguely “yeah, sounds about right!”). And that, Oh So Serious Metal Guy With Yet Another 7-String Progressive Metalcore Band, is why they score lineups. Dudes go hard, and party hard, but they’ve also put work into the hyperspeed finished grind-product.
Luckily, our photographer was less of an idiot with his timing of meals than myself, so you can peep some visual evidence of on-brand Choof carnage right here:
BASTARDIZER
Hitting the venue back up full of far, far too many liquiefied and solid forms of carbohydrates, I made a direct beeline to the back-stage. With a mix of additional insulin and renewed vigor, I took what had been an unofficial pew for the day by the front-right foldback - just in time for a moment of carb-addled confusion.
Wait, sunglasses at night, bullet-belts, long hair, black-and-roll - did Anthony sneak Aura Noir onto this bill without our knowledge?! Sneaky-snake! And yet, as closely as Sydney’s Bastardizer snugly fits both the aesthetic and musical stylings of said thrash-based black-rollers, they were very much their own outfit tonight - pun intended.
The metal warriors proceeded to bash out a burst-fire rain of what I can only describe as ‘Van Halen smacking headfirst into a wall of 1349, driven in a car to said fate by Teutonic thrash legends Sodom’.. with all the resultant musical and performative chimeras you’d expect from such a silly metaphor.
Frontman Chris Beasley treated the mic-stand more like a bushido polearm, a central point on which to pivot, rock and holler whilst belching out a succession of raspy, crispy blackened screams and shrieks. Forever playing spot-swap duck-duck-goose onstage around him were the equally animated Bill Morgan and Nick Wilks on guitar/bass respectively, with drummer George Delincolis little more than a blur of arms and sticks behind said fret-bearers.
Barrelling through a swarm of blackened-thrash cuts featuring the most iconically-metal, iconically-Satan tropes possible, there was little risk of the live product feeling kitsch. Not even when 180-ing from a run of blackened tremolo into a bluesy, arena-rock-ready solo, then back into a burst of blasting fury.
If anything, the injection of both classic-thrash and hard rock into their overall blackened assault just kept heads whirling even more throughout. Particularly their own, I might add - blink and you’d have missed faces between the swirling sea of glorious metal-hair mops onstage, from a band as abjectly defiant to stillness as an appreciative, mobile crowd. And the helping of plentiful ‘OUGH’s’ and ‘oh yeah’s thumped out between riffs got the whole room acting like Kool Aid Guy in Family Guy - thankfully, walls stayed intact in this scene.
Like with Nervosa and other recent thrash-oriented gigs in Melbourne of late, this was one of many sets of the day which showed a crowd eager and happy to lap anything and everything flat-stick and mosh/headbangable with equal appeal. That, or I was too busy being up the front to notice any aloof crossed-arm elitists in the room - their loss, I guess! Any inactivity during this set was more than well-compensated by a feverish few front rows responding in kind to one very amped-up Bastardizer.
THEY BASTARDIZE, SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO <3. THANK THEIR PHILANTHROPY AT:
PIZZA DEATH
I’m not playing favourites with any of my gig reviews, least of all bills that are as consistently stacked with good quality top-to-bottom such as Brutefest. But man, oh man. There’s a reason why any time you query a random metalhead if they’ve seen a Pizza Death show, you can see the proverbial-eating grin rise before the first word is uttered. When it comes to a fun, kooky but also sincerely T H R A S H show, PD are gaining a stellar reputation as kings in the live local thrash domain.
Launching their satirical tirade of literally-crust/crossover thrash fun with ‘Beast of The Box’, frontman ‘Dougie’ (Pat Simkin) was all jeers of mutual appreciation alongside a well-baked, spicy crowd. Bedlam broke out immediately the very second drummer Tim Day’s first hit accompanying bassist Kane’s first rumbling, trebly notes to Tim Thomson’s dextrous thrash-riff-attack.
A request to reject “that one friend we all have - That Guy” and their fatal personality defect - the clarion-call of “it’s called a Pizzeria, not a fucking Pasteria!” from ah, Dougie, was all the japes we needed to launch into ‘Pasta of Muppets’. Crowd-wise, shit had most definitely immediately kicked off - a swirl of pit-wide circular action, book-ended on both sides by headbangers eager to meet the Minor-Threat-at-minimum frantic riff-pacing.
Serving as sous-chef of puns and anecdotes, bassist and co-MC Kane gets enough wind in the lungs to loudly announce how much it sucks to get a layer of crusty, dried and dangly skin on the roof of your mouth after munging into hot pizza a bit too eagerly. ‘Napalm Cheese’ had started without him in the pit, it seemed, as eager moshers were already running in anticipatory circles to the next litany of thrashtastic riffs soon to ensue.
And the insanity only picked up from there! From a position-statement involving a fish-plushie in 'Unholy Anchovy’, a speech about cremating the dead with garnish for ‘Yeast of the Deceased’, a call to separate the pit for a wall of death between pineapple-enjoyers/haters for the blistering ‘Excruciating Pain-Apple’ (featuring a real pineapple, as is tradition) through to a brave crowdgoer donning a suit of garlic bread, being wrapped in alfoil and crowdsurfed back into the pit? Yeah, the fun-knob (not a euphemism) was cranked to eleven and basically ripped right off.
Pizza Death are firm proof that one can make seriously-good, sincerely competent thrash metal/crossover, but also enjoy it all within an appreciative, warm calzone of fun. Dougie was all calls for appreciation of crowd, organisers and venue, and I feel it’s the fun-factor that helped garner euphoric jeers in kind from a crowd nowhere near done yet.
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ABIGAIL
Here you go! If you were one of the many folks who seemed to pack The Tote’s backstage area to a new level of crammed specifically for Japan’s blackened thrash co-headliners, you and apparently half of Melbourne are very much welcome.
Seriously, there’s no room to even get the cat off the floor at this stage, much less swing the poor thing. In fact, the cat coudn’t have possibly found its’ way to you by any means for Abigail’s set - the place was completely backed out, front-to-back.
To quote the guy who gets fired from the Fallout Boy movie on The Simpsons - ‘and, with good cause!’.
With little to no fanfare, the first of what felt like billions of riffs, licks, leads and abrupt, turn-on-a-yen changes were reefed from the mind of completely-batshit guitarist Noburo ‘Jero’ Sakuma and onto some of the deftest and smoothest fret-hands of the day. Seriously, the rapid-fire pace at which our Nippon friend here was doling out every (and I mean every) trick in the guitarist-arsenal, start-to-finish, was nothing short of an impressive feat. Complementing his relentless attack with the damned screams of a man charged with stepping on Lego pieces barefoot for eternity, frontman Yasuyuki Suzuki was a primal, focussed channel of raw screeching power, swinging an instrument near his own size around as though nothing heavier than a plastic straw.
And, good Gods above - the drummer! Holy pantheon of blast, Batman! Possessed by both occultic and the pagan, skinsman Youhei Ono was hunched forward, relentlessly persevering under an incredible cacophony of blastbeat/d-beat and big, anthemic fills alike.
Weaving their way through a labyrinth of genres from across both the blackened and hard-rock canonical tomes, Abigail brandished minimal fanfare as they ripped and tore through wholesome titles such as ‘Bitch! Your My Angel’, ‘Satanik Metal Fucking Hell’ and ‘Metal Bitch Inferno’, with a brief “thank-youuuu-Melbourne!” and accompanying song-title being the few moments of reprieve with which to gather jaws off floors.
As for the pit?!
Pfsh. Forget about it.
From the brief few minutes I spent in there, that weren’t no pit, son. That was some interdimensional portal that vaguely contained sloshing tinnies, bodies, a bottle or two and whirls of black-shirted denim-wearers. Those keen enough to brute-force their way through a constantly-hooting, hard-shelled people-packed exterior were treated to a venue version of the Earth’s crust - superheated, full of activity and heavy, fucking, metal.
Swapping stage positions like career-politicians with party lines, the quartet were endlessly pumping horns received in kind but were overall goddamn busy. I’d be busy too, if I was trying to shoehorn everything from Hellhammer, Marduk and Slayer to AC/DC (we got a brief Back in Black riff-homage, on that note!), 80’s punk and hardcore into brief, unrepentant-paced tunes.
The metalhead aches and pains, a source of distraction and intermittent whinging from Yours Truly, were momentarily held to pause. There’s something truly captivating about Japanese bands, live - we previously covered Butcher ABC’s set in a prior New Dead Festival review, and they were among my faves of the day. Boris? Don’t even go there; don’t start me unless you’ve got even more time to read a rambling treatise of its’ own.
For a nation which has had multiple generations grow up parallel to a massive cultural insurgence via globalisation, our Nippon neighbours have a special, unique knack for interpreting Western musical tropes and delivering them in a live format that is unlike anything we’d be able to pull off. Showmanship, technical flair, roars of gratitude and metal-worship - Abigail were the full package, one I pleaded/begged/beseeched kindly requested they consider bringing back to the Australian stage ASAP. Right after finding my bottom jaw somewhere on the floor of the Tote, that is.
I might’ve given you guys the worst-pronounced ‘nihongo hanasenai but ahh….. dude…. CHO-SUGOI!’ but Abigail? Please. You guys have to make this happen again. That was some fucked-up blackened thrash metal magic right there, and I’m sure the fully-packed-house that was The Tote for your set is in eager agreement!
ENSURE WE BRING ‘EM BACK WITH THE GOOD OLD $AUD AND YOUR LISTENER SUPPORT AT:
The Official Abigail/Barbatos Site
NuclearNow Productions - Bandcamp
STALKER
Ah, alas, we’re reaching the end of our review here. But we’re not ending things on anything approaching mediocrity or quiescent reflection - New Zealand’s Stalker rocked way too fucking hard for that to be how this goes out!
Like my little spiel about Japanese bands just prior, I feel that before we begin I’ll need to make a statement on behalf of our Kiwi cousins across the pond, more generally. Specifically, it’s no surprise to me that a JP/NZ co-headliner ends up this hectic - us Australians love to brandish ourselves as the more feral of the two counterparts, but anyone who holds an ivory-tower approach to intensity, love of partying and musical skill has not being paying much attention to the ANZAC other-half.
Nowhere was this more apparent than for headliners Stalker, of course! Whilst I was a little dismayed at the amount of folk who seemed to have up and bailed during Abigail’s set, any worries about a relative lack of attention on the final bands’ behalf washed away in unison. Howls, excited screams and John Carpenter styled synths, introduced what was soom to be the final bout of mayhemic carnage for the evening. And carnage it was!
As the beautifully ball-pinchingly-high wails of bassist Daif wailed over the first of an endless procession of thrashy, rocking speed-metal riffs, I figured early-leavers were just missing out. Miss out they certainly did, but the engorgement of mosh-corpses once more in the circle-pit and stage-area, front-to-back, showed a decent patronage for this frenetic speed-ball ending to a long and riff-filled day.
Whirling back-to-back, getting within French-kiss distance and otherwise spinning like a dog covered in fleas, guitarist Chris managed an impressive and encyclopedic demonstration of riff-and-solo magic. Like Abigail before them, the axeman in question deftly tore pages from all manner of riff-canon - even whilst crowdsurfing, rolling around the stage and suffering a couple of brief technical issues onstage. Adorned in their finest leathers, spandex that leaved little to the imagination, the Halford-coded pair were underpinned by a performance from Nick on drums that should have the average grindcore drummer fearful for their position. Seriously, cuz - dude had insane amounts of stamina to be playing that flat-stick throughout the entire set. Mucho appreciado.
Sure, the Dio-leaning solo/dual vocal wails, flashy lighting and perennially-speed-metal songs (‘Of Steel and Fire’, ‘Black Majik Terror’) were camp and kitsch as hell. That’s half the point - they’re meant to be, this is a grandiose rock show packed into a small venue atop a seriously-bruising thrash-metal riff framework. A bottle of Maker’s Mark is procured and shared between Daif/audience, as is speed-metal tradition.
Blasting out an endless cavalcade of riffs which felt triple-digit tempo aside from bombastic hard-rockin’ breakdowns, the energy both onstage and the floor (I spent a few moments there horizontally - what a pit!) seemed to vacuum up any residual excess fatigue and straight blast it apart. Requisite shoutouts as headliners were of course given and responded to in kind by us, but to be honest? We were all just far too busy headbanging, cheering, moshing, pumping fists and watching these wailing riff-bro’s ply a very fun, frantic trade.
In what essentially acted as a zenith moment for the evening, both Abigail and Vexation’s vocalist (and said bottle of Maker’s) made a return to the stage for an absolutely searing rendition of Death’s Evil Dead - a decision that turned the moshpit from a moshpit into the chimeric mass of flesh at the end of Akira.
EPILOGUE:
And so, there it is - Brutefest 2025, done and dusted.
Wobbling out the venue into the cool night air, literally needing to clasp my neck from all the headbanging, feet aching to the core, I’m reminded of something very important.
We need to capture and keep the capacity of bands, promoters and venues alive so that we may enjoy opportunities like this, ongoing. Events like Brutefest are unique; they’re islands of opportunity in an increasingly fiscally-rough sea for our relatively geographically isolated countrymen to enjoy spectacles at local venues which harness the same raw, brutal and fun staying-power of larger counterparts in Europe and the like.
It’s my sincere hope everyone who attended had fun, and from my observations and conversations - that seemed unanimous.
As for the rest of you - let’s make more of these happen. We might need to adapt a more grassroots approach, but nights like Brutefest are undeniable reality-testing feedback that yes, HUGE things can happen in your local city.
Here’s to 2026, and here’s once more to Your Mate Bookings for such a fantastic freaking afternoon, evening and night.
I’ll have a separate Gallery of Brewicide (my silly moniker for photo/video-gallery posts) up soon. For now, think I still need some Tiger Balm to work out the last muscular pains from a night that was very well worth it. I have to, really - Richie’s work is just too fantastic. Be sure to check out his snaps on the above socials/photographer links! Man’s a gun.
Peace, Love and Speed-Metal Spandex xoxo - Brady.
