Report

Brutal Assault 2023 - My Seven Most Memorable Bands

Sometimes as a writer, you must mix things up from time to time. I normally write up festival reports, day by day, band by band, blah, blah, blah…it gets mundane for the writer and more importantly, the reader. Brutal Assault 2023 took place in early August of this year and we’re already in mid-September as of this writing.

I took plenty of notes after each day so I know most of the details of each day. However, I’m going to write up Brutal Assault 2023 in such a way where I’m going to list my top seven most memorable bands of the festival and why I remembered them. I’ll refer to my notes only to confirm what I remembered, but the meat of it will be from my own personal, gray matter hard drive.

For reference, here are some personal stats regarding my Brutal Assault band viewing numbers. I saw at least 30 bands over 4 days and I photographed 28 of them. Most bands were headliner type bands you would see on tour or that put out releases through well-known metal labels. Most of these bands are in the extreme metal genre.
Without further ado, and not ranked in any particular order, my top seven:

1. Cult of Fire – This Czech band is a must see just for their costuming alone (Think Batushka meets the Hindu religion). There was also a good amount of fire involved if you were wondering because of their name, and we all love fire during a performance. The music was symphonic black metal, so if that’s not your thing, you won’t even care because of the stage show. I would check them out again for sure.

2. Sepultura – It’s not the 90’s version and there’s not a Cavalera brother in sight, but I don’t care. They took to the stage like they did during their prime years. They sounded great and the energy level of the band and the crowd was spine tingling. They still put on an awesome live show.

3. Cro-Mags – They made this list because this was the first time that I’ve seen them live and I had a lot of fun. They made an impression on me. I don’t like hardcore at all, but I liked Cro-Mags because they’re OG and genuine. They’re stripped down and they rep NYC in every note. Harley Flanagan is one hell of a front-man too.

4. Watain – I’ve seen Watain at least a half dozen times by now, but there’s something different about them when they play a festival, there’s more of an edge to their performance. The fire, the blood, the ferocity, it’s hyper intense on the larger stage and the extra room suits them better for the ritual that is Watain. Tossing fire and blood unto the crowd doesn’t suck either.

5. Heilung – Their stage was put together to be a forest setting with actual tree branches and local greenery for starters. This band is also ritualistic, but more of a Yang to Watain’s Ying. Heilung is about protecting the earth and all that it encompasses where Watain wants to burn it all down. There’s some fire as well but used in dancing and celebration. Ok, I’ll stop babbling, go check them out if you never have.

6. Perturbator – Their light show. See this band for the light show alone. If you like dark wave or dark synth or whatever the kids are calling this these days, it’s a bonus. If you don’t want to feel like you’re at a disco at a metal fest, just wear earplugs and go check out the light show.

7. Sodom – The no frills, German thrash band just keeps getting better with age. This is another one of those bands where the energy exchanged between them and the crowd is something real and electric. This band probably had the most crowd surfing of any of the bands I saw at Brutal Assault.

You can check out the full photo galleries from Brutal Assault 2023 below!

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4