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Hell’s Heroes 2022


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17 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I'll be on the road that weekend after Easter heading back home from visiting the grandkids down in FLA but it looks like a cool festival. Wonder who's in Riot these days and if they play any old stuff?

15 hours ago, JamesT said:

Man that's an awesome lineup!  I'd be psyched about Candlemass, Riot, Cirith Ungol, Enforcer, and Night Demon.  Hopefully, Riot will play some stuff from "Fire Down Under" - such an underrated release. 

I don’t know about the current lineup, but apparently they’re doing a set of Thundersteel and Fire Down Under songs.

On 1/29/2022 at 6:18 PM, SurgicalBrute said:

Holy shit... yeah...I'd be all over that festival if i could. Candlemass absolutely crushes their live show, and pretty much that entire undercard kills. Going to need plenty of beer to dull the pain though, not a lot of downtime on there to rest your feet.

Beer will be flowing. And it’ll hopefully be my first festival in... 3 years I believe. So... maybe I’ll end up with two bloody stomps for feet but man I don’t care XD

It will also be my first time seeing Eternal Champion, Bewitcher and a few others so I’m really pumped. Coming from Europe so we don’t get to see those bands much, even less with the pandemic.

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I'll be there all 3 days (pre-show and fest). Been to this show both previous years and glad to see them expand to 2 days. It's a good time. Decent venue and Houston is easy to get to. This is the best lineup they've had so far and the last 2 were pretty damn good. I agree with @SurgicalBrute, Candlemass is really good live and very nice guys to boot. Saw them on the 70K Cruise and met a few of them on the deck. Totally fanboy'ed on them and they were completely cool. HH is a pretty tight show and you will run into plenty of musicians. Met Jason Tarpley and Phil Swanson the first year. All the guys from Oath of Cruelty the second. A few more guys I'm spacing at the moment. The only flaw is there's not really any hotels within walking distance of the venue.

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You’re making it sound great @navybsn. I didn’t manage to get the tickets for the pre party but I’ll see you there for the other two days. I’ve been in quite a few small venue concerts where you can just chat or say some stupid shit to the musicians afterwards, and they’ve been the best. I hope I can meet the guys in Night Demon again and after six times finally ask for a damn signature XD

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  • 4 months later...

Deaf, dumb & blind, in Texas, courtesy of a two-day, late April confab, called Hell's Heroes. Essentially Spring Break, for the black shirted horde! While the fourth installment overall, this marked my maiden voyage. With ProgPower USA winding down and Maryland Deathfest uncertain about continuing beyond this year (definitely on hiatus in 2023), where's the next boutique American festival, fertile grounds to nurture the growth of baby bands? The mega-colossus Ozzfest replacements that are Epicenter/Carolina Rebellion, Upheaval, Rockville, Rockfest, Louder Than Life, Blue Ridge, Aftershock, etc. cater to commercial/big label acts, most of whom wouldn't be considered "metal" outside of America. So trve, kvlt, underground darlings (esp. from overseas, once the pandemic backlog of visa applications can be sorted out), as well as long running fan favorites, have discovered a much needed haven, in Houston.

The main room holds 1200, the upstairs "hole-in-the-wall" stage, just 250 and each day's running order dovetails the two venues, with no overlap between: when the downstairs ends, the upstairs starts, and vice versa. So it's impossible to take in the full sets of successive acts. Just traversing between the rooms, you have to miss something. Thankfully there was some space in the massive line-up during which to socialize, eat, etc (had previously seen more than half of the 27 bands performing, over two day, so it wasn't deemed necessary to see/hear everything onstage). Most are afforded 30 minutes, the nightly headliner, an hour. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

krnt.run

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Sounds pretty cool until you look at the lineup and realize there's no one you'd really want to see. It's still mostly a mainstream lineup of C-tier bands, no true kvlt underground black or death darlings that I could find. Surprising being that there are so many really solid underground metal bands hailing from Houston Texas: Blaspherian, Imprecation, Crucifier, Malignant Altar, Black Funeral, Oath of Cruelty, PLF....

The two headliners Candlemass and Dark Angel are cool, but I've seen them both before at MDF. Beyond that it's slim pickins. I'm sure as always there would be a couple of the lesser known bands that would put in a good showing and make me a fan but I'm not buying $500 plane tickets and booking a $400 hotel room for that lineup. Or I wouldn't have if it hadn't already taken place in April. Hope you enjoyed yourself though. Let's see who they manage to book next year.

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6 hours ago, SurgicalBrute said:

Because it's not that kind of festival...it's for more traditional styles of metal, not underground, extreme bands.

...and honestly, that lineup is actually really stacked

Well yes, I see that now Surge, like I said in my last post it's a C-tier mainstream metal festival and that's fine. But the poster above us here raval1983 was the one who used the phrase "true kvlt underground darlings" and he got me all excited for this thing with his description...until I looked it up and saw there was a complete absence of black & death metal on the bill, trve kvlt or otherwise. I guess when I saw that it was in Houston I must've gotten it mixed up with another Texas fest they've had with all the actual underground black metal bands. Maybe that was a NWN fest or something I'm thinking of.  

As far as the lineup for Hell's Heroes being "really stacked" this would obviously depend on what kind of music you're into. I don't even recognize at least half of those band names (if not more than half) but the ones I do know I'm not particularly fond of so I guess I'm assuming the other unfamiliar ones will be more of the same. Lineup might look "stacked" to you but I can assure you it's not for me. I have zero interest in throwback 80's style traditional metal. I want black and death.

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10 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I have zero interest in throwback 80's style traditional metal. I want black and death.

I know...but given your admitted lack of knowledge on most of those bands, and your use of the term "C-tier, mainstream metal festival" to describe it, I'm pointing out that's a very stacked lineup, and very few of those bands deserve to be called mainstream

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55 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

I know...but given your admitted lack of knowledge on most of those bands, and your use of the term "C-tier, mainstream metal festival" to describe it, I'm pointing out that's a very stacked lineup, and very few of those bands deserve to be called mainstream

I suppose I use the term "mainstream" metal to mean metal that's not black or death. Mainstream as if it were a sub-genre. My use of "C-tier" just refers to their level of unknownness, not necessarily their quality. I know Cirith Ungol, Whiplash, Enforcer and Satan and have heard of several more but none of that interests me in any way which is why I don't think of the lineup as "stacked," while maybe someone else who's really into trad metal (non-extreme) might see it as a big boner inducing cornucopia of riches.

Surely you can understand how anyone evaluating a festival lineup is going to filter it through their own personal taste in music. I think it should go without saying that if someone says "the lineup for XYZ Fest is shit" that usually just means they're not really into that type of music. I think the lineup for Psycho Vegas '22 is absolute dogshit too, but I'm sure there are people out there who think it's super fantastic. It's all a matter of taste.

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As someone with a taste for both the more traditional and extreme metal genres I took one look at that lineup and thought wow for a supposedly stacked roster there’s only three bands there I want to see. Truth Be Told that’s how I feel about Most festivals, the exception was always MDF which did always look to have a formidable lineup. To each their own flower I guess.

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13 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Surely you can understand how anyone evaluating a festival lineup is going to filter it through their own personal taste in music.

I do, which is why, as someone who likes both the extreme end of black and death as much as you, and someone who likes these kinds of bands, I was offering you perspective from the other side of the coin.

 

11 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

for a supposedly stacked roster there’s only three bands there I want to see

I guess that would depend on how familiar you are with the rest of the lineup. For me, the only ones I don't know/don't care for would be Riot, Medieval Steel, Whiplash, High Spirirts, and Warcloud. Everything else there ranges from solid to really damn good.

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1 hour ago, SurgicalBrute said:

I do, which is why, as someone who likes both the extreme end of black and death as much as you, and someone who likes these kinds of bands, I was offering you perspective from the other side of the coin.

************************************************************************

I guess that would depend on how familiar you are with the rest of the lineup. For me, the only ones I don't know/don't care for would be Riot, Medieval Steel, Whiplash, High Spirirts, and Warcloud. Everything else there ranges from solid to really damn good.

 

So much of what you've elected to share with us these last several years is some type of fuzzy low to mid-fi black metal or cavernous death metal that I guess I never realized you were such a big heavy metal guy Surge. Not that there's anything wrong with that, to each their own, I just wasn't aware and I thought I knew you pretty well, or at least had a handle your musical (and malted beverage) tastes. How do you keep up? I know I devote way too much time in trying to stay abreast of the latest black and death metal releases and I still miss plenty in the process. How do you keep track of all of that extreme stuff and also stay current with all the heavy metal stuff too? When working and going to school no less. Impressive. 

I'll listen to the odd heavy metal album on an occasional whim but 97% of the time that's gonna be an old record I have a historical and nostalgic connection with from the 80's or 90's when listening to clean singing was the norm for me. When it comes to newer bands playing in established metallic styles from the past, I've found that I generally tend to be pretty cool with it when it's "old school" black or death metal but I'm much less tolerant of modern thrash or heavy metal bands trying to emulate those old 30+ year old sounds.

Since the mid oughts when I first got heavily into extreme metal with harsh vocals I've found that I have very little tolerance for newer metal bands using clean vox anymore, just don't want to deal with them. If it's hard rock or punk rock or any completely non-metal genre then I'm cool with it, but when it comes to my metal I really want the rougher vocals. And I cannot under any circumstances ever tolerate these modern metal bands with their super melodic poppy choruses, they make me want to stab my eardrums to make the pain stop. I'm sure there are a few exceptions to this rule, maybe a band that sneaks a few cleans in here and there for effect but I can't think of any right now off the top of my head.

So anyway...I really wasn't meaning to shit on any of these bands that you like Surgey old buddy, I'm sure they're good bands for those of you who are into that sort of thing. And I didn't mean "mainstream" as any kind of a put-down, I use that word interchangably with "non-extreme." My original point was just that Mr 1983 above us made this Hell's Heroes festival sound like it was an extreme underground kvlt affair or at least like possibly a reasonably viable alternative to MDF and I thought "How could I possibly have missed hearing about this awesome festival?!?" but then I looked it up only to be crestfallen and despondent when I saw that it wasn't anything of the sort. 

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2 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

So much of what you've elected to share with us these last several years is some type of fuzzy low to mid-fi black metal or cavernous death metal that I guess I never realized you were such a big heavy metal guy Surge.

I honestly only post a small fraction of the stuff I run across, usually because I put music on while I'm doing something else and just don't bother to log in, but yeah...while I don't follow it as closely as black or death somewhere along the line I managed to pick up an appreciation for bands doing the traditional heavy and speed metal styles. It wasn't too big of a leap going from some of those first wave black metal bands like KAT or Bulldozer into speed metal, and from there to just regular heavy metal. I just keep up with it the same way I keep up with other styles...what album covers catch my eye, what bands are people talking about, what am i in the mood for right now...that sort of thing. I don't know about anyone else, but I usually have a pretty good idea about whether I'll like an album just based on cover art, so I can skim stuff pretty quickly just because of that. Fortunately, I'm also officially done with school as of this past May, so I have a bit more free time to waste listening to new bands.

 

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