A Death[fest] in The [Maryland]: 2025 and Beyond
An exploration of live music last year? An apology for not writing about the last MDF? Keeping myself accountable to write a piece on next year’s? Some other thing I can’t think of at the moment? Huh?!?
I don’t need to tell you how shit this past year was (I’ll let 365 handle that), nor do I need to tell you 2026 isn’t shaping up to be a massive improvement. Yet, a bright spot in last year’s Year of the Snake(oil salesmen) for me was live music. Living in a town with a strong local scene that’s only a mini-road trip from a major city has its benefits in terms of live music, allowing me the privilege of seeing a wide variety of acts. Local groups made up a lot of this diet, with bigger trips to see Danny Brown, Femtanyl, Poison the Well, Glassjaw, Flagman and ARTMS. One of the most memorable shows for me was certainly Weedeater, where I watched the bassist/lead singer stick his fingers in his ass, pick his nose, stick one of said fingers in a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, drink from said bottle, and then chase it with a light beer (peak male performance frankly).
Even with all these great shows (especially Brown’s show, one of my favorites I’ve been to lately), it’s hard for any of them to escape the massive shadow left by Maryland Deathfest 2025. Previous to this event, I had been to Atlanta’s Mass Destruction Festival back in 2019, seeing lots of greats like Sigh, Nile, Deceased, Imprecation, and Demolition Hammer (massive thank you to my mom for going with me to this and every other scary metal show I went to in high school), but Maryland Deathfest was something me and my best friend had talked about doing since late middle school. Last year we finally did it: we exchanged currency for tickets and flew to Baltimore—the land of dreams The Wire.
Even beyond this being my first Deathfest event, last year’s showing was stacked beyond measure: Triptykon performing two sets (one as Celtic Frost), Incantation performing Onward to Golgotha, Devourment, Dripping, Cenotaph performing Gloomy Reflections…, Cynic doing Focus, Encenathrakh, Krallice, Skepticism, Asphyx, and way too many more to name here (incl. previously mentioned acts Sigh and Nile, funnily enough). During the 4 days of debauchery, I crossed off more than a few bucket list bands and engaged in many firsts: my first time overspending on beer at a music fest, my first (and second and third and fourth and…) time crowd surfing, my first actually scary mosh pit (“Christening the Afterbirth” might have been the last song I ever heard and I think I’d be okay with that), and more. I also must note that the craziest pit we saw was Black Curse‘s, where I watched meatheads beat the snot out of each other in a room only slightly lit by camera lights. Needless to say, it really did feel like a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Well, once in a lifetime quickly became a second year in a row with enough pestering from my previously mentioned friend, as the set list for 2026 was pretty hard to say no to. I had originally intended on writing a big article all about the great bands we saw and telling the various funny anecdotes that seem to appear when you stick thousands of metal dorks in one theme-park sized area, but getting used to the layout of the festival grounds and dodging empty lager cans didn’t leave me much time to take good notes (getting baked and watching Yu-Gi-Oh in the hotel room until 2 AM certainly didn’t help with writing either). However, this year is going to be different. That’s partially why I’m writing this current piece—promising ahead means I’ll have to do it!
There are things I’d like to do differently this time around, namely getting a better camera for photos and making a purposeful effort to improve my note-taking, but my main goal remains the same: see as many of my wishlist bands as humanly possible. I am currently working through listening to at least one album from each band, but I have a pretty strong idea of what bands I want to see the most.
Of course, a bulk of the top listing bands are a huge reason I’m going: classic era sets from Kreator, Sarcófago (Gerald “Incubus” Minelli & The Laws but who’s counting), Grave, Cancer, Rotting Christ, Dying Fetus, Cephalic Carnage, Pig Destroyer, and more are all massive gets and more or less necessary viewing as far as I am concerned. In addition, sets from acts like Sex Prisoner, Miasmatic Necrosis, Cephalotripsy, Rotten Sound, Putridity, Mortician, Rottrevore, and Antichrist Siege Machine are also sure to pop the fuck off. Hell, my most anticipated set might be the “five Toilets” recipient act Oranssi Pazuzu (it’s like getting five mics from Source Magazine but the smell is significantly worse). Beyond what I was already familiar with, records from Solitude Aeturnus, Anatoma, Rwake, and Windhand have sold me on seeing these bands provided I am not asked to pick between them and fucking Kreator playing songs from Pleasure to Kill, Terrible Certainty, and Extreme Aggression.
So, whose set will I make it to on time? Who will have to be passed up on because I’m just really in the mood for lobotomy-slam? Whose set will I be skipping so that I can go eat a sandwich at Subway?!
I suppose we will have to wait and see…
