Brutal Assault 2024: Epitome of destruction in Josefov fortress, part two.

I continue my work recounting the pleasant experience of touring Brutal Assault for five days with our photographer Sara Martín. The fortress grounds are quite large and some distances were certainly long when travelling between concerts with very tight schedules, that is the price you have to pay to be able to see such a large number of bands in five days. The sacrifice is well worth it and thanks to this type of event dedicated to the genre we can see bands like the Finnish band Hexvessel whose proposal of atmospheric folk with psychedelic overtones halfway between doom and black metal allowed us to enjoy a band as curious as it is interesting formed by the vocalist and guitarist Mathew Kvohst McNerney, bassist Ville Hakonen, keyboardist Kimmo Helén and drummer Jukka Rämänen. This was the perfect excuse to give us a very authentic lysergic performance on the Octagon stage.

Dark Tranquillity is another one of those bands that I have a special affection for because they were one of the first to introduce me to extreme metal a long, long time ago. Their first album with Mikael Stanne as vocalist, The Gallery (1995, Osmose Productions), was the one that also introduced me to melodic death metal along with another album that paradoxically has some relation to Dark Tranquillity, such as Colony (1999, Nuclear Blast) by In Flames and the glorious Slaughter Of The Soul (1995, Earache Records) by At The Gates, all of them cornerstones of the genre.

It should be noted that I stayed away from Dark Tranquillity for a few years and that I did not meet them again until the release of the brilliant Atoma (2016, Century Media Records), so since then I have been closely following their releases as well as the adjacent projects of their vocalist Mikael Stanne. With their thirteenth album Endtime Signals about to be released, Dark Tranquillity came out in their characteristic Swedish splendor to enthrall a good crowd that had gathered on the Sea Shepherd stage late in the evening to give a good run through of their most recent catalog with very few surprises in the setlist.

It should be noted that the duo currently formed by guitarist Johan Reinholdz and newcomer Peter Lyse Hansen, who is accompanying the band on the tour to present their new album, put on a spectacular show where there is nothing to complain about. Mikael Stanne does not usually fail live and this was no exception. They played all three singles from their latest album Not Nothing, Unforgivable and The Last Imagination, they went over Moment (2020, Century Media Records) with Phantom Days, they delighted us with the deep Atoma and the interesting Encircled from Atoma (2016, Century Media) and they recalled some Projector (1999, Century Media Records) with ThereIn, this being the oldest song they played that night. They obviously forgot about Punish My Heaven, again. With any luck they’ll get it back for their upcoming tour with Moonspell!

Although many people wondered what a band like The Dillinger Escape Plan was doing at the festival, something that still surprises me enormously, I think it is necessary to remember that the American mathcore/metalcore project had already been to the festival on three occasions before this time. As much as it pains the band, Calculating Infinity (1999, Relapse/Hydra Head) is still an essential album in the development of the genre to which it belongs and this was one of the stops of the band commemorating the 25th anniversary of their debut album, counting on this very special occasion with their original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis who left The Dillinger Escape Plan two years after releasing their debut album.

The setlist that night obviously focused on playing Calculating Infinity in its entirety but without following the same order of tracks from the album. They kicked off their set with Destro’s Secret and automatically moved on to Sandbox Magician from their EP Under The Running Board (1998, Relapse), thus alternating between the aforementioned releases and their self-titled debut EP released in 1997. Their performance was more than decent despite having been squeezed in between Emperor and Behemoth, I understand that this detail was the one that might have bothered people the most but The Dillinger Escape Plan did a very good job on the Sea Shepherd stage and that’s something nobody can deny, I speak as someone who isn’t thrilled with The Dillinger Escape Plan but who I greatly value their contribution to the development of the genre they practice.

I was really looking forward to seeing Finnish band Kalmah as well, as they are one of those bands that have come to my country a couple of times in more than two and a half decades, one of them being the day after their appearance on the Marshall stage at Brutal Assault. They opened their performance with the direct song The Evil Kin from Palo (2018, Spinefarm Records), making it very clear what their performance was going to be about, as they had not come with the intention of taking prisoners. Their vocalist and guitarist Pekka Kokko smiled from ear to ear throughout the performance, showing that they were very happy to be back at Brutal Assault almost three decades after their first and only appearance at the festival.

From their most recent album they only played Haunted By Guilt, which also sounded amazing right after The Evil Kin, with superb work by the Kokko brothers on guitar. There wasn’t time for any song from 12 Gauge (2010, Spikefarm Records) which remains my favourite of the band but Seventh Swamphony from the self-titled album dropped during their show and also Hades from Swamplord (2000, Spikefarm Records), their debut album. There was also time to raffle off a t-shirt amongst the audience, some lucky people walked away dressed that day!

Escuela Grind, who I admit I know but have heard very little about, also put on an energetic show with a very devoted audience on the Sea Shepherd stage at midday on the second day of the festival. The American grindcore quartet led by vocalist Katerina Economou, guitarist Krissy Morash, bassist Justin Altamirano and drummer Jesse Adan Fuentes put on a show with very little stagecraft, using only their own rage to make their performance something out of this world. Obviously, they left Ball And Chain for the end, since it is a masterful song to close a show, being one of the few I had heard until their time at Brutal Assault (by the way, it was the band’s first at the Czech festival) and which closed on a high note a concert that all attendees enjoyed from start to finish.

I should have seen Vltimas at the beginning of the year in Norway during their performance at the Inferno Metal Festival and they were one of the bands that caught my attention the most since their debut album Something Wicked Marches In (2019, Season Of Mist is one of the albums I probably listened to the most when it came out in 2019. Unfortunately I couldn’t go there due to an unforeseen event that disrupted all plans and I was left wanting to see them so this was the opportunity I needed. David Vincent‘s project has managed to combine what I like most about thrash metal with death and black metal, making Vltimas a very particular band made up of a more than enviable line-up: David Vincent (Terrorizer, I Am Morbid) on vocals, Rune “Blasphemer” Eriksen (Aura Noir, Earth Electric, Ruïm) and João Duarte (Corpus Christii, Filii Nigrantium Infernalium, Infra) on guitars, Ype TWS (Obscura, ex-Dodecahedron) on bass and Paweł “Pavulon” Jaroszewicz (Batushka, Antigama) on drums, all of them experienced musicians from their respective scenes who have been part of countless projects of multiple styles, fighting together under the same flag.

The most curious thing about Vltimas‘ proposal is the aesthetics of its members, with David Vincent himself being the one who stands out the most from the whole group. Their appearance could be said to resemble that of a gravedigger from the Middle Ages, as you can see in the photographs that accompany this chronicle. Having only two albums to date, the setlist focused on them, giving prominence to their most recent album Epic (2024, Season Of Mist) from which they performed songs such as Miserere, Invictus, EPIC or Mephisto Manifesto, leaving the brutal songs Diabolus Est Sanguis and Everlasting from their debut album Something Wicked Marches In for last.

I’ll end today’s review with the immense performance of the Ukrainian band Jinjer, a progressive metal quartet that combines elements of groove and hardcore in a very interesting proposal that, despite not being my favorite genre, always turns out to be very attractive within any lineup. A large part of Jinjer’s charm lies in the vocal registers of its vocalist and undisputed leader Tatiana Shmaylyuk, who not only combines aggressive vocals with clean vocals wonderfully, but is also able to get the audience up from the moment she steps on stage.

Jinjer is also made up of three great musicians such as guitarist Roman Ibramkhalilov, bassist Eugene Abdiukhanov and drummer Vlad Ulasevich, a formation that has been stable since 2016 and has released three intense albums such as King Of Everything (2016, Napalm Records), Macro (2019, Napalm Records) and Wallflowers (2021, Napalm Records), albums on which they based their entire setlist, completely leaving out their first two works. In fact, it was the successful King Of Everything from 2016 that became the absolute protagonist of the show thanks to songs such as Pisces or I Speak Astronomy. This was Jinjer’s third time on the Brutal Assault stage and it was clear that the band already had the festival audience under control.

The intrepid Tatiana kept running around here and there throughout the performance, encouraging the audience at all times and connecting with the people thanks to her overflowing charisma. Ibramkhalilov‘s guitar was in total synchrony with Abdiukhanov‘s bass and Ulasevich‘s drums who did a commendable job in the rhythm section resulting in a vibrant and colossal show on the Sea Shepherd stage.

Brutal Assault 2025: First batch of bands confirmed

With a hangover still in our bodies after the last edition of the Czech festival Brutal Assault 2024, the festival’s organisers are already preparing the next edition of the European extreme competition par excellence, having revealed some names that will be part of the 2025 line-up. Those who attended the festival were able to experience first-hand the bands that will be part of the upcoming line-up, as they were announced on-site by the organisers, highlighting the confirmation of Gojira after their spectacular performance at the Paris Olympic Games.

The rest of the bands confirmed so far are Dimmu Borgir, Ministry, August Burns Red, Angelmaker, Benighted, Between The Buried And Me, The Kovenant, Dope, Obituary, Pig Destroyer, Static X, Suffocation, Thrown and Unleashed. As usual at Brutal Assault, the number of bands confirmed so far once again shows the variety of subgenres within extreme metal that the organisers always handle in their line-ups, with a bit of everything for all tastes.

Brutal Assault 2025 will once again be held at the Josefov Fortress in Jaroměř from August 6th to August 9th, the first digital tickets have gone on sale at a price of €171 and at the time of writing this article, 68% of the first tickets at this price have already been sold. You can get your tickets at the official Brutal Assault store.