The Derby Alt Fest is a beast of a weekender, showcasing some amazing talent from across the ‘Alternative’ spectrum, organised by Unearthed Boss Liam Barlow and situated in ‘The Hairy Dog’, Derby’s fabulous bar and live music venue. The opening day of the festival is the Thursday night, and this year it was rammed with tons of the bands that we didn’t want to miss out on, so we dragged ourselves out on a school night to check it out….

we kicked of with Elyrean… first up a disclaimer, I was late so missed the lads set, but we asked Dan from Thrasherwolf to write the review for me so here it is…

Opening a festival is never easy, and at derby ALTFEST that doesnt change one bit. The venue is filling up well, the crowd waiting in anticipation as the grand stage at The Hairy Dog plays host to the first band of the entire 3 day fest.

Sporting battle jackets and sharp guitars Staffordshire based tech Thrashers Elyrean come out in confidence and with out mercy or warning begin to deliver a hectic and thorough set choc full of neck breaking riffs and pallet teasing melodies that  sent the crowd banging their heads. A definite positive half an hour was presented and happily devoured by the crowd who were hungry for more. 

Next to hit the stage were London Bruisers, Enquire Within’ who’s blend of aggressive modern metal, may not be straight up thrash by any means, but their somehow comforting and familiar approach, mixed with great songs and riffs, as well as with lots of encouragement from the vocalist made sure that the crowd continued to have a great time, keeping heads banging and horns up!

The wolf pack howled as the next band hit the stage, will all three arms of the Trifecta hitting the Alt Fest stage this weekend (Blacklist added as a late replacement to Inhuman Nature on Saturday) Thrasherwolf lead the charge, as always frontman Dan worked the crowd, and the band continue to grow in confidence, with improved stage pressence and charisma really starting to show now, the band played the favourites from We Are Revolution, including Lessons In Violence and single 1000 Eyes, as well as treated us to a new track ‘Age Of Fragility’ from their next album, which raises the bar once again for their songwriting skills.

Next band to smash onto the stage are Preston’s All Consumed, If you are a fan of Old School Death Metal then you can’t go far wrong with the band, these guys have been together for 10 years but their classic sound could of seen them destroying the circuit with bands like Benediction, Cancer and Cerebral Fix 30 years ago. I don’t listen to much Death Metal these days, but since seeing them pummeling the Alt Fest crowd with their full on assault, I’ve downloaded their albums and have been blasting in the car. The riffs were plentiful, the blast beats enormous and the vocals strip paint from the wall…. fucking have it!!

Plugging in next are our friends in Hellfekted, fresh off the back of their massively successful ‘Morning Mosh’ at Bloodstock the band take the stage with the confidence and swagger of bands many years their senior. This is basically a home town gig for Hellfekted, but that didn’t stop them bringing an all out assault of a set list, you know it’s going to go off when ‘Death Of Iron’ is the opener, the set is littered with bangers from their debut album, singles and a sneak at new tracks from their sophomore album that will be getting recorded later this year. The guys are tight, Liam has grown into his onstage frontman persona so well and his interaction with the crowd now feels so natural, Chris and Matt have the back end down so tight now that the whole set is so tight that Liam and Becci can weave the guitar sound around their little fingers and into your ears with ease, even Liam losing his wireless transmitter at the end of the set didn’t dampen another killer set from one of the UK’s rising stars in metal.

The final band of the night also performed at this years Bloodstock, Cage Fight are one of those bands that sit in the sweet spot between thrash, crossover and hardcore, at times feeling like thrash riffs are fighting for dominance, but then there’s bits that make me want to two step all over the dance floor, before some massive breakdown gets me karate chopped by one of the hardcore kids, this band has the potential to be a world beater, and if music fans don’t want to get their ears destroyed by the vocal talents of Rachel then they don’t know what they are missing. I can’t gush enough about how good this band is, their sound is tight, the songs are brutal and if those riffs don’t get you moshing…. do you even thrash!!

So that’s it, what a show, we had everything from modern metal, Thrash, from technical through to blackened, Death Metal in the finest Old School tradition and topped off with some genre bending Crossover goodness…. if you weren’t there, then you seriously missed out!

Massive congrats to Liam ‘Murph’ Barlow and the rest of the Unearthed Team, as well as the Hairy Dog for putting on such a great festival, and we hope the rest of the weekend was a massive success.

Photos all Courtesy of Harry @Unearthed Music