LINE-UP FOR NEW ENGLAND METAL & HARDCORE FESTIVAL ANNOUNCED

Well, the line-up for this year’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — one of the oldest and most revered extreme music fests in the U.S. — has been announced, and it’s… interesting. The fest returns to a three-day format after being only two days last year, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the initial day will be a Thursday, not a Friday. And as reader Brian Kessler pointed out to us via e-mail, there are two noteworthy aspects to the lineup:

• It seems like metal and hardcore have been further segregated on the bill — Thursday appears to be almost entirely dedicated to deathcore and crabcore bands, Friday seems to be entirely devoted to hardcore bands, and Saturday is dominated by metal bands. There are pros and cons to this approach — the pro being that if you’re only a fan of one particular style of extreme music, you can cherry pick which day you’re going to attend, and the con being that new fans are less likely to be exposed to bands with whom they were not already familiar.
• There seem to be fewer “big name” acts. Sure, Hatebreed and Biohazard are on there, but that’s still a far cry from years’ past. In fact, plenty of big name who have new albums scheduled to come out this year — like Amon Amarth, DevilDriver, Arch Enemy, In Flames, and Children of Bodom — aren’t playing the fest.

Please note that I’m not knocking the fest — in fact, I think Saturday, April 16 is full of killer bands — and I don’t think every fest needs to be headlined by a band of Megadeth’s stature. I just think this particular line-up is… interesting.

Anyway, here’s the full bill:

THURSDAY, APRIL 14

Attack Attack!, Vanna, MyChildren MyBride, Our Last Night, Stray From The Path, Arsonists Get All The Girls, Bullet For Pretty Boy, Lions Lions, Armor For The Broken, This Or The Apocalypse, I The Breather, Across The Sun, Too Late The Hero, Attila, Plee For Purging, Dr. Acula, The Crimson Armada, Legacy, Counterparts, and Legion.

FRIDAY, APRIL 15

Biohazard, Bury Your Dead, Terror, Cruel Hand, Your Demise, Thy Will Be Done, This Is Hell, The Carrier, Suffocate, Murder Death Kill, Terror, Stick To Your Guns, Trapped Under Ice, First Blood, Lionheart, Shai Hulud, Close Your Eyes, Legend, Monsters, The Great Commission, The Greenery, Hundreth, King Conquer, and Betrayal.

SATURDAY, APRIL 16

Hatebreed, Between The Buried And Me, Job For A Cowboy, The Ocean, Carnifax, Oceano, Born Of Osiris, Dying Fetus, Skeletonwitch, Lazarus A.D., Beneath The Massacre, Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza, 3 Inches Of Blood, Within The Ruins, Contortionist, Volumes, Molotov Solution, Nails, Hung, Sons Of Aurelius, A Life Once Lost, Confrontation, Last Chance To Reason, Revocation, Structures, Withered, and Wretched.

More bands will be added soon. You can get complete details on the fest here.

-AR