The title of today’s newsletter is both a reference to the Kublai Khan TX album and an apt description of the festival life. Today, we bring you happiness with four names – the aforementioned Kublai Khan TX, as well as Scour, Acid King, and Winterfylleth.
Scour
At the beginning of the 90s, when the world was burning with the fire that had spread from Norway, the vocalist of Pantera shocked everyone when he appeared wearing black metal t-shirts out in public. Back then, it felt like Phil Anselmo belongs to another world, that this was not his revolution, but we were yet to fully grasp the depth of his engagement with the extreme underground, both as a fan and – as we were soon to find out – as an artist. Scour is not the first black metal band with Phil at the mic, but it is the one in which he has shown the full range of his hellish talent. He’s joined by many a highly ranked member of the American extreme, musicians who have tenured with Cattle Decapitation, Misery Index, and Agoraphobic Nosebleed, to name a few, so there’s really no surprise that they’ve come to make music that leaves the bitter aftertaste of death/grind and the blood spat out from taking a jaw-breaking hit.
Kublai Khan TX
Kublai Khan, the Mongol one, was the most powerful ruler of the Middle Ages. Kublai Khan, the Texan one, is one of the most important players on the American metalcore scene – or more specifically, its radical subsect. There’s no dissolving the socially engaged message in little too pretty melodies – here you have the machinery of the old thrash metal, the unyielding of hardcore, the brutality and the heaviness. Even with just their debut album, Balancing Survival and Happiness (2014), Kublai Khan TX were conquering the big stages. Now with each new record (the latest being their fifth album, Exhibition of Prowess, released in 2024) and each sold-out tour, they’ve only bolstered their standing.
Acid King
They’ve taken their name from the pseudonym of Ricky Kasso, an American teenager, with a predilection for drugs and metal, who murdered his friend, allegedly, on the behest of the devil himself. The tragic case of Kasso fuelled the fire of the Satanic panic that engulfed America in the mid-80s. However, more importantly for our current point of interest, it inspired Lori S., a Californian guitarist and vocalist, to create the stoner/doom monster that has been bathing in the waters of tarry riffs, psychedelic trips and occult mysteries since 1993, daring us to swim with them. In Gdańsk, they’ll play a set composed of songs from their cult 1999 album, Busse Woods.
Winterfylleth
The winter is coming. Winterfylleth hail from Manchester, a city not known for its heavy music, but their music claims pedigree somewhere further north, drawing on the Scandinavian vision of the black art. They combine this corrupt formula with their own artistic leanings, as well as the historical and spiritual heritage of the Old England. The tumult of bloody battles, the hale of the northern wind and the hushed exhale of mist-covered marshes all echo in their music, though what you hear first and foremost is that Winterfylleth know how to play black metal of the highest order.