FESTIVAL PREVIEW: Complexity Festival 2018

With heavy music evolving and venturing into a plethora of different avenues, it’s fair to say that sub-genres now carry enough weight to be considered a fully fledged genre. Such a development has spawned legions of bands catering to the stylistic characteristics that now, catered festivals are now very much a reality. Dedicating to one specific branch of heavy music has proved to be successful for such festivals, just look at the success of UK Tech-Fest on our shores for example. On the mainland of our continent, Complexity Festival‘s dedication for the more expansive elements of heavy music and this year’s billing is no different. So, if you relish the more complex side of metal, then dive into our preview for this weekend’s festival!

With a bill that is jam-packed full of quality bands representing prog, tech, death, mathcore and everything inbetween, there is plenty of good stuff on offer at this weekend’s event. From headlining bands CARNIFEX and tech-metal icons SIKTH promising to deliver sets of absolute brutality to the hotly anticipated appearance from technical death metal visionaries THE FACELESS, just a cursory glance at Complexity Festival will be enough to whet your appetite.

But, just scratch beneath the surface and the sheer amount of talent on offer is, to put it simply, absolutely breathtaking. EMPLOYED TO SERVE arrive at Complexity Festival on the back off last year’s stunning The Warmth of a Dying Sun and will whip up a storm, AVERSIONS CROWN will pack an enormous punch and progressive rockers VOLA will aim to build on their bubbling momentum by providing what we expect to be a stunning show. That, and the mind-bending sonics from THREE TRAPPED TIGERS, the visceral slams from OCEANO or THE HIRSCH EFFEKT‘s rather unique soundscape or the blackened death metal savagery of KAOTEON, this year’s lineup is boasting bands of utter class.

That being said, Complexity Festival has one eye set on the future and this year’s billing boasts some truly exciting new blood. From the hotly tipped blackened hardcore noise of CABAL, the wizardry of technical metallers THE VOYNICH CODE, the European debut of dark psychedelic death metal JOHN FRUM which boasts ex-members of THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, THE FACELESS and John Zorn, or experimental Dutch youngsters IDEK, there is absolutely plenty of exciting new talent for you to discover at this year’s festival.

This festival boasts some truly gut-busting names on this year’s billing across a variety of varying styles and sounds and there’s still a wealth of talent beyond the bands we’ve featured. Even catering for the unusual with the likes of electronic jazz-dub-post rockers KNALPOT or avant-garde rockers HELIUM HORSE FLY, Complexity Festival more than lives up to their name-sake by boasting bands that offer something that little bit different in their sound. So, get stuck into this year’s lineup and grab a ticket on the link below!

Complexity Fest 2018 takes place at Patronaat, Haarlem, Netherlands on Friday 23 and Saturday 24 February, 2018. Tickets are available now and can be purchased here.

For more information on the festival like their official page on Facebook.