FESTIVAL PREVIEW: North of the Wall

March 8, 2017 James Weaver

Now in its fifth year, Scottish festival North Of The Wall is growing into one of the standout festivals in extreme metal. Year in, year out, the festival’s lineup boasts the best in the extreme metal underground and 2017’s edition of the festival is no different. With a staggering lineup covering predominately black metal with sprinklings of death, doom, noise and thrash, North Of The Wall has built itself as a must attend for anyone who divulges in the realms of extreme metal. Here, let Distorted Sound give you the lowdown on this year’s festival with our spotlight on some of the band’s appearing at the festival, including three special pre-shows, as we divulge into a festival that is putting Scotland on the map of metal!

Prior to the main event, the organisers of North Of The Wall aim to whip up anticipation through three pre-shows to the main festival to whet the appetites of the metal community. Firstly, on March 11th at NICE N SLEAZY, UK death metallers CRUCIAMENTUM and VACIVUS intend on decimating Glasgow weeks before the main event! With CRUCIAMENTUM still supporting 2015’s Charnel Passages and VACIVUS gearing up to release their latest EP, Nuclear Chaos, at the end of march – expect a pre-show packed with guttural blasts and crushing riffs!

Pre-show number two, set to take place at the Audio Glasgow on March 24th will showcase Swedish epic black metallers EREB ALTOR perform a special set. 70% of the band’s set will be comprised of their own material whilst the remaining 30% will consist of covers of the legendary BATHORY which promises to be a special performance indeed. The final pre-show before North Of The Wall Festival aims to end on a high with iconic Norwegian black metal band TAAKE performing just five days before the festival at the Ivory Blacks. With supporting performances from atmospheric black metallers FEN and UK progressive death/black metal mob DE PROFUNDIS, darkness will surely be cast over Glasgow days before the main event explodes into life!

Now, onto the main event. Every year since their inception North Of The Wall have constructed lineups that boasts the best extreme metal has to offer and 2017 arguably has one of their strongest lineups to date. For any festival to succeed in standing out and bringing in a packed crowd, festival exclusives are an absolute must and North Of The Wall have gone above and beyond to bring in some truly exciting bands in exclusive performances. Greek black metal outfit ACHERONTAS will cast an iconic live ritual, ESOTERIC‘s death driven doom sonic assault will shatter eardrums, SULPHUR AEON inspired Lovecraftean stories will cast darkness over Glasgow and German death metal warlords DROWNED will obliterate all with their enormous wall of sound. Serving as the headliner for the festival, Canada’s REVENGE are notorious in the extreme metal underground. The band’s blistering sonic assault that divulges into noise, black metal and war metal is a monstrous package and make no mistake, REVENGE will ensure that chaos engulfs Glasgow.

In fact, the majority of the lineup for this year’s North Of The Wall will serve as UK exclusives and even for some it will mark their first ever UK date. BATUSHKA are on the rise as one of the most exciting black metal bands and will make their first ever UK appearance on the back of their stunning debut, Litourgiya. Similarly fellow Polish countrymen MGŁA have exploded in the extreme metal world following the release of Exercises In Futility in 2015 and will surely perform a blistering set at North Of The Wall. Whilst it was disappoint that GRAVE MIASMA had to cancel their performance as a result of personal obligations, Icelandic black metal outfit NAÐRA will surely make for a must-watch event with their chilling rendition of Scandinavian black metal. And with a special set from CALL FROM THE GRAVE who perform a special set of BATHORY covers, consisting of tracks from the band’s first three albums, in tribute to Quorthon, the festival is clearly a hotbed for extreme metal.

No festival would be complete without the inclusion of some truly promising upcoming acts and North Of The Wall have that in abundance for this year’s festival! Manchester’s WODE exploded onto the black metal underground with last year’s self-titled debut and their budding reputation will only be enhanced at North Of The Wall, WEDERGANGER aim to maintain hype as a fresh band on the European black metal scene and LVTHN will perform a UK exclusive set on the back of their excellent debut full-length, Eradication of Nescience.

Whilst this is just a spotlight into what the festival has to offer (we can’t spoil all of the surprises!), this just showcases the quality across the festival’s lineup. With a wide roster of bands across the spectrum of extreme metal, North Of The Wall‘s fifth instalment is absolutely mouthwatering for any fan of extreme music.