Live Review: UK Slam Fest 2025 - Friday
10th October 2025
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Rich Price
The Manchester Bee has its roots in the Industrial Revolution, when the city was describes as a “hive of industry”, and such an accusation can be levelled at the town this week, if the industry in question is the music one. Monday played host to an amazing Parkway Drive show, Blood Incantation shook the foundations of the Albert Hall on Wednesday, there was a choice between Paradise Lost and Decapitated last night; while tonight, Friday, Testament, Obituary and Destruction are up in the Academy, and it’s the opening night of UK Slam Fest’s tenth anniversary.
Now, as much as I loves me some Obituary, it’s destination Bread Shed for myself and intrepid photographer Rich – who’s known to stick his camera into places even angels fear to tread - as we endeavour to bring you the full fifteen-band coverage of the weekend’s most Slamming event.
Nothing if not punctual, opening band, Eproctophilic Necrophile, hit the stage dead-on half-past-six with a youthful zeal and a wall of noise; at times the band are lost within the thick smoke of the stage effects. The band appear to be having a blast, ripping through Fecal Mishap, a song about shitting yourself in public, Crocadildo, complete with a couple of inflatables who spend the rest of the night in the pit, and a politically ambivalent Cutting Up Tories and Eating their Skin. Among the raging there’s plenty of grooves and swing, even a little umpah to add some interest. One Night with Betty Swollocks leans into a little punk and the cover of Paranoid is decently competent.
Bolivian four-piece Worship the Pestilence make their UK debut at Slam Fest with an exclusive show of sheer brutality. Having been smashing it since 2008 it’s a real coup for the team to finally get the band to these shores. As though chomping at the bit to get going, WtP is out of the blocks like a thoroughbred: technical breakdowns sit alongside filthy riffs and some of the most blasphemous doomy tempos you’re likely to hear this side of the equator. Juan Rueda’s vocals are genuinely unsettling at times, OG guitarist Jorge Velarde keeps it vile and punishing, generating the festival’s first pits along the way.
Another UK debut at Slam Fest comes from Austrian hardstyle maniacs Seii Taishogun’s insane cyber-grind. Men in colourful onesies, playing heavy house beats alongside filthy riffs, is the order of the evening. Full of grunts and squeals and a seizure-inducing light show, it certainly makes you wonder whether being E’d up would help. Those crocs are still going strong as the front of the stage becomes a rave, with people partying like it’s the apocalypse. There’s a hint of Prodigy’s Out of Space reggae vibes, before those blasts return. Euro dance beats, heavy house and slamming riffs don’t – on paper at least – make good bedfellows, but in the right hands, magic can happen. Though the attempted singalong of Brown Girl in the Ring may have been a stretch too far.
It's a little more straightforward for Glasgow’s Scordatura who’re promising a Led into Oblivion set for tonight’s special guest slot. Theirs is a more direct approach to the Death Metal genre, full of biting riffs and heavy breakdowns. With a new record on the horizon, the band take the opportunity to road test some material, calling for – and getting - circle pits along with the brutally bludgeoning drums and feral guitar. The combination of old school death metal and slamming riffs is manna to the front of the crowd, who oblige every grooving section with perpetual motion. There’s are enough miles in Scordatura’s collected legs to know how to blow a crowd away and they do their damnest to steal the show from right beneath the headliner’s noses. Nearly do too.
But when that headliner is New York’s Malignancy, playing an exclusive set, and who have decades beneath their belts and thousands of miles in their shoes, it’s a tall order for anyone to meet. Vocalist Danny Nelson and guitarist Ron Kachnic have been keeping the brutal death metal torch burning through thick and thin after forming in the less-than-welcoming year of 1992, when those early flag-bearers where having large cheques waved under their noses from the big companies, and grunge was dominating the air waves. Yet through it all the band has kept going, up to and including the …Discontinued album released just last year.
Danny chats with the front of the crowd, bemoaning the inability to smoke in venues and offering an interesting take on intrauterine cannibalism, as a way of introducing the title-track of the band’s 1999 debut album. Existential Dread comes from the latest release and proves that this band has the same disdain for life it had back when they were angry young men. That said, Danny is the most affable of hosts and an all-round nice guy to spend the evening with.
No heirs or graces, Malignancy is set to destroy tonight and through rampaging percussion and sawing guitars they complete their programming with aplomb, making the Bread Shed the only place to be in town tonight for truly confrontational music.
Photo Credits: Rich Price Photography
