Countdown to MDF X: (34) Haemorrhage

Any fears you may have ever had about going to the doctor or being admitted to the hospital should be reinforced once you hear (or see) Haemorrhage, a 5-piece goregrind act from Spain. With song titles like "Splatter Nurse," "Open Heart Butchery" and "Doctors of Malpractice," you would think that every single band member had suffered some kind of trauma at the hands of a physician.

Founded in 1990 under the name Devourment, the group changed their name to Haemorrhage in 1992. Members include Luisma - Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals,  Ramón Checa - Bass, Fernando Errazquin "Lugubrious" - Vocals, Ana Belen de López - Rhythm Guitar and Daniel Rojas López - Drums. Luisma illustrates the comic art album covers.

Live performances are filled with blood and guts and the occasional severed limb. Band members dress in hospital garb and most of them are also drenched, or at least splattered, with blood. Musically, they play fast, punkish death metal featuring guttural vocals and catchy (or should I say "infectious") verses and choruses administered with a good dose of humor.

Honestly, someone should put this band in a of low-budget splatter film. I would watch that. I think a lot of people would.

Haemorrhage plays Saturday afternoon, May 26, at the 2012 Maryland Deathfest. It should be a scream-dream come true.

Countdown to MDF X: (46) Ghoul

Like a horror comic book coming to life, Ghoul is dead seriously the funniest band set to perform on Friday night at the Maryland Deathfest. Their performance is just as much about the songs as it is about the show. Appropriately this group is just coming off of a tour of smaller venues with felllow goremongers Gwar. Ghoul will be just as fun, but probably not quite as messy.

Hailing from the land of Creepsylvania (or Oakland, California), Ghoul doesn't have members so much as it has characters.  The musicians performing as those characters have also played, without costuming of course, in other notable metal  bands. Currently those characters include vocalist and bassist Cremator (Ross Sewage, who has appeared in bands like Exhumed and Wolves in the Throne Room), vocalist and guitarist Digestor (Sean McGrath from Engorged, Impaled and others), guitarist Dissector (Dan Randall, from Born Dead, Desolation), and drummer Fermentor (Dino Sommese, who has been in Dystopia, Lachyrmose and others).

In addition to the musicians, this group travels with a host of other characters who may show up to torment to audience. Ghoul's arch-enemy is Kill-bot, a 10-foot tall bloody metal monstrosity with infrared eyes. The homicidal werepig Mutant Mutilator may be roaming the crowd on the hunt for nu-metal and post- metal posers who may be lurking among their fans, which they call numbskulls. The Curio Shoppe Owner will be on hand to provide the coffins, or maybe he's just the merch guy.

Aside from the special effects and the showmanship, Ghoul offers head-bang-inducing, honest-to-goodness traditional thrash metal with a good bit of fantasy, comic book storyline and tongue-in-cheek humor thrown in. You will have a smile on your face, right before they kill you.

Enjoy this video, made in part by Agalloch drummer Asesop Dekker.

And the story of Kill-bot....

Countdown to MDF X: (48) Macabre

If you like true crime, serial killers and Grimm's fairy tales AND you also love metal, then Macabre is your band.

Hailing from Chicago, this clever trio includes Corporate Death (Lance Lencioni) on guitars, vocals, Nefarious (Charles Lescewicz) on bass guitar, vocals, and Dennis the Menace (Dennis Ritchie) on drums. They have been putting out recordings since 1987.

Some gore metal bands like to use music styles like grindcore to frame their horrific lyrical content. Macabre does this too, but they are also just as likely to use more minstrel-like tunes with some clean singing and more traditional song structures. Their lyrics are generally based on true events and historical facts. Macabre's most recent album, Grim Scary Tales, recounts murderous exploits through the centuries beginning with the Emperor Nero, Vlad the Impaler (Dracula), Hungarian serial killer Elizabeth Bathory, New Englander accused of killing her parents Lizzie Borden, French serial killer Joseph Vacher (aka the Killer of Little Shepherds) and German serial killer Carl Großmann, among others.

Macabre do not limit themselves to metal but freely blend folk, punk, thrash, acoustic and just about whatever styles they want as they see fit. The musical talent is evident throughout and the vocals are strong and harmonious. They even have an entire collection of campfire songs that should be in every astute child's record collection. Macabre Minstrels: Morbid Campfire Songs, released in 2002, includes their charming version of that well known children's song that all we had to sing in elementary school, "The Cat Came Back," as well as many other classics such as "Tom Dooley" and a bluegrass song about the Ed Gein family. Seriously, I am not making this up. Think of Burl Ives with a really sick, sick sense of humor.

Friday afternoon at the Maryland Deathfest with Macabre should be very interesting indeed. I'm going to prepare for a sing-a-long.

Countdown to MDF X: (59) Die Pigeon Die

Die Pigeon Die will be travelling all the way from Melbourne, Victoria in Australia to play on Thursday at MDF X.  This extremely brutal band focuses on themes of gore, violence and perversion --but with some humor thrown in. Song titles include enticing gems such as "Massive Warts in Pregnancy," Ripped from V to A," and "Spastic Colon." Some music can be found on YouTube. More recent stuff is on SoundCloud.

The only band members listed on their Facebook page are Leo Pigeon (bass and vocals) and Jack Pigeon (drums, guitars and "bong" vocals), however other members are shown performing in videos.  Drums by Christoph is listed on SoundCloud.

There is a sample of a song entitled "Tricked by a  Tranny" on Soundcloud, reportedly from a upcoming full-lengh CD. Many of the songs include samples from horror movies.

If you are into gore and bong water, Die Pigeon Die might be for you.