After an incredible first day at Maryland Deathfest 2024, I was beyond pumped for another day filled to the brim with death metal. The first show I saw was Aura Noir, a Norwegian black/thrash metal band formed back in 1993. The band members had so much passion and energy during their set, and the crowd was definitely feeling it. Even though it was early in the day, they still had people crowd-surfing for most of the set. The music itself had a lot of nice, heavy breakdowns and some solid shredding.

Siege Column was up next and they put on an amazing show. They are a New Jersey based death metal duo whose first demo was released in 2016. Their sound was unique, very thrashy, and easy to headbang to. The vocals were a lot easier to understand but still very much screaming death metal. The band was incredibly energetic and enthusiastic with many awesome breakdowns and some great shredding.

After Siege Column was Oppressor, a Chicago based death metal band which was formed back in 1991. They seemed like a young and enthusiastic band. Oppressor had a lot of heavy breakdowns with guttural vocals, the guitarist and bassist were really slamming on stage. And the frontman did a lot of interactive crowdwork! They were fast paced and grindy but still clearly audible and enjoyable. They mentioned on stage that this was their 25-year reunion, which was nice to be a part of.

Sissy Spacek was the last band of the night for me. They were incredibly fast and brutal, with very guttural vocals as well. It was a three-piece band, a drummer, guitarist, and vocalist, and everyone seemed to be perfectly executing their roles. The sound was off-tempo which made for a very interesting listen. Closer to the end of the set a man in a white T-shirt from the crowd got up on stage and grabbed the second microphone. At first, he started yelling obscenities into the mic, which kind of made sense due to the nature of the music festival. The other vocalist seemed to welcome the additional singer as if this was all part of their routine from the get-go. The man in the white t-shirt eventually started whistling into the mic as if he were an additional instrument. To this day I have no idea if he was part of the band or just an emboldened fan who wanted to join in.

Another amazing day in the books. I was looking forward to the remaining two days of death metal.