Access: Rock’s own Dave and Sajko were called to an enormously important mission and jumped on a plane bound for northern Germany. It had come to our attention that the little village of Wacken was hosting a so called Metal Battle, and that we weren’t invited as judges. That of course we found outrageous, and so we went to save the whole thing with our glorious presence, and to throw our judgement on the participating bands from 29 nations.
Backdawn – France – Thrash metal – facebook.com/backdawn
Power: 3
Originality: 2
Skill: 3
Deliverance: 4
Eye-catching: They managed to gather a big and devoted audience regardless of the early stage time.
Will it sell? No.
Timewaves – Norway – Death metal – facebook.com/timewaves
Power: 4
Originality: 3
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 4
Eye-catching: The drummer owned the show while behaving like Animal of the Muppet Show on crack. In a good way of course.
Will it sell? If they adopt a three-word-bandname.
Plague Throat – India – Death metal – facebook.com/plaguethroat
Power: 3
Originality: 3
Skill: 2
Deliverance: 1
Eye-catching: It seemed like something went wrong from the beginning and they weren’t able to catch up.
Will it sell? No.
Dirty Shirt – Romania – Crossover Balkan metal – facebook.com/dirtyshirt
Power: 3
Originality: 1
Skill: 3
Deliverance: 2
Eye-catching: Ripping off System Of A Down, this band took the ’circus’ in Bullhead City Circus too literally.
Will it sell? Yes, if people are drunk.
Crescent – Egypt – Black/death metal – facebook.com/crescent
Power: 4
Originality: 3
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 3
Eye-catching: Crescent wove Egyptian influenced melodies into the heavy sound and left us wanting more.
Will it sell? Yes.
Mutank – Canada – Thrash metal – facebook.com/bonebrainsnotdemolishers
Power: 3
Originality: 3
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 4
Eye-catching: The bassist handled both vocals and instrument in an outstanding manner and became the absolute center of attention.
Will it sell? With help from the right people concerning image (and how to properly name a Facebook page) they just might make it.
Battalion – Switzerland – Heavy metal – facebook.com/battalion
Power: 2
Originality: 0
Skill: 3
Deliverance: 2
Eye-catching: Heavily Slayer-influenced (ripped off!) metal is absolutely NOT a useful weapon for a battalion in this battle.
Will it sell? No.
Crying Steel – Italy – Heavy metal – facebook.com/cryingsteel
Power: 3
Originality: 0
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 4
Eye-catching: Both of us enjoy some Iron Maiden and Accept. But we don’t steal their music.
Will it sell? No.
Roadwolf – Austria – Heavy metal – facebook.com/roadwolf
Power: 2
Originality: 2
Skill: 3
Deliverance: 3
Eye-catching: Were they sure they were going to win – or did they not want to win?
Will it sell? No.
Anstratus – Slovakia – Thrash metal – facebook.com/anstratus
Power: 5
Originality: 4
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 5
Eye-catching: That four young, pretty boys have the power to pull off a convincing performance in this genre is nothing but extremely impressive.
Will it sell? Yes.
Kin Beneath Chorus – Greece – Modern death metal – facebook.com/kinbeneathchorus
Power: 3
Originality: 3
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 4
Eye-catching: The singer’s tendency to jump around everywhere on stage is unfortunately making the rest of the band rather unnoticeable.
Will it sell? Mnja.
Magor – Israel – Melodic black metal – facebook.com/magor
Power: 4
Originality: 3
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 5
Eye-catching: Did they even notice the annoying glitch in the sound during their show? They sure as hell didn’t let it affect their performance.
Will it sell? Yes.
Killface – Ireland – Death/thrash metal – facebook.com/killface
Power: 3
Originality: 2
Skill: 3
Deliverance: 3
Eye-catching: All the mobility of the band was obviously given to the singer.
Will it sell? No.
Purest Of Pain – Netherlands – Death metal – facebook.com/purestofpain
Power: 2
Originality: 3
Skill: 3
Deliverance: 3
Eye-catching: One of few competing bands that actually had fun on stage.
Will it sell? No.
Blind Channel – Finland – Numetal – facebook.com/blindchannel
Power: 1
Originality: 4
Skill: 2
Deliverance: 2
Eye-catching: The high score in originality is thanks to the band’s unique mix of 90s eurodisco and numetal.
Will it sell? Yes. In Finland.
Red Helen – South Africa – Progressive metalcore – facebook.com/redhelen
Due to lack of information regarding a change in the schedule we were unfortunately not able to cover this band.
Dismorial – Caucasian Republics – Progressive/melodic/death metal – facebook.com/dismorial
Power: 3
Originality: 4
Skill: 3
Deliverance: 3
Eye-catching: The band did a good job in waking the Wacken inhabitants from their drunken sleep on the second day of competition.
Will it sell? No.
Trouble Agency – Belgium – Thrash metal – facebook.com/troubleagency
Power: 3
Originality: 2
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 2
Eye-catching: The singer chose to show off his vocal capacities in the most boring way.
Will it sell? No.
Convivium – Sweden – Melodic death metal – facebook.com/convivium
Power: 3
Originality: 2
Skill: 3
Deliverance: 3
Eye-catching: Being from Sweden ourselves, we are spoiled with this musical style. Convivium did not manage to stand out from the crowd.
Will it sell? No. See ”eye-catching”.
Agni Kai – Former Yugoslavic Republic of Macedonia – Metal – facebook.com/agnikai
Power: 4
Originality: 5
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 3
Eye-catching: Being possessed with an extraordinary voice and the devil, this singer owned the stage.
Will it sell? Yes, this is interesting.
Room Of The Mad Robots – Hungary – Psychedelic metal – facebook.com/roomofthemadrobots
Power: 4
Originality: 5
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 5
Eye-catching: This is the first (and only) completely crazy mixture of different musical styles that actually works in this competition – ranging from jazzy vibes to grunge-inspired vocals and complex progressive rhythms without a doubt.
Will it sell? Yes.
Hellhound – Japan – Heavy metal – facebook.com/hellhound
Power: METAL!
Originality: 0
Skill: 3
Deliverance: 5
Eye-catching: Like an Asian version of Steel Panther – without the sex. Extra points for writing a song especially for Access: Rock’s writer Sajko: Psycho Metal.
Will it sell? Well, Steel Panther does…
Revolution Within – Portugal – Metal/Thrash/Core – facebook.com/revolutionwithin
Power: 2
Originality: 2
Skill: 3
Deliverance: 3
Eye-catching: They kept the revolution within.
Will it sell? No.
Evocation – China – Black/death metal – facebook.com/evocation
Power: 5
Originality: 5
Skill: 5
Deliverance: 5
Eye-catching: When you manage to do a yellow show the darkest of black and deadlier than death, there is no question that this band is the best in this competition – possibly even at the whole festival.
Will it sell? We will buy everything. Give us free merch and sex!
Juodvarnis – Lithuania – Pagan heavy metal – facebook.com/juodvarnis
Power: 4
Originality: 5
Skill: 5
Deliverance: 5
Eye-catching: Beautifully melancholic and brutal all at once.
Will it sell? Yes.
Cosmogon – Luxembourg – Doom/stoner/death metal – facebook.com/cosmogon
Power: 3
Originality: 2
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 3
Eye-catching:
Will it sell? No.
Earth Divide – Faroe Islands – Progressive metal – facebook.com/earthdivide
Power: 2
Originality: 3
Skill: 3
Deliverance: 2
Eye-catching: The singer was the only one trying to deliver visually, but couldn’t really save the performance from being boring.
Will it sell? No.
In Mute – Spain – Melodic death metal – facebook.com/inmute
Power: 5
Originality: 3
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 5
Eye-catching: Giving up on trying to put this politically correct, the amazing singer fronting this band is the reason they drew the biggest audience of the whole battle.
Will it sell? Yes.
Huldre – Denmark – Folk metal – facebook.com/huldre
Power: 3
Originality: 3
Skill: 4
Deliverance: 3
Eye-catching: The biggest and most pleasing surprise of this show was that the band didn’t have a male growler in the setting.
Will it sell? No.
Access: Metal Battle Top 5
1. Evocation (China)
2. Juodvarnis (Lithuania)
3. Anstratus (Slovakia)
4. Room Of The Mad Robots (Hungary)
5. In Mute (Spain)
More pictures will be published soon.
Writers: Emma ”Sajko” Persson and Dave Bertram
Photographer: Dave Bertram