This won’t be your standard festival report with cute photos and a careful rundown of who played what. Just a few impressions from what was probably the most chaotic, oddly curated, poorly organized, yet atmospherically unique U.S. metal festival — Metal Threat. It was something. Probably won’t be again. (And even if it is — with all due respect to black metal and the underground — I’m not going back.)
Honestly, this Chicago event was more of an excuse to meet up, party, and raise hell with metalhead friends from all over the country. And… well, the mission was accomplished in full, even overachieved in some areas. Some folks went so hard they didn’t remember a single band that actually played.
Still, there were bands — truly rare to see on American soil — whose sets I really wanted to catch… and most of them didn’t make it.
Here’s how the plan looked when we bought tickets (we had Thursday–Friday), each day priced at a cool $100. And here’s how it all actually turned out.
So yeah, you get it, right? The crafty organizer, Paul Dunski, made sure the fine print said no refunds unless the entire event was canceled — like last year, when he didn’t actually cancel it but “postponed” it. Yes, folks, they know how to screw you over properly in America, too!
Some people even flew in from Europe or Latin America, and plenty came from faraway states like California and Texas. But as the lineup kept falling apart through September, many just decided not to bother.
Let’s take a look at what actually went down on days three and four.
Here’s what the final schedule looked like (you’ll notice some bands crossed out in earlier drafts actually ended up playing — just on different days. Only those with full festival passes were lucky enough to catch that).
Once it became clear that things were falling apart, the organizer dropped ticket prices by 50%, which — to be fair — matched the event’s real value. But the poor idiots who paid full price? They got what they got. Compensation options included: whining on the internet, eating dirt, or drowning your sorrows in $8 beers sold by Mexican ladies behind the bar, half of whom didn’t speak English.
There were cutbacks everywhere. Lighting. Ventilation (early October was freakishly hot for Chicago, and the venue air was unbreathable — some ceiling fans were literally turned off to “save energy”). Stage decor? A joke. Both stages had cheap, sad little “Metal Threat” banners, and only a few bands brought their own backdrops. With the chaotic lineup and no clear timings, half the time you couldn’t even tell who was onstage.
So, I’ll put it this way: if you lived nearby, didn’t buy tickets in advance, and weren’t fooled by the first flashy lineup — this was actually a very interesting underground fest. No irony. Even with all the flaws. Under other circumstances? Hmm… let’s just say it’s a good life lesson: don’t trust, don’t hope, don’t buy into hype.
What happened to the originally announced lineup?
Some bands dropped for natural reasons (ACHERON, for instance — Vincent Crowley ended up in the hospital). PIG’S BLOOD reportedly bailed after GRAVELAND was announced (as if there weren’t plenty of other Nazi-adjacent bands on the bill). Some American acts didn’t make it for unknown reasons. The Greeks, ΑΧΕΡΟΝΤΑΣ, couldn’t fly due to a transport strike. Other Europeans didn’t get their visas — or got them too late, like WHOREDOM RIFE.
After talking about all this on Facebook I got some insider info in DMs. Long story short: under the Trump administration, entry requirements got much stricter, with more paperwork, longer timelines, and more reasons for rejection. What used to take 4 months now takes 8 or more. There are even purely technical grounds for denial: the organizer can’t announce a show if the band doesn’t yet have visas or plane tickets. SATANIC WARMASTER themselves wrote on FB that their flights weren’t even booked.
Some insiders said Paul (like other underground promoters) tried to bring a few bands in without proper visas — as tourists. But even then, he apparently didn’t handle basic logistics like buying plane tickets. Whether that’s true or not, we’ll see next year with major festivals like Maryland Deathfest or the 70000 Tons of Metal cruise — both with European bands on the bill.
Anyway, enough whining.
Once we accepted all the chaos — I’ll say this: it was a one-of-a-kind event.
The crowd was something else: crazed black metallers from all over the country, decked out in shirts of the most obscure, unreadable underground bands ever; women in leather and fishnets; scholars of the dark arts instantly identifying that, yes, that’s EGGS OF GOMORRH on stage — and now it’s DEMONCY.
Probably a third of the crowd was Latin American; zero Black people. Hardly any troublemakers (except our crew, of course) — mostly a serious, focused audience, barely any moshing or dancing. Surprisingly few skinheads — I was expecting a Nazi parade with so many right-wing bands, but nope. The bald tattooed guys stayed mostly on stage. No provocations, no chants. A few fans threw up Roman salutes during GRAVELAND’s set, but it seemed more like isolated enthusiasm than an organized thing. People were genuinely there for the music. No anti-fascist protests either — at least not physically. Antifa isn’t exactly trendy in the States these days.
(For the record: I’m not a fan of either right-wing or left-wing ideology — but I do think musicians should be free to sing about whatever they want, without censorship. And anyone who hates it is free not to listen.)
Highlights of the two days:
The jaw-breaking, skull-crushing, precision-blasting Poles — INFERNAL WAR — who played so tight and fast it felt like nearby cars were losing their wheels. These tough, muscled guys used to be called INFERNAL SS; all three albums came after the rename, the latest a decade ago.
INQUISITION! One of my favorite black metal bands, period. The best riffs and atmosphere in U.S. black metal — one of the main reasons I even came. And it was worth it. Somehow, two guys on stage were enough to summon all of Dagon’s eerie magic through the speakers. Hypnotic, intense, enchanting. Absolutely stunning set.
DIOCLETIAN. Savage, dense, crushing death/black from New Zealand — they played two different sets over two days. Awesome, if a bit samey.
GRAVELAND. Their name was kept secret until the last minute — “Polish black metal gods,” the poster said — so people were guessing. GRAVELAND was a surprise, and an interesting, unusual headliner for the U.S.
I’ve never been a huge fan of their studio sound, but live? It suddenly became rich, layered, colorful — those grand, pagan atmospheres wrapped beautifully around the blackened fury. Rob Darken twisted, gestured, and conducted the audience like an occult maestro, his body tracing those unmistakable GRAVELAND melodies. It worked. Really well.
Also fascinating was watching the American right-wing contingent orbiting GRAND BELIAL’S KEY, ARGHOSLENT, and CRUCIFIER — the same faces bouncing between stages, rocking RAC shirts, and peddling their misanthropic, anti-Christian lyrics. I missed GBK’s headlining set because our buddy stagedived during VOLAHN, landed headfirst, and was carried out to the hospital. After that kind of drama, music took a back seat. Though musically, GBK are quite interesting, I’ll admit.
ARGHOSLENT sounded solid too — melodic death metal at its core, with a cocktail of influences — and lyrics so outrageously offensive by today’s standards they’d get you canceled in a heartbeat: cheerful songs about raping slaves and wiping out natives.
Heard the Maryland guys from IMPERIAL CRYSTALLINE ENTOMBMENT put on a killer show, but I didn’t make it early enough. Maybe next time. For now, the dose of black metal I got in Chicago was more than enough (though it still hurts that SATANIC WARMASTER, WHOREDOM RIFE, SARGEIST, and HORNA didn’t make it).
You can find more videos on our channel — sorry, no photos. It was way too dark inside (and for some — in their eyes too, ha).
