Last weekend saw this year's installment of Bracara Extreme Fest take place in Braga, Portugal, featuring Decapitated, Napalm Death and Enslaved amongst many others. Terrorizer's José Carlos Santos took in the sights and sounds.

Day 1 - Friday, December 9th

This might come from a hopelessly biased local, but it's undeniable that for such a little out-of-the-way country, Portugal has been developing its fair share of kickass festivals. Of course there is the bastion of the extreme underground that is SWR, the 90s metal-focused Vagos Open Air, the recent Roadburn-ish Amplifest, and it's high time that the storm brewing for five years in the northern city of Braga got its due recognition. Based on two separate but non-overlapping stages, one called (-) and reserved for the slower doom and sludge bands and the other, naturally called (+), where death and grind acts encourage savage mosh pits and stage dives, it's a non-stop celebration of the diversity of the underground.

Due to the last-minute Altar Of Plagues cancellation, the marathon starts on stage (+) with Spaniards TROCOTOMBIX, who get things moving straight away with straightforward meaty grind, a great kick-starter for the evening ahead. The counterpoint comes right after with fellow countrymen AATHMA on the opposite stage, a doomy post-metal bunch who frequently let up the intensity of the roared, in-your-face moments to inject unexpected doses of Type O-like goth darkness, especially with the clean vocals. It's a weird mix, but one that works, so despite the slow and sombre nature of the opening band, everyone seems fired up for the next blast of brutality, courtesy of local crust-punks DESKARGA ETILIKA and their straightforward d-beat aggression. The first truly great moment of the day, however, comes from ZATOKREV.

pic: JOSÉ CARLOS SANTOS
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The Swiss four-piece give the crowd plenty of reasons to wonder why this band is so massively underrated, a situation hopefully about to end when their forthcoming record hits us in 2012. Their abrasive Neurosis-tinged sludge sweeps the room majestically, with dense atmosphere, a fiery performance and complex yet hard-hitting songs all balancing out for a remarkably intense gig that is very hard to follow. Which is why Portuguese goremongers HOLOCAUSTO CANIBAL don't quite have the same impact as we're all used to. Hair is windmilled about, pig-squeals and grinding musical monstrosities are thrown up with the typical abandon, but a combination of Zatokrev-hangover and lack of new material leaves them a notch shy of true greatness.

Quite a few more notches away from that aim are DAYLIGHT DIES, who seem more disconnected than even their despondent early Katatonia-isms would allow. To make it all worse, the sound is strangely uneven, making guitarist Charley Shackelford's guitar tone in particular sound like he just stepped in from another totally different show. It's up to NAPALM DEATH to make everything right in the world of extremity and, as customary, the boys deliver.

With Siege (as a homage to the recently deceased Kevin Mahoney) and Cryptic Slaughter covers spicing up the typically varied set, the legendary Brummies drive the crowd wild, and soon the room temperature rises, bodies start flying about and headbanging becomes compulsive, even during the unveiled new song that promises yet another landmark in Napalm Death's long career in 2012. The subsequent party still extended long into the night, with local music writers José Rodrigues and Ricardo Amorim offering a noteworthy DJ vs. DJ set - far from crowd-pleasing choices like Autopsy, Melvins or EyeHateGod refreshingly deviate from the usual tedious norm and keep a lot of drunken pundits up way past their bedtimes.