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 2 - Saturday, December 10th

The rain pours down relentlessly during the entire weekend in Braga, but that just makes the indoors venue seem more welcoming and sheltered. So it was to an already packed (-) stage that Madrid's ADRIFT, who share a member with previous day performers Aathma, play a lengthy, monolithic gig (appropriate, since their last record was called 'Monolito'), their pachidermic grooves somewhere between Isis and Kyuss and always dripping with angst.

The pick-me-up comes in the form of ARCHSPIRE, a gang of happy-looking Canadians who might have been widely unknown to most present before this performance, but surely no longer. With a technical proficiency bordering on OMFG levels, they still achieve what lacks in a lot of other bands like this: the feat of actually writing songs.  What's more, they noticeably enjoy what they do, so smiles are abundant even if face-peeling technical death metal about alien monoliths and planets being devoured is going on.

(click for full size image)

PROCESS OF GUILT
pic: José Carlos Santos

Amazingly, the degree of savagery is raised one step further right after on the infamously doomy (-) stage, as Portugal's very own PROCESS OF GUILT make abundantly clear why they are arguably the most exciting band in the country right now. Unleashing two new cuts from the forthcoming 'FÆMIN', it's obvious this new record will be yet another stylistical leap, as the ever-present Godflesh shadow is mangled into something darker and more menacing by Hugo Santos' tortured vocals and Nuno David's shadowy leads in particular.

Time for a prolonged breather after this string of awesome bands, as neither CYANIDE SERENITY's modern and super technical death metal or MAR DE GRISES' embarrassingly uneventful show with a replacement vocalist manage to encite anything other than a crescent will to leave the room. FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE might not be very dynamic, but the constant pounding of their faultless brutal death metal eventually takes hold of your brain, and it has to be said they look really cool in their new zombie-in-a-suit stage costumes.

All fun and games stop when SKEPTICISM take to the stage, however. The solemnity of the moment is instantly understood by all, and so the silhouettes of the four Finnish musicians, seemingly transported directly from the 18th century, against a wall of smoke and dim light, command a frightening level of respect and attention as soon as the funeral dirges drop down like a truckload of caskets on the hushed audience. By the time the 12 minutes of 'The Everdarkgreen', closer for this show culled from 1995's legendary 'Stormcrowfleet', draw to a close, it's as if all hope and joy has been sucked out of our souls, never to return again.

SKEPTICISM
pic: José Carlos Santos

It's unthinkable to withstand more than a few songs from ABORTED's new deathcore-ish direction after this mind-shattering experience, but we do, and long for ENSLAVED to somehow make everything right again like the previous day's illustrious headliners did. They do, in a way - it's impossible to not feel something when titans like 'Fusion Of Sense And Earth' or 'Ruun', or even the 'Immigrant Song' cover version, are performed with the critical-mass power Enslaved command on stage these days. However, that unnerving feeling that you get from some bands who either get past a certain age or a certain threshold of popularity, that every little thing they're doing on stage is mechanic and rehearsed, prevents the show from being the experience it might have been.

It's up to DECAPITATED to wrap it all up, and the irritating posture of vocalist Rafal Piotrowski aside, it's with a respectable capacity of raising hell that the Polish band close Bracara 2011, 'Spheres Of Madness' an appropriate send-off for two amazing days of extremity.