Gig Report: Bucharest Deathfest 2025

First day of spring came with a cloudy and gloomy weather, but it didn’t matter or stop me from attending a new edition of Bucharest Deathfest (the 2nd edition I attended tho). As usual, the brutal festival took place at Quantic Club, a nice venue for events.

First band that hit the stage, were Spineless Fuckers, man, I mean it seemed that they were not the 1st band of the evening, but the third/fourth one, because their energy and performance was a real madness, SF vocalist joined the crowd in the moshpit and everybody enjoyed it to the max. Next, Mincing Fury and Guttural Clamour of Queer Decay, like Spineless Fuckers, blasted the stage in a ridiculousy (positive) way… Dancing (yes, you can have the moves on grindcore), moshpit, gore, madness, and of course, when the guys said a few cursing words in Romanian, we all got amused, what else. The Romanian band Cadavrul presented as the third band of the fest’s bill, with a classic brutal death metal sound, quite a great performance from the Romanian as well, a warm-up for the next bands.

Skaphos couldn’t make it last year to BDF, so here they made it this year, band which I was actually looking forward to see the most. With adorned mic stands, Skaphos managed to make it a hell of a performance, with brutal riffs, and menacing rhythms, the French definitely created an astonishing atmosphere, and such bands are always a pleasure to see and enjoy while they’re on stage. Another band, which I was looking forward to catching up live, were De Profundis, which, as well as Skaphos, delivered a killer performance, I mention that De Profundis pleasantly surprised me with their presence on stage.

Four more bands ahead, the evening continued with Guineapig, an Italian 3-piece band, that hit the stage with a lot of confidence and energy, here I add Squash Bowels as well, same category, both blasted insanely, more, Squash Bowels surprised us with a Napalm Death song style. Last year, we saw Calin Paraschiv perform with Necrovile within the fest, this year, he made his appearance with his other band, Analepsy, an impressive performance, Calin really nails it and everybody can notice that, Necrovile or Analepsy, it cannot be a dissapointing set, it’s mind-blowing actually, if you ever have the chance to catch Analepsy on stage, go for it, you’re gonna like it. And last, Germany’s Fleshcrawl, and here without further ado, captured the stage in full force, really blasted with their aggressive, and heavy sound, a true German death metal elite.

I think this year’s edition of Bucharest Deathfest was a mini Obscene Extreme Fest, for real, and since I used a few times the word madness in the phrases, well, it was so, all bands’ performances were ace, and killer, moreover, Christophe Szpajdel aka ”The Lord of the Logos”was present once again to the festival. It wasn’t just a night out to a concert, it was also meeting familiar faces, having some drinks, selected merchandise, and enjoying the bands performing. What an evening, and all thanks to Axa Valaha’s Coro. ‘Till next time!