The Montreal Gazette has issued a report on Heavy MTL 2010, held this past weekend (July 24th/25th) at Parc Jean-Drapeau in Montreal, Quebec. An excerpt is available below:

If the first day of Heavy MTL's weekend-long celebration of distorted guitars and pentagram tattoos proved that metal's old guard is still kicking, Sunday night's lineup showed that the genre is also feeding off the fresh blood of a new generation. It's tempting to dismiss the past decade's influx of young fans as the transformation of an underground genre into a Nick at Nite marketing campaign. But it's important to note that, without constant evolution, heavy metal would be stuck somewhere between bloated arena rock and affected occult mincings.

For the most part, the evolution on display at Jean Drapeau Park took the form of metalcore, which sounds like what would happen if high school jocks Googled the band names on the T-shirts of bullied black-clad loners.

Of the 20 bands performing, at least a half-dozen played various the hybrid of extreme metal and hardcore to a crowd that swelled to around 21,000 by day's end.

Montreal's soon-to-be-disbanded DESPISED ICON were the best of that coalition. Strong death metal influences, including down-tuned chugging and a kick-drum cyclone, gave the band the pounding, squealing fury of a war pig feasting on a hardcore band's carcass.

Massachusetts' SHADOWS FALL provided a melodic metalcore sound when clean vocals rose above energetic riffs. CHIMAIRA played a crushing set of metalcore-tinged groove metal infused with electronics. And HATEBREED's bellowed anthems of perseverance, strength, and triumph were part motivational speech, part UFC pre-show trash talk.

Still, there were welcome anomalies. If early NINE INCH NAILS had played actual guitar riffs instead of pitch-tuned static fuzz, they might have sounded like Quebec's Deadly Apples, who gave a sick twist to catchy songs.

Other locals also impressed. While Montreal's LES EKORCHES formed recently, they're composed of metal veterans, featuring members of VOIVOD, B.A.R.F., and GHOULUNATICS. Their unique sound, falling somewhere between thrash and the raspy assault of crust punk, is mutated by a strange bowed instrument that roughly imitates the rupturing of a gangrenous bass amp.

And BENEATH THE MASSACRE's surgically precise technical death metal harkened back to bands of the early '90s, albeit replacing CANNIBAL CORPSE's rusted meathooks with a mouthful of scalpels.

Go to this location for the complete article.

BraveWords.com was at heavy MTL 2010 covering the event - check out photos from day one including HALFORD, SLAYER, MEGADETH, ALICE COOPER, TESTAMENT, MASTODON and ANVIL below:

BraveWords.com Heavy MTL Gallery I

BraveWords.com Heavy MTL Gallery II

(Photos courtesy of BraveWords.com's Mitch Lafon)