It rained on Friday and snowed on Sunday, but the Scion Metal Fest stayed dry for the most part. Toyota off-shoot Scion got 29 bands of varying sub-genres of metal (crust, doom, thrash, hardcore, drone, black, thrash) together across four separate stages for a free, ten-plus-hour berating. (And for those whose thirst was unquenchable, Criminal Records had three bands -- Kylesa, Withered and Skeletonwitch -- play in-store on Friday, and later that night Scott Kelly of Neurosis and US Christmas both played acoustic sets.)

 

Though the headliner was hometown favorites Mastodon, a lot of people I talked to were there for a rare appearance by revered doom-metal gods Neurosis, who nowadays tour about as often as Dick Cheney smiles. Their set was felt reverberating throughout the porta-lets and probably straight through into Buckhead.

 

Mastodon played their prog/metal cards like a well-versed Vegas man, tossing out a few surprises in the guise of some new material from their soon-to-be released next record, as well as getting Scott Kelly to join in for the last song. Other highlights included the brutal grindcore of Pig Destroyer, the massively powerful sound of High on Fire, and the coiled tension of Converge, who had a packed room maximizing kinetic energy in every direction. Corpsepainted faces and rusty nail arm bands were wielded by black metallers 1349, who closed out the evening. 

 

Check out crowd photos from Scion Rock Fest: Atlanta here.