REVIEW: LILLE WINTER GRINDFEST 2010

Spring is gradually leeching the frostbite from our extremities, to the point where it's near impossible trying to picture the Siberian snowhell that turned the United Kingdom into a great big whinging ball of inactivity in mid-to-late December. The North of France was just as bad, Roubaix, just outside of Lille on the Belgian border is all kinds of bleak – the pavement may as well be coated in oiled marbles, yet a hundred or so dedicated grindfreaks braved the tundra for 2010's death rattle. No wheezing, laboured death was this, Lille Winter Grindfest was a full-on frothing fit, kicking January 2011 in the kidney on its way out.

An off-season hostel, Hotel de la Musique isn't quite the grimy squat you'd associated with bills of this calibre, and the well behaved guide dog being the closest you get to the obligatory crust hound on a bit of string – there's a stage wedged in the corner and a well-stocked bar, and it beats skidding around outside. Just because you like to grind doesn't mean you have to live like Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances – sometimes you just want Belgian beer and a cheese sandwich.

Trepan'Dead are one of those bands who shun success and attention, battle-scarred veterans of brutal death/grind they adhere to an old school creed, equating a low profile with underground virtue and it certainly suits their uncompromising bludgeon. They don't fuck about, they brutalise and then fuck off leaving behind only a faint impression of old dudes scowling, and, of course, tinnitus.

Hard-touring roadwarriors A Den of Robbers are the first of the day's Belgians, and the day's first blast of groovy, mid-tempo powerviolence interludes, a theme that continues with les rosbif from The Atrocity Exhibit who've slid like a corpse in the mud over the years from sludge to grind/powerviolence, settling now somewhere in between – this is the best they've ever sounded.

A drum machine really is man's best friend, faithful and consistently shitty sounding – the human aspect of Anal Penetration is without criticism, this dude is a one-man riot of riffs and screams. The high energy levels continue with serrated Germans Mindflair and through into Sylvester Staline, who deliver the first truly spectacular performance of the day. There's an element of 'local heroes' carrying them high, and it's late enough in the day for everyone to be drunk, but you can't shit on a band who get a conga line going and release so much party-hard good vibes through their highly strung French fastcore.

Fans of ridiculous pseudo-stadium metal shit like Soilwork may laugh, but some bands shrink like frosty bollocks in the glare of some decent sound and soccer-fixated powerviolence two-piece Jesus Cröst seem to be one of them. Sorely missing the shitty equipment of the aforementioned crusty squat, they sound like a noisy shit in an aircraft hanger.

The magic white sky powder has stolen away The Monolith Deathcult (perhaps one of the most anticipated bands playing) and Last Days of Humanity (who have trouble appearing in a mirror, having cancelled all sorts of stuff for all sorts of reasons since reuniting), and Leng Tch'e, the official BeNeLux back-up band rush in to fill the gap. It must be lousy for their self-esteem to not get asked to play these things in the first place, or perhaps they've got an agreement with Last Days of Humanity to tag-team grindcore festivals and split the ca$h – conspiracy theories aside, anyone who strikes a pose and sneers at their mosh-friendly crossover appeal (as in people outside of grindcore might like them, joining such 'sellouts' as Carcass, Nasum, Brutal Truth and Napalm Death) is getting shown up as the shit-talking scene fascists they are. People are going insane, lost in the catchy rock riffing and bludgeoning blasts, the atmosphere is amazing, and with fearsome vocalist Serge Kasongo suddenly gaining a pair of novelty antlers, strangely Christmassy.