The Key time-travels to MDF 2014

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Maryland Deathfest‘s organizers added five more bands to the lineup of the 2014 edition of the fest yesterday. One was Crowbar, who were just replaced at next month’s Housecore Horror Film Festival by the Melvins. (Melvins drummer Dale Crover will fill in for the departed Joey LaCaze of Eyehategod for their set, which should be extremely rad to watch.) Another was Death Toll 80K, a Finnish band that I don’t know much about. The other three are bands from extreme metal’s golden era: the Canadian thrash band Sacrifice, the UK death metallers Cancer, and the American progressive death metal unit Nocturnus (under the legally-mandated name “Nocturnus A.D.”), who will play their 1990 debut LP The Key in its entirety. Drummer Mike Browning repeatedly offered Nocturnus’s services on MDF’s Facebook page in the weeks before their appearance was announced. I’ve seen plenty of bands do such things, but never one with such pedigree, and never successfully.

I was about three years old when The Key came out, so I didn’t experience the metal scene’s reaction to it firsthand. From what I understand, though, its science fiction theme and heavy synth presence were not well-loved. Former IO editor Mike Nelson told me recently that when he caught the Grindcrusher tour (also featuring Morbid Angel, Napalm Death, and Godflesh — man, was I born too late) in New York back in ’91, the fans gleefully booed Nocturnus, because keyboards were for posers. Tough crowd.

Personally, I think The Key is great, albeit something of a bumpy ride. It’s pretty musically awkward at times, and as Sergeant D (now of Metalsucks and Stuff You Will Hate) pointed out in perhaps his best Metal Inquisition-era post, the lyrics are truly hilarious. (“The Nocturnus time machine” has become an internet-wide metal joke.) But its ungainliness was the product of its inventiveness, and that makes it charming to me. The Key was recorded at a time when death metal still had plenty of frontiers left to explore, and as Mike’s Grindcrusher experience attests, exploring those frontiers often came with a price. Putting keyboards on a death metal album is a pretty unremarkable artistic decision now, but it took guts for Nocturnus to do it back then. Plus, guitarist Mike Davis absolutely shreds all over the album. One can only hope that he’s involved in the MDF version of the band, whose lineup hasn’t yet been made public.

Relative to other mold-breaking DM albums from the same era and region (I’m thinking Piece of Time, Focus, Human, and so forth), The Key has a low historical profile. I suspect that a lot of people in my age range only know of it through Sergeant D’s Metal Inquisition posts (there were a lot), or perhaps because of the great Agoraphobic Nosebleed song that directly references it. It’ll be interesting to see how younger MDF audience members who aren’t already familiar with Nocturnus react to their set next year. With less booing, one hopes.

Do any of you guys remember The Key‘s release? What did you think of it back then?

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MDF 2014 LINEUP TO DATE
ASPHYX (Netherlands)
AT THE GATES (Sweden)
BONGRIPPER
CANCER (UK)
CANDLEMASS (Sweden)
CROWBAR
DEATH TOLL 80K (Finland)
DIOCLETIAN (New Zealand)
EXCRUCIATING TERROR
EXTINCTION OF MANKIND (UK)
GOD MACABRE (Sweden)
GORGUTS (Canada)
GRAVES AT SEA
HEMDALE
MACHETAZO (Spain)
MGLA (Poland)
NOCTURNUS A.D.
SACRIFICE (Canada)
SARKE (Norway)
SOILENT GREEN
SOLSTAFIR (Iceland)
TAAKE (Norway)
TANKARD (Germany)
ULVER (Norway)
UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS (UK)
UNHOLY GRAVE (Japan)
UNLEASHED (Sweden)
WITCHRIST (New Zealand)

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