When I was waiting for the Fresh Blood event to take place in 18.4.15, I was pretty curious. Arranged by Metal Overload tour and concerts production, that has a different approach to the Metal scene. Well, it's not a 100% Metal, it has also an alternative side. The Fresh Blood line up included 6 bands of different genres

The first one was COMA7, founded in 2010 this band had a few line up changes, identified as a Post-Hardcore / Alternative on their Facebook page and main musical influence in RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE. This band has nothing to do with the Metal genre despite it's heavy and aggressive nature. COMA7 is a pure modern RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE but with a lack of melody and groove but more aggression, which is not bad at all, consider the fact that this band is still amazingly entertaining.
 

Mentioning the past and the current line up, it is not my first time to see this band live. Therefore, I have to make a quick comparing and say that this show was a bit lazy than the past ones I have seen. Surprisingly for me, the comeback of Almog Kapach on drums expected to be elevating moment for the band, this amazing musician and drummer kicks the band to the next level. And Dan Duhovic on bass, gives a fresh look with Punk Rock style, his bass lines are accurate  and he has a great potential. Even though, These two band members didn't contribute to the performance , and it's even not their fault. It's hard to put a finger on what I felt wrong about their show, I can only guess that is was just a little bit lazy.
 

The second to go on the stage was INFLUATOR, an Alternative Metal, Hard Core, Minimalizm, whait what? Minimalism? Why would someone will deliberately lower their standards on the first date? There's nothing to be ashamed of making a simple and minimalistic music, some of the best and historical musicians of modern music, recognized by making it simple. the issue is by calling yourself minimal, automatically, you don't give an audience a chance to decide either your music is minimal and simple or just lazy and crappy.
 

On the contrary, this band has a lot to offer, individually each band member is a great musician with it's own unique character. Alex Nergall on guitar has a badass look with a shady hoodie and an alligator skin guitar strap, making a simple and chunky, groovy guitar riffs, giving a devilish smile to the crowd. Pavel Poltyrev on bass with smooth bass lines and bad looks. Ori Blass Levine performs mostly clean vocals is very entertaining with his megaphone. But, while they're performing together they are simply a group of friends that having a good time by playing this gig. Eventually, INFLUATOR is a hard working group of people and their music is a matter of taste, personally I wasn't impressed at all.

The third is a band I was waiting to see on the stage for a long time, SHITTYCT, a  Rap, Punk Rock Metal, although, they do not fit the metal scene so quite well with their Punk Rap style but they are still very entertaining group of people, those who had seen them for the first time, got very excited and I had a chance to ask few. The unbelievable amount of energy reflected by the lead singer Yan Lubin is hard to explain and need to be seen.
 

His Russian accent and humorous approach makes the show even more fun. But don't get me wrong this is not a circus or a joke, this band is a serious deal, hard working musicians with an original musical approach. So if you're looking for something new, Punk mixed with Rap and some heavy Metal riffs, English lyrics with Hebrew smooshed in Russian accent, yes, it is interesting and asked to be checked out.

LET US BE SPOKEN is a perfect example for been a good quality band, despite my lack of affection towards Metalcore and all other Core genres. This is one of those bands that push it to the maximum level, they are the best on what they do in the local scene, a pure Metalcore by the book, and for that they have my respect. The performance is very interactive with the crowd and very energetic what makes it enjoyable.
 

Many will say that the next band is a cherry on the top for this event, or maybe the Main course after many appetizers, for me MECHANIGOD is a band that have a big name in Israel and have it's own not small group of fans. They don't have any identification on the web however it's not hard to spot the genre by listening and observing the band character.
 

Going only by then general title "Metal" is a recipe for group of people who don't know what they are and just trying to do everything all together. Or maybe to give a sense of mystery by raising the curiosity and making people to listen and discover the diversity that the band can offer. Or maybe both. It is very diverse, the amount of different elements in one band is massive, but still, the main stream of genre is mostly DeathCore. From time to time I got a feeling I'm listening to LAMB OF GOD.
 

In my opinion, simplicity is crucial for balance, and it's not good to feed people with a golden spoon to the point they get overwhelmed. The charismatic character of the lead singer Eylon Bart gets its full potential by interacting with the crowd by giving a huge credit to the fans, he calls everyone to support the local scene. This warm and close attitude makes people follow the band not only by its music but also spiritually.
 

And you can observe it by watching Bart inviting fans and friend to perform with him on stage, and by getting off the stage to sing with the crowd. Well played and very smart marketing, I have to say that sometimes it disappoints me, because it feels unreliable and sometimes corrupt. The inconsistency between Barts words and what happened after he got of the stage is annoying.

It brings me to the next and the final band MAANISH, translated from Hebrew, those guys are truly unmerciful punishers, it's a shame they'd started the show with almost zero crowd. Support the locals? If you truly mean something then do it properly, there's nothing to be proud of calling out loud to support others when you are selling your bands merch outside, while the next band had left with no audience, it's more like whispering "support me" while screaming "support the local scene". MECHANIGOD, your music is rich and good enough to get more fans respectfully, I hope that this incident was unintentional and maybe I was wrong.
 

Back to MAANISH, well the big punish for those who missed this band, is simply by missing it. Those guys are extremely heavy, the mixture of HardCore Death Metal with groovy moves is completely insane. The vocal performance by Ari Cohen was impressive and extremely loaded. Sometimes, it seems that the band is out of sync with each other, and the whole performance is a huge mess, it's because of the third element the band's trying to use, Progressive Death Metal. Some things you're just have to be careful with, and Prog is one of them, if you don't know how to use it, things will just get complicated and confusing, not only for the musician but also for the listener. The performance by MAANISH was heavy, groovy and fun, but also I sensed that something was wrong and a little bit confusing, maybe I had spotted another band that's trying to make too many all together.
 

As the punishers finished their first song, the crowd started to fill the club, but still most of it was empty. Maybe because the hour was too late, maybe the "support the locals" slogan is just a bunch of words. It's not my place to judge or tell people what to do, but when I buy a ticket for a 6 bands concert I stay for all of them and not just my friends band. For 2 main reasons, first, is a waste of money if I don't stay to see them all, second, it's a waste for me to not get to know new music and new bands. This is what I call to"support the local scene", is just to take a full advantage of what I purchase, seems legit for me.

In general, the production of this event, from my opinion was genius, thanks to MetalOverload we had an event with 6 different types and genres to entertain us from Punk to Rock , Hardcore and Death Metal, and this is a product of an alternative mind who stands behind MetalOverload. The small screw-ups made by some bands can be excused,all in all they gave a great show. It's a shame that there was less people then I expected and for those who didn't come, missed a perfect treat for a hungry mind looking for something interesting.