http://www.smnnews.com/2013/01/09/new-e ... nd-lineup/

Headliners:



Full lineup:



Much better lineup than last year IMO. Last year had a few excellent bands and a whole lotta suck. This year has some excellent bands and a whole lotta good bands. Except for I Declare War.

Interesting change of pace. I'm assuming the Xibalba there is the hardcore one, not the black/viking metal one. I went once in 2004, but the lineup tends to really drag on due to a lot of mediocre hardcore/mosh bands. It's good to see more thrash and other metal there, but it's really hard to enjoy a fest where the appeal of half the bands is being mosh-friendly and having an all-day show.

Its going to be great to see half the kids leave during Blowpeth's set and Crapatonia's set, why they bothered booking these two awful bands with the other lineup consisting of hardcore acts and watered down pop metal bands is beyond me.

Because they're actually are popular bands and have fans? It's definitely a good decision money wise. Ensiferum and Tyr are also playing, they're not quite out of place.

No because the tempo they play at is far slower than either TYR or Ensiferum, and because their music isn't anywhere near as heavy as the two bands you mentioned. Cross that with the differing demographics and the fact that the metal bands are outnumbered 50 to 1, and its a pretty mismanaged show. You've never heard the stories of Opeth being booed off the stage during certain shows during Sounds of the underground years ago?

I think hardcore fans would be much more inclined to like Opeth than Tyr. I wouldn't say that Tyr is heavier than Opeth in any sense. And scanning through the list I can spot at least 10 metal bands. There would have to be 500 non-metal bands for the 50 to 1 stat to be correct.

I'm quite happy with Paganfest and Opeth/Katatonia coinciding with all these other bands. Makes things a lot easier. Considering my dilemma next month with Enslaved, Moonspell, and Cradle of Filth playing three days in a row respectively, I don't know how I'm going to do that.

And absolutely agree with Opeth's appeal. When I saw them in 2011 that was the most packed I ever saw the venue, and there were definitely some hardcore fans in the audience. On a side note, I think this is their third NA tour in support of Heritage (unfortunately I didn't catch them last year when they played some death metal)? That's impressive! Hopefully they'll go into writing the follow-up album afterward.