Hyperblasts: Wading in at Offal Fest 2026

Let's get into all of this, and I'm gonna start off by talking about, I wanna speak a little bit about where I was at, uh, the weekend.

There was no pit pooping a- a- around.

I was at a, a little festival that's, uh, appeared in Manchester here in the UK in the last few years, uh, called Offal Fest.

And we have, I don't know, we've, uh, I think we might've jokingly referred to it a handful of times just because, uh, the, the name of the place, right? It, it paints such a vivid picture, doesn't it? Like they have done an absolute worldy of a marketing job in terms of like summing up what the, the musical vibe of their event is with, you know, a name like Offal Fest, where if you can p- picture the most diabolically nasty, dingy, uh, you know, d- death metal festival you could imagine, you could call it something like, like Offal Fest.

It could only be a poster where you can't read the band names.

Like-

Yeah

... you, you, like that, that, that ...

If you're going to Offal Fest, if you, like if I can read more than half the, the, the band names on that lineup poster, you've, you've, you've failed at your booking for Offal Fest right there.

Yeah.

And, and I can tell you right now, they have never failed in that.

Like, they have absolutely lived up to, to what that is.

This is the fourth year this festival, uh, has run.

So the first one, mathematically that works out to 2022 or 3, doesn't it? Um, I can't even do my math straight off the top of my head there.

But I have, you know, again, it's in a city that is, you know, somewhat adjacent in the, the, uh, region of the country where I live.

Mm.

So I remember, I think the first year it popped up, I saw the poster and I did exactly what we just did, right? I laughed at the name.

I saw, uh, a poster full of just like what could only be, you know, slam and brutal death metal bands, right? Um, and I, I don't know if it was the very first one that had Guttural Slug headlining, who I will talk about a little bit more, uh, later on.

But I took notes of a couple names that were on there, and I was like, "Oh, cool," you know, uh, uh, brutal death metal all dayer thing popping up in, uh, it was originally in Rebellion in Manchester, which is the exact venue basically where you would imagine like something like that would, would, would exist, right? I think Rebellion is something like 300 cap.

It's where I go to a lot of my, you know, small, uh, underground type shows, um, in Manchester.

And I kind of, I've watched it from afar the last few years.

And something has happened with it where I had to really start checking in and paying attention because in a pretty small amount of time, right, again, the fourth year of the event running this year, it has grown far, far more than I think you would've put money on a small startup brutal death metal event based in Manchester would do, right? Um, so I got invited to attend this year, and I was like, I, again, I've been watching this from afar.

I am genuinely curious and impressed by what they're starting to build over there.

Um, so I came along.

Mm.