Metal festival to thrash into North Van area

  • 2021-12-26
With the new year comes the Vancouver area’s New Year’s Winterfest, a music festival focusing on the top metal bands the region has to offer.

New Year’s Winterfest is returning after a two-year’s absence, and it is looking to make up for lost time, with nine bands playing over the course of one night. Headlining the show is Dead Asylum, a melodic death metal group that has been part of the Vancouver scene for over a decade. Oxygen Destroyer, a Seattle group that focuses on the thrash and death metal sub-genres, with music that draws inspiration from everything from Japanese monster movies to philosophy, will co-headline. Also featured as part of the show will be bands like Torrefy, No Light Escapades and Param-Nesia.

Each group will play a limited set, providing a sampler of what the scene has to offer. Advertised as “the frostiest fest in the West”, the festival is put together by Journeyman Promotions and looks to introduce new bands to metal diehards from areas like North Vancouver. Local music festivals like this, whether large or small, often focus on specific genres and use tools like poster printing and social media to attract interested music lovers.

New Year’s Winterfest 2022 will take place on the evening of Friday, January 7 at the Rickshaw Theatre in Vancouver.