For those who attended the metal conference portion of Noctis III: Tritagonist Metal Festival, and even those who joined the crowd afterward at The Distillery, just around the corner from the conference venue, the club night show was a real treat. Headlined by Chicago, Ill. metal act Novembers Doom, the place was nearly packed by the time show openers Tosca hit the stage. The Calgary, Alta.-based two-woman sludge act – one on guitar and vocals, the other on drums – did an awesome job warming up the audience for what will be a night to remember.

Three other Calgary bands on the roster terrorized the stage: blackened death metal act Norrath, who play very few shows each year, but always slay, Kilyakai, who released the single from their newest release Devastate Insisted Existence at the show and treated the crowd to a lot of the new material to incredibly positive reviews, and the instrumental Truck, who closed down the show.

Between Kilayaki and headliners Novembers Doom, however, was thrash and black metal band Ares Kingdom, who kept the fired up audience from Kilyakai’s set headbanging all the way through their own. And then there was Slough Feg. The quartet from San Francisco, Calif. got interactive with the crowd and played some of the hardest hitting tunes from their 20 year catalogue. The only downfall to Slough Feg was the end of their set.