When the gate on Schlägelstraße opens on 31 July, Dortmund Deathfest runs for the fourth time – and it stopped being an insider tip a while ago. 24 bands, two days, a scrapyard in Dortmund's Nordstadt: the Junkyard isn't a festival site in the usual sense, it's exactly the backdrop this music deserves.
The format is unfussy and it works: 1,500 people outdoors, 500 indoors, the two stages running in alternation. No clashes, no decisions, no missed sets. Doors open at 13:00 on both days.
Friday
Blood Red Throne from Kristiansand open at 13:45, one of Norway's most dependable death metal exports since 1998. Voorhees take over indoors, before Beheaded pull everyone back outside – the Maltese band has been going since 1991 and is a rare sight in Germany. Finland's Omnivortex bring technical death metal with progressive edges, 200 Stab Wounds from Cleveland the old-school sound that took them to the front of the US scene in just a few years. Celestial Scourge keep the indoor stage Norwegian and complex, Sanguisugabogg from Columbus handle the heavy lifting outside.
Rise Of Kronos from Hamburg, formed in 2021 out of death/thrash band Surface, lead into Benediction – fixtures of European death metal since 1989. London's Mutagenic Host represent the young New Wave of British Death Metal, before Asphyx close Friday outdoors, Dutch veterans since 1987.
The last word indoors goes to Pighead at 22:00. Dutch slam crew Korpse had to cancel and the brutal death outfit, formed in 2007, steps in – they returned in 2025 with the EP "Relapse Into Absurdity" after nearly a decade of silence. Nothing else about the schedule changes: same slot, same time, different name.
Saturday
Brat from New Orleans open with deathgrind caught between blastbeats and hardcore breakdowns. Indoors come Unhallowed Deliverance, technical brutal death from North Rhine-Westphalia and the first of the weekend's two hometown sets. Jungle Rot from Wisconsin have been serving the grooviest death metal on the bill since 1992, Messticator from Hamburg the thrash streak.
The highlight of the weekend comes early on Saturday afternoon: at 16:25, Cryptopsy play a special "None So Vile" set. The Canadians' second album came out in 1996, so it turns 30 this year, and it still stands as one of the benchmarks for technical brutal death metal. A set built around it is not something that comes round often.
Fleshworks from Osnabrück hold the old-school line indoors, Misery Index from Baltimore the grindcore end outdoors. After Berlin's Carnal Tomb come Immolation: out of Yonkers since 1988, dissonant, uncomfortable, formative. Embrace Your Punishment from Valenciennes bring the hardcore edge, before Deicide from Tampa close Saturday outdoors. The very last note of the weekend belongs to Stillbirth from Hagen.
If you still want in, move. Saturday is sold out and so are the early birds. What is left is Friday tickets at 71.50 euros and two-day tickets at 132 euros – and with the site hard-capped at 1,500, there is nothing to hand out at the door.
