By Hannah Straw

Grindcore madness descended upon Trutnov last weekend for the 10th year running.

It has to be said, Obscene Extreme is both the most civilised and the most genuinely obscene festival around. Where else can you sit in a pleasant amphitheatre bathed in sunshine, sipping beer, listening to a selection of the sickest grindcore, whilst thinking back to how 12 hours previously a naked man was getting spit-roasted by two women wearing strap-ons, courtesy of Freak Cabaret Made By Hell? It's the contrast of such things that makes this festival a truly unique experience.

Hats off must be given to Čurby and his super-efficient crew for the organisational feat that was Obscene Extreme 2008. I feared that having forty-nine bands over two days on one stage with only ten minute breaks between them would be rather ambitious, but the festival ran like clockwork with no bands starting late or suffering equipment problems.

With so many bands, how can one pick out those deserving a special mention? Opening act Poppy Seed Grinder set the mood for the festival at lunchtime on Friday to bright sunshine and wowed eager festival goers with their aural onslaught.

Putrid Pile, a one-man band from America, took to the stage armed with a guitar, brutal vocals and a drum sampler, and grinded-out most brutally. Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation rocked out in the form of four pint-sized girls from Japan, and if you had to read their name a few times before realising that it makes no sense, that's probably because something has been lost in translation. Nothing was lost in translation when it came to the fearsome sounds emanating from the stage, and you had to look twice and blink thrice before believing that such guttural screams and growls were being produced by something so pretty and tiny as the vocalist.

Czech grinders Gride took to the stage fronted by their silver haired singer, a testament to their advancing years spent playing grind/hardcore. Gonorrhoea Pussy flaunted porn sound samples topped off by truly demonic-sounding vocals, courtesy of a little electronic help. Impaled Nazerene, slightly out of place as the only black metal act on the bill, made themselves at home on stage by playing classics, whilst the vocalist snogged a female stage diver and fended off advances from a few male ones to boot.

The rain which descended as the heavens openly wept during Cock And Ball Torture made no indentation on the high-spirited festival mood, indeed the lightening on the horizon only added to the atmosphere. Following the glorious sunshine of Friday, Saturday proved to be overcast, but bands and revellers grinded on regardless, barely noticing the mud underfoot until, in some unlucky cases, footing went astray and the mud underfoot became mud under and on your face.

The relaxed attitude of the festival was something that British readers will be unfamiliar with. Stage-diving was not banned, but encouraged- the first meter of the stage was dedicated to receiving stage divers from the crowd. Sensible policies were in place to ensure that stage-diving did not interfere with performance and stage divers were reabsorbed back into the crowd after five seconds of glory. Anything goes at Obscene Extreme, and this includes outlandish costumes- men in French lingerie, people dressed up as moose, cows, crazed scientists and of course, sporting the universal birthday suit.

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