A marathon of metal: Sick New World pummels Vegas

The wormhole has opened; it’s sweaty.

“We’re going to take you back to 1995,” announces Dino Cazares, guitarist for industrial metallers Fear Factory, by way of introducing the title track to the band’s dystopian second record, “Demanufacture,” released during the year in question.

It’s a bit past 1 p.m. on Saturday, the sun’s up and so are the fists, as Cazares has just summarized the appeal of Sick New World, a marathon of heavy music that engulfed the Las Vegas Festival Grounds.

Beyond testing the strengths of your antiperspirant as you shuttle between five stages to see as many of the 60-plus bands as possible, Sick New World is all about serving as a time warp to metal’s past while fusing it with the present.

Here, the old is nü — as in nü metal, that hip-hop-influenced strain of heaviness that rocketed to popularity in the late ’90s with massive record sales and even bigger pants.

“I don’t know about you, but it feels like 1999 out here,” observed Corey Taylor, frontman for Slipknot, one of nü metal’s signature acts who brought a heightened malevolence — and gnarly dread-locked masks — to the scene.

His band dressed the part during a fierce performance, donning the old school jumpsuits and headgear they wore at the time of their self-titled debut, which turns 25 this year.

A rager for all ages

Slipknot’s debut is older than some of the members of Japanese trio Babymetal, who performed earlier in the day on the Red Stage, their mix of turgid thrash riffs and bright, chirping vocals akin to chasing a mouthful of Pop Rocks with a swig of battery acid.

There was a similar mix of ages among the massive, sold-out crowd tens of thousands strong, with plenty of parents here with teenagers in tow and younger fans drawn to more contemporary acts like Bad Omens, Sleep Token and Bring Me the Horizon, whose performance on the Gold Stage became so heated, the band had to pause momentarily near set’s end for the crowd to take a step back to prevent audience members up front from getting crushed.

What bridged this generational divide?

Black lipstick — and eyeliner, fishnets, latex skirts, leather jackets, jeans and shirts, all of the same shade, the dark, gothy attire prevalent here suggestive of a world where vampires have gotten over their aversion to daylight to mosh on asphalt and slam $15 Pabst tallboys beneath the sun.

Oh, and dance, too.

Wide-ranging heaviness

“Are you ready people? Let’s boogie,” commanded Ronan Harris, frontman for VNV Nation, one of the bevy of industrial and EBM acts that played the Siren Stage, from the pummeling Frontline Assembly to the slightly more party-friendly Front 242, who definitely do their clothes shopping in “The Matrix.”

There were numerous nods to ’90s alt-rock, from Helmet’s motoric churn — It felt like it was raining anvils when they played the Spiral Stage — to grunge mainstays Alice in Chains, who remain adept at making songs about drug addiction and homelessness feel anthemic somehow, to the enveloping shoegaze of Slowdive, which felt downright restorative late in the night on the Siren Stage, to funky square pegs Primus.

Speaking of the latter, they’re currently on tour with A Perfect Circle, who also performed at Sick New World, the two having played a show in Colorado the night before.

Unfortunately for both, the trucks carrying their equipment got caught in a snowstorm, so Primus played with gear purchased at a local Guitar Center, the tags still dangling off their instruments, which they auctioned off to benefit St. Jude’s after the fest.

“That we’re pulling this off is a miracle,” A Perfect Circle frontman Maynard James Keenan noted during his band’s mesmeric set. “Point being, the show must go on.”

And that it did, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., testing one’s mettle for metal.

Let’s do the time warp again

“Who came here to get rowdy?” wondered Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe, a grimace incarnate who sought to bring to Sick New World the same sense of barely-controlled chaos that powers his band.

In terms of sheer intensity, their performance was maybe only rivaled by the Vegas debut of metalcore supergroup Better Lovers on the Diablo Stage, where singer Greg Puciato attempted to expel his lungs through his throat amid a cacophony of serrated, stop-start riffs. Similarly punishing was noise fetishists the Swans’ bracing, show-closing set on the Siren Stage, where frontman Michael Gira seemed out to summon the apocalypse via song.

Performing at the same time as Swans was returning Sick New World headliners System of a Down — so many bands during a single day means plenty of conflicts.

Then again, conflict lies at the heart of System of a Down’s repertoire, with the band airing songs about genocide and the prison-industrial complex that date back decades, yet still felt relevant, timely.

When they were done so was this year’s festival, for the most part, but not before nü metal got one more day under the sun — literally.

“Sick New World!” bellowed Dope frontman Edsel Dope earlier in the afternoon. “We’re going to take you back to 1999.”

As if we ever left.

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jbracelin76 on Instagram