Eleven years is a long run for an underground metal fest, and Blood Brothers Fest has spent all of them in Hamilton. For its 11th edition, organizer Nathan Fraser is taking it somewhere new: upstairs from a doughnut shop.
On Saturday, Oct. 24, six bands play Honey Dip, a DIY art bar on Dundas Street in London’s Old East Village with room for 50 people. The bill runs from Montreal melodic death metal to London skate punk, and it reflects the idea the fest was founded on: interconnected bands from the Ontario heavy underground.
How Blood Brothers Fest Reached Its 11th Year
Blood Brothers Fest is the project of Nathan Fraser, drummer for Hamilton death metal band Death Perception.
Billed by its organizers as Hamilton’s longest-running metal fest, it grew out of Fraser’s circle in the Hamilton heavy scene, with lineups built from bands that share members, bills, and history.
Recent editions have called Doors Pub on Hess Street South home, including the eighth in November 2023 and the ninth in October 2024. The 10th edition, in October 2025, moved to the Backstreet Bar and Grill, still in Hamilton.
Year 11 crosses the city line, landing in London with Honey Dip joining Fraser and Death Perception as a presenter.
Honey Dip Holds 50 People Above a Doughnut Shop
Honey Dip sits at 621 Dundas Street in Old East Village, upstairs from Dough EV, a doughnut shop. The entrance is a small green door to the left of the shop, up a stairwell, into a room that holds about 50 people.
The bar opened in June 2025 in the former Taproot venue space, booked as a community arts room for the neighbourhood. The programming runs Wednesday to Sunday and wanders: DJ nights, grindcore bills, crafting nights, drag shows, record flips. By its own count, it passed 200 events in its first year.
The six bands on the Oct. 24 bill tell you what kind of fest this is, so start with the host.
Death Perception: Hamilton Death Metal From the Fest’s Founder
Every edition of Blood Brothers Fest has featured Death Perception, because the fest belongs to Nathan Fraser and Fraser is the band’s drummer.
The Hamilton five-piece has played modern death metal since 2012, growing out of thrash and groove roots toward the sound of Lamb of God, Whitechapel, and Decapitated, all of whom the band names as influences.
The lineup is Kyle Young on vocals, Josh Billard and Russ Gordon on guitars, Jeph Gibson on bass, and Fraser on drums.
Two independent albums arrived in 2016, followed by Ashes in June 2021 on Italy’s Wormholedeath Records, recorded with Steve Haines at Poseidon Recordings and mastered by Jamie King.
The band’s calling card is the live show. Gigs have been described as the life-blood of the band since day one, and the record backs it up: more than 100 shows played, two trips to Cuba for Holguin’s metal fest, and appearances on Wacken Metal Battle Canada compilations.
On Oct. 24 the band plays host, which means its set carries the weight of the whole night.
Sheep Destroyer Crew Brings Montreal Melodeath to London
The farthest-traveled band on the bill is also the only one from outside Ontario.
Sheep Destroyer Crew is an independent Montreal act that started writing music in 2017, blending melodic death metal with deathcore, metalcore, and a black metal streak.
The band is built around vocalist Milou and multi-instrumentalist Geezzup on lead guitar and backing vocals, with Mike on rhythm guitar and Esteban on drums. Its full-length Unstable Minds: Blighted Fantasies arrived in 2019 and earned an 8 out of 10 from Metal Temple, which heard Swedish-style melodeath in the vein of At the Gates and In Flames, Pantera-style drumming, and a faint science-fiction streak underneath.
The newer Modern Massacre EP turns conceptual, taking on societal control and the cost of speaking unfiltered truth.
You can listen to the official Modern Massacre EP stream here.
The band is gigging hard around this show: Barfly in Montreal on Oct. 7, Toronto on Oct. 23, London on Oct. 24, three cities in seventeen days.
Viridius Carries Windsor’s Gothenburg Sound East
Windsor’s Viridius has flown the Gothenburg flag since 2018, building melodic death metal directly on the Swedish template.
Guitarist Ryan D. Meloche and drummer Danny Barker, who also plays in Aeron’s Wake, drive a sound that one Bandcamp supporter likened to Lamb of God and The Haunted.
The band’s Dissonance EP arrived in October 2019: three songs, about sixteen minutes, leaning into the band’s stated themes of psychology, fiction, cynicism, and misanthropy. New music followed in 2026 with the single Sibyl, a sign the band is still writing.
On this bill, Viridius is the second melodic death metal band alongside Sheep Destroyer Crew, and the Windsor connection in a lineup otherwise anchored in the London-Hamilton corridor.
Flamespitter Anchors London’s Death Metal Contingent
If Death Perception is the Hamilton anchor, Flamespitter is London’s.
The three-piece of Dorion Eddy on guitar and vocals, John Murdock on bass, and Colin Toman on drums plays death/thrash that its own Bandcamp page calls a “3 piece powerhouse.”
The members are embedded in the London heavy scene, with side projects including Iddicted, Throne of the Damned, and Violent Reztitution. That matters on a bill like this one: Flamespitter is not just a local band but a node in the network the fest is built on.
The latest release, the Devoured by Fear EP from January 2025, runs seven tracks and thirty-three minutes.
Flamespitter has shared bills with Death Perception before, including Doors Pub in Hamilton in July 2025, so the two bands have history. On Oct. 24, they play the hometown set.
Cross the Streams Breaks the Bill With Skate Punk
Every heavy bill needs a pressure valve, and Cross the Streams is this one’s.
The London punk band carries a name no Ghostbusters fan will miss, and it plays skate punk: the fastest and brightest music of the night.
What stands out is the work rate. The band’s Bandcamp page hosts twelve releases, from the self-titled debut EP in January 2015 through Creatures, Wendigo, and Ghost Pirates of the Sargasso in July 2025.
The band has played London bills since at least 2014, making it one of the longest-running acts on this bill.
On a night otherwise built from death metal and doom, a skate punk set is the gear change. That contrast is the point of a mixed bill: no single sound gets to go numb.
If You Go: Tickets, Times, and the 50-Person Room
General admission is $15 CAD, sold online through Ticketscene as eTickets.
Online sales close at 10:59 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Oct. 24, unless the room sells out first, and with fifty spots, it might.
- Date: Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026
- Doors: 7 p.m. / Music: 8 p.m. EDT
- Where: Honey Dip, 621 Dundas St, London, Ont.
- Ages: 19+
- Price: $15 CAD general admission
Ready for Six Bands at Honey Dip in a 50-Person Room? Come and Get It!
Eleven years, six bands, four cities, one small room above a doughnut shop. Blood Brothers Fest has lasted this long by knowing exactly what it is: a night for the Ontario heavy underground, built by the people in it.
Get your tickets through Ticketscene and be one of the fifty at Honey Dip on Oct. 24.
