At 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 31, 2026, the doors open at Maxwell’s Concerts & Events, 35 University Avenue East in Waterloo, Ontario, and free treat bags are waiting at the entrance. Half an hour later the first of three bands starts playing to a standing crowd in costume, with a contest and prizes still to come.
That is the premise of Heavy Metal Halloween, a 19+ licensed show with Shadöccult, Nepenthe and Faulty Rivals, closing with Faulty Rivals celebrating the release of their new album.
Here’s our deep-dive into who is playing, how the bands connect, what the night includes and how to get tickets at $15 CAD before the room fills.
Shadöccult: Cinematic Metal That Waited Five Years for a Stage
Martin Breton launched Shadöccult in Kitchener in 2019 as a darker, heavier project alongside a long catalogue of solo music, and the band’s name records its own evolution.
It began as “Shadow Cult,” a phrase meant to capture the brotherhood of heavy metal, before shifting into something more distinctive, with the umlaut serving as a nod to Blue Öyster Cult. Breton handles vocals, guitars, bass and keyboards, and Greg Carvalho has played percussion since 2020.
The debut album arrived on March 30, 2020, and runs six tracks from “Ritual” and “Awakening” through “Brotherhood” and “Oath” to “Hope,” with a short instrumental, “Solitude,” in the middle. Breton produced it, Jonah Kay engineered and mixed it, and Jamie King mastered it. The band tags its own sound as blackened cinematic metal and also as symphonic, doom, gothic and traditional heavy metal, a stack of labels that points toward film-score drama in the service of heavy riffs.
What followed was a long stretch on record and on piano rather than on stage. In 2020 Breton said he was writing a second album, composing for a classical guitar orchestra and planning solo piano covers of metal songs and monthly livestreams, and the band’s website still offers piano scores alongside CDs and clothing.
A December 2020 release, Soundscapes: A Cinematic Relaxation Experience, extended the cinematic side of the project.
Five years passed between that debut album and the band’s first live show. Shadöccult’s first-ever live performance took place on April 18, 2025, opening for Invicta and Tortured Saint at Maxwell’s Concerts & Events, which makes Heavy Metal Halloween a return to the stage where the band first played.
Shadöccult is a band whose identity was shaped as much by film-score atmosphere as by the stage, arriving on the one evening when the audience shows up dressed for a story.
Nepenthe: Blackened Doom From the Guelph Underground
Nepenthe formed in Guelph in 2018 around a shared wish to write music that leaves a lasting mark, and the band has spent the years since stretching blackened doom with post-metal, goth rock and neo-folk.
The lineup is Scott Rice on lead guitar, Steve Rowlands on rhythm guitar, Chris Rowan on bass and Konrad Schröder on drums, vocals and lyrics. Schröder’s words draw philosophical fuel from Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Baudelaire, which gives the music a weight of Romantic despair.
Their debut EP, Elegies of Loss and Doom, was recorded in 2019 by Alex Snape and released in November 2020, earning recognition from the underground doom and black metal communities. One of its songs, “Dawn,” features a pipe solo by Layne Richardson of Becomes Astral and later appeared on the Doomed & Stoned in Canada (Vol. II) compilation in October 2021.
Four years passed before the next chapter. The Fading Promise of Tomorrow was recorded and mixed in 2024 by Rowan at Skaldic Studios and paired with the debut for a November 15, 2024 release through Hypaethral Records, a Toronto label devoted to doom and blackened metal since 2012.
That release was Nepenthe’s first physical edition, arriving on CD, digital platforms and a limited graphite vinyl LP, and Decibel Magazine premiered it in full.
Schröder has said the new songs gather the band’s personal and artistic struggles, pushing for more intensity and fury while leaving room to build atmosphere, with depression, loss and degeneration as the recurring themes. The opening song, “Upon These Unfamiliar Shores,” runs roughly eight minutes and works as an allegory about love turning into poison for the people near it, and about finding comfort in solitude. The EP also includes a cover of “Time Time Time” by Of the Wand and the Moon.
Reviewers have compared the band to Woods of Ypres for layered, mournful melodies and epic song structures, a melancholy rather than brutal strain of blackened doom.
On Halloween night Nepenthe supply the elegy, the kind of set that suits a crowd standing still in costume while the room goes quiet.
Faulty Rivals: The Kitchener Songwriter Closing the Night
Koi Getson built Faulty Rivals around songs that sit between grunge and metal, and the band’s identity is still defined by that unresolved tension.
Based in Kitchener, the project draws on Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, Metallica, Megadeth and Black Sabbath, and also on Pink Floyd, Rush and Porcupine Tree. That mix explains how a single record can move from head-banging riffs to soft, intimate ballads.
Getson, a graduate of Fanshawe College’s Music Industry Arts program, writes the songs and produces the recordings. The band’s 2019 release The Abused Will Ascend, out on October 18, was a four-song set with Getson on guitar, bass and vocals, Shaheen Abdi on keyboards and Spencer “Taabu” Heaslip on drums, recorded in Hamilton by Travis Stoddart of Alleyway Sound.
“Bliss” followed on October 15, 2021, a single Getson wrote from his own experience of a toxic relationship with alcohol. The song earned the band a devoted following, radio play on campus and community stations including CKMS 102.7 FM in Waterloo, and attention from Buzz Music LA and We Write About Music. At least one reviewer’s first reaction on hearing the band was to ask when they could be heard live.
The run-up to the new album started in 2025 with “The Guilt Behind the Truth” in August, “Tears in a Vial” on October 7 and “Time to Revolt” on November 18.
“Tears in a Vial” is a breakup song recorded and mixed in Guelph by Alex Snape with Chris Rowan on guitars and Jamie King mastering.
“Time to Revolt” is a protest song of just over five minutes about economic collapse and political deceit, written and performed by Getson.
On Halloween, Faulty Rivals celebrate the release of their new album while sharing a bill with two bands from the heavier end of the spectrum. For a project that describes itself as walking the line between rock and metal, a night surrounded by the people who record and mix its records is about as natural a release party as a band can have.
Three Different Temperatures of Heavy in One Night
Taken together, the three bands cover a wider range than the title of the show suggests, and that range is the point.
Shadöccult’s song titles read like a liturgy, with “Ritual,” “Awakening,” “Brotherhood” and “Oath” on the debut, and the band’s cinematic framing suggests music meant to be staged as much as played.
Nepenthe’s debut is called Elegies of Loss and Doom, and the band’s own account of its themes, depression, loss and degeneration, makes the mood plain: slow, mournful and built for long songs, including an eight-minute centerpiece on the latest EP.
Faulty Rivals trade in catharsis, translating breakups, addiction and economic anger into the kind of hooks and open-throated choruses that grunge taught a generation to expect from heavy music.
Ritual, elegy and exorcism make a more satisfying arc than three bands of the same kind could. A night of nothing but blackened doom would be a marathon for anyone not already devoted to the style, and a night of nothing but hard rock would not earn the word metal in its title. Between them, the three bands offer a way into heavy music from several directions.
What A Heavy Metal Waterloo Halloween at Maxwell’s Concerts & Events Actually Includes
The free treat bags at the door are a small touch with a large effect, because they make the show a Halloween event from the first minute and give guests something to carry while the crowd gathers. They also set the tone for a night that takes the holiday seriously without taking itself too seriously.
The costume contest with prizes is the participatory heart of the evening, and the invitation is explicit: come dressed to impress. The specifics of the prizes have not been announced, but the format fits a metal crowd, which has long treated dressing the part as part of the ritual.
General admission is standing room with limited side seating, so costumes are best built to survive a crowd. Anyone who needs a seat should plan to arrive when doors open at 7:00 p.m., since the side seating is limited.
The maximum capacity for this event is 200, a small crowd by concert standards that keeps the night intimate. In a room that size, a costume contest feels like a gathering more than a spectacle, and the bands are never far from the people who came to hear them.
Because the show is 19+ and licensed, the audience will be adults, which suits the material. Doom, blackened metal and grunge-tinged hard rock about addiction and grief are not trick-or-treat fare.
Anyone planning a longer Halloween weekend can pair the show with Maxwell’s Concerts & Events’ EMO Night Halloween Edition on Friday, October 30.
Where and How to Buy Heavy Metal Halloween Tickets
Tickets for Heavy Metal Halloween are on sale now, with general admission priced at $15 CAD plus fees, and they are sold online through Ticketscene.
Every ticket is issued as an eTicket, which means nothing arrives by mail and nothing needs to be printed. Because the event is 19+, every guest in your group needs to meet the age requirement.
Online sales run until 5:59 p.m. on Saturday, October 31, unless the show sells out first. With a maximum capacity of 200 for the night, the room is small enough that waiting until the last minute carries real risk.
If You Go: Heavy Metal Halloween Details
- Date: Saturday, October 31, 2026
- Doors and show: Doors at 7:00 p.m., show at 7:30 p.m.
- Place: Maxwell’s Concerts & Events, 35 University Avenue East, Waterloo, Ontario
- Age: 19+, licensed
- Price: $15 CAD general admission plus fees, standing room with limited side seating
Set times for the individual bands have not been posted, so plan to arrive close to doors if you want to catch all three.
Heavy Metal Halloween in Waterloo at Maxwell’s: Will You Be There When the Doors Open?
At 7:00 p.m. on October 31 the doors open on a Halloween built from a real scene: a Kitchener band that waited five years to play its first show, a Guelph doom band that returned after four years with its biggest record yet, and a songwriter who spent 2025 releasing singles on the way to a new album.
On Halloween, they share one stage.
The room holds 200 people, the costume contest has prizes, and Faulty Rivals have a record to celebrate.
