Next month: Comendatio Music Fest with Tesseract, Leprous, Sinistro and more

The festival high season is starting next month and one festival that will kick it right off is also a special one. Localized in the outskirts of the city of Tomar, Comendatio Music Fest is a festival that has morphed during its three years of existence – it started as a more extreme metal oriented event, under the name Comendatio Metal Fest, and now, it’s a fully-fledged festival dedicated to the more modern sonorities and movements in metal music. Case in point, progressive metal, djent and experimental music are now the keywords. So, in some ways, this could be considered as Comendatio’s very first edition. But don’t let that fool you – this is, in fact, a well-organized event and the bands that will be playing in this year’s edition are living proof of that sentiment.

Starting off with the big ones, Tesseract and Leprous (on the photo above) will be the headliners for this year. The first are a British quintet devoted to the more progressive elements of metal and are credited as being pioneers of the whole djent movement – alongside their peers in Periphery, Animals as Leaders and Textures -, a musical scene and genre highly influenced by the Swedish knövelmetal group Meshuggah and more specifically, their guitarist Fredrik Thordendal, who coined the term djent. Tesseract will be presenting their latest record, Sonder, which is a true testament to the incredible musicianship and creativity of the band. In a live setting, you can fully expect to be left in awe of their technicality and expertise.

The latter, Leprous, are also a progressive metal band, but in another sense. Formed in 2001, in Notodden, Norway, by vocalist and keyboardist Einar Solberg and guitarist Tor Oddmund Suhrke, Leprous are a group that evolved their sound over the years thanks to one Ihsahn. Better known as being the frontman of legendary black metal band Emperor, Ihsahn served as the band’s mentor during their early years and still contributes in their releases, in one way or another. Make no mistake, however, Leprous are as independent as they come and this early mentoring only enabled them to spread their creative wings and blend in a wide variety of sounds and influences into their music, which garnered them an extraordinary amount of worldwide recognition. Two years ago, they released their fifth studio album, Malina, a record that has been described as their best one yet due to its complex mixture of progressive music and various experimental nuances. These elements translate well into their live performances that keep getting better with the passage of time.

But Tesseract and Leprous aren’t the only interesting acts that will take part in Comandatio’s 2019 lineup. The British/Italian post-rockers Nosound, the British prog rockers Wheel, the French prog metallers Uneven Structure and the Chilean progressive art rock group Crisalida will also be present, as will a contingent of great Portuguese bands consisting of Sinistro, We Are Killing Ourselves, Kandia, Sullen, Pântano, A Last Day On Earth, Kælling, Allamedah and Needle. Oh and, before we forget, there will also be after-parties with DJ sets by Vincent Cavanagh (Anathema) and António Freitas. Ready for the bash?

Comendatio Music Fest 2019 takes place in Paço da Comenda, in Tomar, on June 8th-9th. Daily and two-day tickets are available for 30 and 40 euros, respectively, and can be purchased online via the festival’s website, here. On June 7th, the festival will host a warm-up party for two-day ticket holders with bands such as Serrabulho and Shivers, among others.