Berserker is a Detroit area musical celebration of all things heavy, punk, noisy and weird. This year's event will take place over the course of four nights, March 11th-14th, at The Loving Touch in Ferndale, MI. The headliners include OR punk legends Poison Idea, VA crossover kings Iron Reagan, PA death/doom masters Incantation, and KY noise-punks Coliseum. National and regional bands will be joined by Detroit favorites like Hellmouth, Child Bite, and Against The Grain.

Berserker has released a massive free compilation featuring one song from each of the 53 bands scheduled to appear. It's nearly three hours long and touches on just about every style of extreme and aggressive music. It is organized alphabetically by band name. This was probably to avoid sequencing nightmares, but it also makes it easier to keep track of what you like.

The first track is by hard-touring Against The Grain. "Surrounded By Snakes" is the rapid-fire title track from their 2013 LP. Bars Of Gold's "Coffee With Pele" is as artsy as anything here, but still has a solid guitar crunch. "Shitsucker Blues" by Bludded Head is a nearly nine minute dirge, while "Whitewashing" by Brain Tumors is a half minute blast of hardcore. Child Bite frontman Shawn Knight channels his inner Jello Biafra on "Molestation Of The Arts", from their excellent 2014 EP Strange Waste. Coliseum contributes what has become their signature tune, "Black Magic Punks", from 2013's critically acclaimed Sister Faith. Doomsday Student's song is called "Life Boat Blues", and it reminds me of Michigan legends The Crucifucks. (That's a good thing.)

Fuck The Facts play good old fashioned grindcore on "Disabused", while Fuck You Pay Me sticks with hardcore on the catchy "Public Disgrace". Golden Torso's "Bear Claws" is aggressive but still has a memorable hook. Hellmouth is Jay Navarro's (Suicide Machines, Break Anchor) metal/hardcore band, where he can really vent his spleen. "The Calling Part ll" is from their second album Gravestone Skylines. Her Dark Host is either paying homage to, or ripping off early Danzig. Either way, I enjoyed "(Unto The) Dark" immensely. In Defence's "Unholy Water" and Iron Reagan's "Miserable Failure" are both outstanding thrash-punk tracks, the latter being from 2014's The Tyranny Of Will.

Lich King bang out Classic thrash on "Combat Mosh". Lo-Pan play a style of prog-metal on "Vox" that reminds me of a more muscular Jane's Addiction. (This is also a good thing.) The Poison Idea song here is "Kill The Messenger", and it proves that these guys have the chops to play with bunch of headbangers. The Stonecutters give us "Neversummer". It's a cool song and I have to mention them because I'm a sucker for a Simpsons reference. Unconscious Collective play prog-metal that might remind you of extemporaneous jazz. "Peneteka" is a seven plus minute adventure. We Are Hex's "Hell Bent" is angular and strange, while Zebra finishes things of in more traditional metal/hardcore style with "Hallow Earth".

Berserker ll - 2015 Sampler was put together to be a promotional item, and was not really meant for critical review. That being said, this is better than any "legitimate" release I've heard so far this year. There is a lot of material here to wade through, but there is something for almost everyone. It does suffer from some of the audio problems that plague many comps. There are differences in volume and sound quality from track to track, but this is a free download. You might hate some of this stuff. I could never really get into black metal, and there is some of that here. If you like the heavy stuff in general, check this out. You will get turned on to some cool stuff. You will thank me later. Like Berserker itself, this sampler is for people who enjoy their music on the ugly side.

Berserker II - 2015 Sampler by BERSERKER DETROIT