For the past nine years, M for Montreal has become renowned for providing locals of Canada’s second largest city and industry pros from around the world the chance to discover emerging talent. The festival and conference offers a taste of everything, from indie rock to electro, synth pop to bluegrass, hip hop to punk, and everything in between. However, if delegates and locals want to discover Montreal’s heaviest offerings, their best bet is the annual M for Metal showcase. And this year’s edition of M for Metal certainly delivered the goods, featuring sets from GrimSkunk, Slaves On Dope, Hollow, Unbeing, FallStaff, Sandveiss, and DOT.

Held at Montreal’s famed Club Soda, the thing that stood out the most about the entire evening was how different each band on the bill was from each other. It was odd yet refreshing to see an instrumental prog metal band like Unbeing followed by a symphonic black metal outfit like Hollow (whose highly detailed corpse paint perfectly complimented their explosive performance). Even seeing a heavy rock/punk group like GrimSkunk appear on this type of bill seemed, though it became obvious after a few seconds of witnessing their blistering set that these notorious Canucks fit in perfectly with the alt-metal scene. Yet despite each group’s differences, the metalheads in attendance loved every second of the night, roaring for more after each set. Like M for Montreal as a whole, M for Metal successfully brought together all styles/sub-genres of heavy music for one special evening.

Check out a few candid shots taken during GrimSkunk, Slaves On Dope and Hollow’s sets in the gallery below.