Maltworm
Country: Bulgaria
Genre: Thrash/Death/Melodic Death Metal
Founded: 2018
Behind the name are some old dogs of the Bulgarian underground metal scene, originating from outfits like Granulom, Ciroza, Bleak Revelation, Hellrider, Historian, Inspell, Charda and many more, who have gathered for the love of old school death metal with thrashy riffing and a twist of melody.
The name “Maltworm” was picked after looking for an old English word that could describe everyone’s passion for beer and whiskey — and a quote from Shakespeare’s “King Henry IV” (“mad mustachio purple-hued malt-worms”) quickly solved the problem.
Less than 3 months after its original formation, the band was already on stage with a set of their own original songs. Just like any other artist’s journey, their live performances helped them gather a good enough reputation to get better gigs, play bigger clubs, local festival slots and so on. Beside playing alongside the biggest local underground acts, they have also shared a stage with bands like Behemoth (POL), Testament (USA), Pestilence (NLD), Impaled Nazarene (FIN), Rage (GER), Necronomicon (GER), Left To Die (ex-Death, USA), and many others.
Maltworm publicly announced their intentions with the debut single “Yersinia Pestis” (2019), recorded, mixed and mastered by Vladimir Bochev (Zero Project Studios) in Sofia, Bulgaria. Shortly after the band entered the same studio once again — this time for their debut full length.
Unfortunately a virus-that-should-not-be-named would later paralyze the whole scene, and although the album was more or less ready in 2020, it was definitely not a good time to release something that could not be promoted the right way — on stage!
In the meantime Maltworm also had some line-up challenges which almost killed the band — Evgeni Evgeniev, the bass player who recorded the album, left; the guitar player Deyan Videv was diagnosed with a medical condition on his right arm which made it impossible for his picking hand to cope with the intensity of the guitar tracks.
However, Maltworm proved to be more than a mere sum of its parts — the band slowly started to recover after doing some gig as a four piece (Deyan taking the bass where the strain on his arm would be more bearable) and Anton (vocals) making an attempt to handle the rhythm guitar for certain songs. It all came back to its placewhen Nikolay Velev, a legendary musician in the Bulgarian extreme metal scene (Inspell, Historian, Samhain, Darkmoon Rising, Powerdrive, Scapegoat, to name a few) expressed willingness to join as a guitar player.
Finally, the Worm was whole again! The debut full-length “Global Worming” released in November 2022 was illustrated by the stunning design of Julian D’Bones (who’s worked with Exciter, Virgin Steele and many more) and fully represents the vision of the band — true to its roots, but at the same time not-boring extreme metal.
At the end of 2022 the band won the competition “Reynaers Rock Trampoline” of the national rock radio Z-Rock, and as a result got into the weekly Chart for Bulgarian Rock music “Reynaers Top 30”. Their track “The Kvlt Ov The Maltworm” survived 40 weeks there, among much radio-friendly and well-known artists — and the unheard six consecutive weeks as number one!
In the summer of 2023 the underdogs have unexpectedly become the winner of the Bulgarian finals of Wacken Metal Battle, and on August 2 same year Maltworm did what many bands have only dreamt of — played on one of the most renowned metal festivals in the world, Wacken Open Air, in front of thousands of fans from different countries. Subsequently, more touring in Bulgaria and Romania, as well as some festival appearances took place.
At this point Maltworm continue writing material for their second full-length, but has a couple of new tracks ready to be unleashed to the wide world. The latest singles “The Ballad Of Caleb” (2023) and “To Serve In Silence” (2024) are a nice taste of what is about to come.
Members of the band:
Anton “Hairy Worm” Andonov — vocals
Martin “Lefty Worm” Bachvarov — guitars
Nikolay “Fitness Worm” Velev — guitars
Deyan “Captain Worm” Videv — bass
Nikolay “Papa Worm” Filipov — drums
Links:
Website: https://maltwormband.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maltworm
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MaltwormDeathMetal
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6AjZYAScnBEAs90Ft1wnZU
BandCamp: https://maltworm.bandcamp.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maltwormdeathmetal/