Mullae Metal City – Press & Videos

MMC casts Korea’s heavy metal subculture

In and around Birmingham, England, the city that led the Industrial Revolution through steel, metalworking and foundries, half the members of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Led Zeppelin were born. And that is not all: the pioneers of extreme metal, Napalm Death, Godflesh and Benediction, also took up the energy of the clanging iron that wrapped around Birmingham and reshaped heavy metal. Birmingham literally created a culture worthy of a metal city. So what about Korea?

The Mullae-dong area of Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, was where small and medium-sized metal casting, foundry and processing industries were most developed in Korea. Since ironworks began appearing one by one in the 1960s and formed an ironworks complex, Mullae-dong was a place where flame, molten iron and roar never stopped. But from around 2000, as cheap foreign metal products were imported, more ironworks closed. Yet the disappearance of ironworks did not mean the furnaces of Mullae-dong went out. As artists returned to the empty spaces once full of iron dust, a new furnace called the artists’ village began to be lit. And in 2013, in a corner of Korea’s metal city, one more new art furnace caught fire. The name of this furnace, which began spewing small but hot sparks, is the heavy metal festival Mullae Metal City (MMC).

MMC, which has slowly grown its presence on nothing but a passionate love of heavy metal, the music that can best express a metal city and that inherits the spirit of a metal city, holds its twelfth festival on June 14–15, 2025. Over the past 12 years, Korean heavy metal has continued to grow in quality day by day. Not only has it diversified in genre, from orthodox heavy metal based on hard rock to thrash, black, death, djent and stoner metal, but it has kept amazing listeners with the musical polish of every album released. The growth of Korean heavy metal can also be seen in the fact that the Korean Music Awards created a Heaviness category (now Metal & Hardcore) in 2016. The growth of Korean heavy metal in the 2000s, united by skill and individuality, overlaps with the history of MMC, because bands grow on stage, and the experience of a big stage raises a band’s self-esteem and identity by several levels.

For the past 12 years MMC has been a place of exchange between old and new bands. It has offered chances to marvel at the stages of the seniors who built the Korean heavy metal scene in the 1980s and have protected it ever since, and for new bands bursting with fresh attempts and spirit to grow and mingle together. Going further, by inviting heavy metal bands from across Asia, such as Japan, Taiwan, China and Russia, it has been a contact zone among Asian heavy metal bands. This course of MMC differs from other festivals that merely gather popular musicians without any particular character or feature. It was nothing other than work that rewrote the history of the heavy metal subculture on stage. Moreover, it has played a role in building understanding and harmony among bands and fans across Asia who share a unique heavy metal cultural code. On the basis of passion, affection and pride, it has, in a sense, protected the heavy metal subculture of Korea, with its original character, and of Asia as a whole.

The theme of the twelfth MMC is “Conflict Paradise”. It is a theme that immediately recalls the history MMC has built, weaving together heavy metal bands and fans of different times and places while making and protecting the heavy metal subculture. Like metalheads who assert different personalities and styles and try to differentiate themselves yet meet at one point of orientation, their love of heavy metal, the title can be said to be a metaphor that healthy tension and harmony can be created while acknowledging each other’s differences. Look at the list of bands taking part in the two-day MMC festival. You will notice the names of bands at the front line of Asian heavy metal who have kept their faith in metal across the borders of Taiwan, Japan and Korea, from seniors who have held the stage since their 1988 debut to juniors who stunned with a debut work in 2024.

Steel takes on fire, and the more it is hammered, the harder it becomes. Heavy metal music is no different. I hope you will fully enjoy, at MMC, which has tirelessly kept the flame of heavy metal alive, a heavy metal that will become even harder.

(Cho Il-dong, editor-in-chief of Music Taste Y)

Heavy metal is alive here.

Some people declare that the age of rock is over. Who plays heavy metal anymore, they ask. Even if the share of rock and heavy metal has shifted elsewhere, that is a hasty claim. It is not only hasty but mistaken, because heavy metal is now one of the most innovative and progressive genres of all. This is no nonsense. Anyone who has followed trends in heavy music overseas knows that metal is the genre that has expanded its borders by diligently conversing with folk, electronica, hip-hop, dance, jazz and more. Looking back on a year, it is a genre that produces masterpieces as high in quality as any other. The situation in Korea is not very different from the overseas scene. Recall that last year, at the event that sums up Korean popular music, albums by Method and Black Medicine were both nominated for “Album of the Year”.

The lineup of Mullae Metal City, now in its third year, plainly shows the recent trends in heavy metal at home and abroad. It seems to want to say that this is the front line of Korean heavy metal. There is a dark symphonic band long recognized in the European scene; a band that has refined a unique team color between hardcore and metalcore; a transcore band that combines electronic sound. And that is not all. There is a brutal death band with explosive heavy riffs, a bold and straightforward grindcore band, and a post-hardcore band where lyricism and intensity coexist. Backing them up is a veteran heavy metal band thirty years old. Please remember that not one of these bands plays the same music.

As is well known, Mullae Metal City takes place at the club Skunk Hell in Mullae-dong. Mullae-dong is an area dense with ironworks, always noisy with the sound of working metal. It feels fresh that a metal festival is held here. Anyone who has been here even once will know what I mean: a small concert hall that suddenly rises against a backdrop where you would never expect a venue; a slightly gloomy place far from Hongdae, the mecca of performance culture; yet a distinctive space that offers the fun of seeking it out. Bands gathered from Seoul, Daejeon, Busan, Cheongju and Japan come here on October 15 (Saturday) and 16 (Sunday). In an age flooded with festivals that compete only on scale, this is a unique small festival that is truly needed.

Mullae Metal City is happening. Fifteen bands will play. Fans who come will see the current state of Korean heavy metal. They can encounter the history of its development. They can meet its varied spectrum. They can meet heavy metal as it evolves. These words are by no means exaggeration or empty talk, because heavy metal still exists as a captivating field and genre. Please confirm it on the festival stage that day. As a longtime fan of heavy music, I cannot hide my excitement. I hope that Mullae-dong itself can remain in the future as an independent heavy metal scene.

Here, heavy metal is still alive.