Rating the rockers who will fill your ears at Saturday’s Extreme Thing

How extreme a thing is Extreme Thing?

Let’s find out, shall we?

For the 14th year, the all-day, all-ages music and sports festival returns on Saturday.

To assess the extent to which it lives up to its name, we’ve developed a handy rating system to measure each band’s level of extremeness.

The ratings break down like this:

1. Extreme: Only mildly extreme. Your kid sister would approve.

2. Extremely Extreme: Pretty extreme, dude, like that time you ate Taco Bell knowing full well that you were out of toilet paper at home.

3. Mountain Dew!: Whoa! Stand back! Unless you want to be covered head to toe in extreme!

OK, now let’s apply these standards to some of the bands playing the event this year:

Animals As Leaders: These prog-metal alphas are indeed Animals on their respective instruments. Anyone know how to play air guitar on an eight-string? Easily the best band on the bill this year.

Rating: Mountain Dew!

Emmure: Emmure’s bone-headed bro-core is kinda fun in a dumb way, you know, like igniting one’s flatulence.

Rating: Extremely Extreme.

The Used: Used frontman Bert McCraken emails Noam Chomsky and moved to Australia because he was frustrated with American society and politics as usual. That’s pretty hard-core. His band’s tunes? Not so much.

Rating: Extremely Extreme.

Killswitch Engage: Because guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz will easily make the best rock face of the entire weekend.

Rating: Mountain Dew!

Of Mice &Men: The good news: They’re named after a John Steinbeck classic. The bad news: They’re more evocative of middling Nicholas Sparks fare.

Rating: Extreme.

No Bragging Rights: Definitely nothing to brag about here, but at least this by-the-numbers hardcore group is up front about it.

Rating: Extreme.

Issues: These dudes take their name from a Korn album and feature a turntablist. Is there such a thing as nu metalcore? There is now, apparently. Issues? That’s putting it mildly.

Rating: Extreme.

Thy Art Is Murder: Death metal from down under, these Australian badasses ate the dingo’s baby.

Rating: Mountain Dew!

Tonight Alive: More Aussies, this time a pop punk troupe with a female singer. Think Paramore if they were descended from exiled British convicts.

Rating: Extreme.

After the Burial: Yeah, they sound kind of like Meshuggah Jr., but guess what? Meshuggah rules.

Rating: Mountain Dew!

Taking Back Sunday: For the past decade-and-a-half, TBS has kept emo from being completely synonymous with girl pants and boys who aren’t afraid to cry but who are afraid of the captain of the football team who will invariably stuff them in a locker.

Rating: Extremely Extreme.

Bring Me the Horizon: After you bring them the horizon, as instructed, bring frontman Oli Sykes a Sucrets. Dude abuses his vocal chords like Biff Tannen pounding on poor George McFly. It makes the band’s anthemic metalcore that much more convincing.

Rating: Mountain Dew!

Letlive: Rage Against the Machine doesn’t make records any more. These dudes could fill that void.

Rating: Mountain Dew!

Survive This!: They’re from Vegas and they have an exclamation point right there in their very name. So, you have to get excited. The rules of grammar require as much.

Rating: Extremely Extreme.

Suffokate: Have you seen their singer’s earlobes? You could pilot a Cessna through those things.

Rating: Extreme.

New Beat Fund: The biggest outlier at this year’s show, New Beat Fund’s electro funk is totally obnoxious in all the right ways, like Jeff Spicoli in history class. C’mon, man, you gotta take a break from the mosh pit every now and then.

Rating: Extremely Extreme.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow on Twitter @JasonBracelin.