WHEN you hear the words “breast fest” and “metal bands” in the same sentence, you might be forgiven for jumping to a somewhat sleazy conclusion.

But this weekend 13 of the best metal acts from Bolton and the surrounding areas will be playing the Alma Inn’s Breastfest event in aid of Breast Cancer Care and The Breast Cancer Campaign.

The event kicks off on Friday, with Aged Yummy, SplinterFist , By Any Means, Visitor and Plagues.

Then on Saturday there will be eight more bands — Grand Automata, Before The Dawn, Truro, Killing The Tyrant, Wild Faith, The Coriolis Effect, Amongst The Stars and Houston We Have A Problem.

Boasting all different varieties of rock and metal, one of the highlights will be five-piece Bolton band By Any Means.

Despite being fronted by a girl, the band’s drummer Sean Green says they avoid falling into any of the cliched categories of female-fronted metal bands.

“We play old school melodic metal, but with a female vocalist,” he says. “That’s not what a lot of people expect of us - when they see that we have a female singer they think we’re going to be an emo band. A lot of venues write female-fronted bands off immediately without even listening to them, but that definitely makes us work harder to prove them wrong.”

To make their point, the band recently won the Get In The Ring battle of the bands competition in Preston, which was organised by a collective of local promoters.

And they will also be launching their self-titled EP on Friday before setting off on a mini tour in support of the record and heading to the recording studio in January to start work on their debut album.