SUFFOCATION / DECAPITATED
Rosemount Hotel - Perth, Australia
May 10th 2015
One of the heaviest tours for Australia in 2015 so far had to be the pairing of Decapitated and Suffocation, 2 death metal bands who are distinctively different in their own right. Hailing from Poland, Decapitated brought their brand of industrialised brutality as openers between the 2 while Suffocation brought their New York attitude and insanely heavy music as headliners to our fair city in Perth. The expectations were definitely met as we found out.
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While Decapitated are considered a pioneer in their own right in the death metal genre, I can't help but hear a strong industrial feel to their music which can sometimes come across as quite mechanical in a way but certaintly not in any bad way at all. If anything it's that precision that makes the band sound extremely tight which really works with this form of music. Opening with "Exiled In Flesh" which comes off their latest album "Blood Mantra", it was a healthy start to the set given that album is superior to most of their previous work in my opinion. Even better were the next 2 tracks "The Blasphemous Psalm to the Dummy God Creation" and the title track off the same album which really cracked that groove aspect which makes that album so good. On the title track, there's a feeling of helplessness as you headbang along as it's such a great song and sounded just as good live. The rest of the set had a few more tracks from the album which made the set more focused on "Blood Mantra" but the band did go into their back catalogue including some off "Carnival Is Forever" which to be honest is not their best album but still decent enough that it added nicely to the live set.
Suffocation have been death metal legends for quite some time now and the sheer power of their sound really made an impact once their set was launched. Being more of a fan of Decapitated I was blown away by how good Suffocation came across live and by the end I had to admit they were the better band of the night. Songs like "Effigy of the Forgotten" and "Purgatorial Punishment" were just brutally brilliant but the highlight for me was the power of the drum sound, hitting you hard in the chest like a bomb was going off. There wasn't much messing around in between tracks as they kicked into each song relentessly during their fairly shortish hour or so long set. Vocalist Frank Mullen was not onboard for this tour so Ricky Myers from Disgorge filled in and did a great job leading the way for the band.
Towards the end of the set guitarist Terrance Hobb broke a string on his guitar and instead of breaking the set to fix it, Vogg from Decapitated came to the rescue and lent his guitar for the remaing songs. By this time the crowd had gotten rowdy as members from Decapitated joined the band on stage and proceeded to crowd surf in all the chaos that went on. Even drummer Kevin Talley jumped in by the end of it all! It was a great set by the band, a great show put on by both bands and a great night overall.
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Review by Andrew "Schizodeluxe" Massie
Photos by Tammie Molotov - Molotov Enterprises And Photography
