Necrophagist with Decapitated, Cephalic Carnage, Cattle Decapitation, The Faceless, As Blood Runs Black, Ion Dissonance, Beneath The Massacre

(show, at the Palladium in Worcester on 7/6/2007, also included In Dire Need and Zircon as local support, but I ran out of headline room.)


I took the day off from work for this gig, and it was certainly worth it -- not only for recuperating my feet, but because there was a long share of good music that I would have missed if I'd just left for Worcester at 6. As it was, I got moving a little later than I'd planned to -- and without taking my boots over to the cobbler, which I now have to do next week or risk not getting them back for Wacken. I was able to get parking no problem, but the late start and thick traffic on 128 due to a blue-sky cloudburst led to one of the few down points of the night, missing nearly all of Zircon's set.

Zircon [N/A]
As I came in, they were on their last song, which sucked for me. From what I saw, they were pretty thoroughly on, which was good, despite the new guitarist, who can't have been in the band for more than a month or so. The only unfortunate part about their set was the sound, which negatively affected about the whole first half of the bill; the guitars, especially the leads, sounded a little buried, which is totally egregious; there is no reason, when setting up a board for a metal show, to not have the guitars forward by default. I mean, come the fuck on. I can understand the sound guys not putting effort into bringing a local band's solos out, but the first three nationals were also poorly handled, and this particular mismix makes the sound come off as intentionally bad; a new low for the sound in this place.

I talked with the guys later while scooping some stuff, and I stand by my assessment that if Zircon can keep it together, they have an even shot at headlining this kind of bill in a few years. Specifically, four to five years and at least two very good full-lengths, but the band definitely has it in them, and with the right label push it's really a question of when, not if.

In Dire Need [4/7]
I'm not, personally, a huge fan of this style, but this band did a decent job of it; the hardcore influences were honestly and directly done, but I wasn't on the floor for them as I was for Zircon, and the sound was an absolute nightmare. If I could hear what the hell they were doing, I might have enjoyed this more; I got a sampler from them after the show, and that's going to be a much better representation of who and where they are as musicians than this set was.

Beneath The Massacre [4/7]
This band was down for a 4.5 score before I chopped off all the tailing half-scores (still hate doing them), also in large part because their sound was fucked up. They had a few really interesting parts to their sound, but others that didn't come off as so inspired, and the mismanagement at the soundboard really didn't help anything. I'm somewhat interested in seeing this band again, but if the next time they're around is an early slot on a festival or superpackage at the Palladium, I'm really skeptical of the total effect being any better.

Ion Dissonance [5/7]
Maybe it was the sound, maybe it was the prevalence of new material (Minus The Herd is okay, but pretty much just okay), but this set didn't have the same immediate and explosive effect that they put up the last time I saw them (Metalfest '06). It was still pretty well done, with the hardcore standing out more than the brutal thrash parts (almost certainly because I've got a better ear for this now rather than any change on the band's part), but while the sound mix wasn't hurting them much -- the thick and dense sound being basically all that the sound system could convey until the headliners came on -- it wasn't exactly helping them either. This was a decent set, but not, really, what I came for.

In around here, I did my merch run, picking up some Cattle Decapitation and Necrophagist gear. I wanted to support Decapitated as well, but they didn't have any merch out, for reasons that would become clear later. I didn't get the Necrophagist shirt I wanted, but the second-choice design is also cool, and Cattle Decapitation's "GORE NOT CORE" design is something that every anti-trend metaller should appreciate.

As Blood Runs Black [4/7]
Speaking of trends, there was little I could do but shake my head during this band's set. There were a lot of people into them, but all I could think was "we are in New England. We know what Shadows Fall sounds like -- and this band is but a pale fallen shadow thereof." Where Shadows Fall is a good band making good music and diminishing the case for metalcore-as-a-dirty-word, As Blood Runs Black seemed mostly interested in playing through Of One Blood again and hoping people wouldn't notice that the state of the art had advanced. The sound was okay and the playing competent, but the band was doing nothing original, and it was a relief when they closed up. I'm not sure that I recall hearing the singer tell the crowd to "bring the ruckus", but if such occurred, it would indeed be about the dumbest thing I have seen on a metal stage.

Well, not really. I've seen Halo of Thorns use Hood strawberry syrup as a blood substitute. That still takes the cake.

The Faceless [5/7]
I hadn't heard this band before, but had heard a little about them and was skeptical, as you kind of have to be about any new band that calls themselves death metal and gets press attention. Fortunately, though, they had some decent sound and a decent sound to deliver through it, an even and smooth mix of melodic and brutal death metal styles. While it wasn't terribly distinctive, it was well-done and a good time; a decent set, and worth remembering even though the top of the bill was coming up, and with it, absolute devastation.

Cattle Decapitation [6/7]
This was a definite top-class set, and if it had been the last of the night, it would have been a fitting capstone to a very good show. While the grind elements were still dominant, there was also a lot of black metal in their sound as well that I didn't notice in the limited experience I've had with them on record; it made for an interesting contrast and a cool overall sound. They've rubbed some people the wrong way personally in the past, but as this set bears out, there's been little complaint about their actual music, which continues to kick ass.

Cephalic Carnage [6/7]
At this point I went down on the floor, because it opened up significantly after Cattle Decapitation, and I needed to get close up for the last two bands. Down closer, the sound was slightly better, but the major advantage to this set was CC's rounded, diverse sound, probably the most wide-ranging of the night. Despite the complexities of their music, they still kept the pit moving as well; towards the end of their set, a kid came out of the pit right in front of me and proceeded to hurl on the ground at the side of the rail, whether from getting spun around of from getting hit in the stomach, it wasn't clear. This was basically the only negative on the night that wasn't directly my fault, and fortunately the kid in question didn't look too much the worse for wear after he'd gotten his guts out onto the floor. Even with this mishap, this was still a killer set.

Decapitated [7/7]
HOLY FUCK. The band basically got right off the bus/van from Quebec due to allegedly forgetting all their money at the hotel in Montreal (there may be a case here that the noncommercial DIY ethos needs to be flavored with a little practicality) and going back from half-way in order to retrieve it, then went on stage, but proceeded to wipe the floor with everyone who had played to this point, and gave Necrophagist a serious run for their money. Their set back in November was good, but not well-mixed, and this one saw one of those rare cases where the stars align and the Palladium soundboard produces a diamond, much like Suffocation back at that gig. The sound was tremendous, world-crushing, and as close to perfect as this building is likely to come, and the set as a result was a pure triumph of Polish death metal. If the headliners had been anyone else, this would have stolen the show fucking blind. Simply incredible; you may commence kicking yourself if you like brutal death and missed this. The floor was similarly insane in their response to the band; it was during Decapitated's set that the dude in this pic got his tooth knocked loose, which he was showing off to the doods on the rail next to me after surfing over the front.

Between Decapitated and Necrophagist, I talked with the Rev, who was similarly overpowered by Decapitated's set -- but also concerned about how the hell he was going to get one of his better cameras over to his girlfriend to shoot Live Earth with; living together makes some equipment issues a little easier for two of New England's most prolific live-music photographers, but does occasionally exacerbate logistical problems caused by how throughly they do cover the region.

Necrophagist [7/7]
The Marco Minnemann Show [7/7]
In addition to being a kickass death metal set, this was also a thorough masterclass in extreme metal technique, arrangement, and songwriting. I saw it from about the 6th row, which is the place to see Necrophagist from, as further back you won't be able to see the hand action, and may not realize exactly what Muhammed, Sami, and Stefan are doing and how exactly it's so mind-blowing. Everyone who knows this band also knows that Muhammed is probably the most accomplished and significant Turco-German musician of his generation (if not of Turkish history in Germany), and most people are probably aware that they've recently enlisted Marco Minneman, who definitely ranks among the greatest living German drummers, but Muhammed's writing and arrangements would go for naught if Sami (guitar) and Stefan (bass) weren't stellar musicians in their own right and able to keep up, allowing the intricacies of the parts to stand forth and impress the pure hell out of the audience. There was some pit motion, but most of Necrophagist's set saw the larger part of the audience absolutely spellbound, watching and listening as the band ripped through cut after cut of stuff that can't be assessed but as light-years ahead of what's going on in the main line of death metal today, and at a level of composition that's rarely touched even by the best of the more technical bands. There was one section in which they moved seamlessly and flawlessly through four riffs in three different tempos and two different keys that was just absolutely stunning; it's difficult to pick out casually, but it's the little things like this that make the band relentlessly awesome.

Marco gets his own rating because he also got (kind of) his own set, in which he generated as much awesome as 3's percussion show with half the drummers. In this tour-de-force, he moved from jazz to funk to hip-hop to tribal to Japanese-traditional to death metal through a long share of technical showing-off with no interruptions or disjunctions, even despite two stick drops. It was about the most incredible performance I've ever seen out of a drummer, and the range of sounds that he could get out of his (admittedly non-traditional) kit was truly awe-inspiring. His abilities are fully tested by backing up up such a technically challenging band, but this solo showed not only his non-metal background and diverse influences, but how he weaves those back into a death metal context; how he contributes to the next Necrophagist record will be really interesting to see, and will likely make it a further and stronger step up from Epitaph.

Sadly, the building curfew kicked in and prevented an encore, though the whole building was screaming for it. It was barely past 11, but the lights went up and the roadies starting tearing down the kit. Oh well; Arsis may have been missed (they had to scratch most of the tour due to van issues), and a double-headliner of Arsis and Necrophagist would be a stupendous clash of tech-death titans, but the bands that remained delivered a kickass show to be sure, and produced enough slaughter last a long slice of the summer -- hopefully the next max-package (Sounds of the Underground) at this venue won't break down the coolness from here too much.

Fear Factory with Suffocation, Hypocrisy, and Decapitated [Worcester Palladium, 11/17/2006]

If you live with a reasonable drive of central New England and missed this show, your loss; front to back, this was one of the best gigs I can remember.


It was a good thing that I was uncertain when doors were (thanks, random RTTP poster with incorrect information!), as I ended up leaving for this show a few minutes after 5, and needed every minute of it to get down by doors, allowing me to get down right on the railing (not exactly front and center, but I had to get a beer to wash the stale hard taste of car-filtered air out of my mouth -- this was some hard driving from 128 onto the Pike). I wasn't hugely up for Decapitated, but it'd be cool to see them up close, and I would have no chance of getting a decent spot for Hypocrisy (well, without throwing elbows around like a dick) if I didn't. Fortunately, they didn't disappoint, and set the tone strongly for the underground portion of the bill to come.

Decapitated [6/7]:
As with practically every opening band at the Palladium, their sound was a little off, but they made the best of it and also turned the crowd around. The energy was a little low at first because it was only the real diehards who were down front, but it built steadily through the set thanks to an extremely solid performance. Some of this is probably due to the music; Decapitated's style is built around fairly avant-garde guitar leads, without a rhythm guitar to help the bass set up the riff structure, and this can be tough to get into live until you get a feel for how they're playing it tonight, and they didn't have quite the PA support for their ridiculous technicality that Suffocation did, which confused the music a little until the soundboard got them somewhat dialed in. The pit was fairly calm, but those of us who were up front were into it, and overall this was a kickass performance that should have been better. "Should have been better" solely because it should have been longer; they got barely half an hour, which is one of the leading arguments for the contention that I'm going to make at the end of this review.

Hypocrisy [7/7]:
This is what I came for, and Peter et al delivered more or less exactly as anticipated. Their sound was better than for Decapitated, but this may have been more of an artifact of style; Hypocrisy is strongly groove-oriented rather than focusing exclusively on technical fireworks, and this demands somewhat less out of the PA setup. Of course, I was in the fourth or fifth row (from the stagefront, I was right on the rail but spread out wide to the side stage right) and thus getting most of the sound straight out of the backline rather than from the PA, which was going mostly over my head, but still. The set was pretty much greatest-hits material (as listed below, no "Carved Up" or "Buried" and nothing off Fourth Dimension), but when you have only 45 minutes to distill a 15-year career into, you'd fucking better play greatest-hits, or your fans are going to throw eggs at the headliner's tour bus for screwing them out of their favorites, and they'll blame you. Still, of course, it was incredible; I mean, come on, it's fucking HYPOCRISY. I'm still hoping to see them at Wacken one of these years (probably this year or next given their history with the fest), but this was still a tremendous, tremendous experience.

Hypocrisy's setlist:
Fractured Millennium (surprised they didn't open with War Path, it's a badass opener as well as from the current record)
Adjusting The Sun (pit went bananas from the first riff)
Eraser
Osculum Obscenum (only pre-Abducted song)
War Path
Roswell-47 (lots of people singing on this one)
The Final Chapter (no idea why they didn't swap this and Knife, it's just about the best death metal set closer ever written)
Let The Knife Do The Talking (new song, so the crowd didn't wholly catch on to the "kill...kill...kill..." bit right away)

Suffocation [7/7]:
There were slightly fewer people down front for them as opposed to Hypocrisy, but this just meant more room for the pit. People were going balls-out; on a couple songs there were at least two independent pits going on, including at least one basically in the front row. I spent about a quarter of the set facing basically into the crowd, acting as a shock absorber to keep people from being thrown into the railing. Good times. Also, Suffo's sound was FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE, incredibly thick and sharp, probably the best and cleanest that I've heard live, and at least the best that I can remember. The band was really on their game, and Frank, pressed for time (again, same situation as Hypocrisy, they got about 45 minutes), at last kept his jabbering between songs down to a reasonable level. The only pick points on this one were that at the start, the bass was a little too loud and Terrance Hobbs' guitar wasn't really cutting through on his solos on my side (he was stage left most of the show), but they fixed this and gave Mike a little more power on his toms, and all was good. Actually, all was FUCKING INCREDIBLE, but that's what happens when you give a great band on a peak night great sound and an enthusiastic crowd.

During some of the more psycho parts, I and a few other people were helping prevent someone's kid brother -- looked like 11 or 12 -- from getting totally killed by the encroaching pit. There were a couple other kids in the floor crowd as well, which was cool, though unusual, as it really calls into question the sanity of the people who brought them in there. We don't need security standing on the stairs, next to a sign that says "You must be THIS tall to go on the floor", but for the sake of common sense, if you're gonna bring a kid onto the floor at a brutal show, GET THEM ON THE DAMN RAIL! From the first row, they can see the band without us six-foot, 250-pound behemoths in the way, and they additionally are in significantly less danger of getting seriously injured by someone breaking through the pit wall, or trampled accidentally by someone trying to keep the wall where it's supposed to be. By all means, bring your sprogs and younger siblings to the show, but don't put them in the middle of the floor until they've gotten their main growth spurt.

Funniest moment from Suffocation: Frank calls out shout-outs to the other bands on the bill. "All the way from Poland -- DECAPITATED!!!" The front of the house yells a lot. "Our good friends from Sweden -- HYPOCRISY!!!" The front of the house yells more and throws the horns a lot. "We are from Lon Giland Noo Yawk, and we are SUFFOCATION!!!" The front of the house yells a lot and throws the horns some more. "And coming up, FEAR FACTORY!!!" A giant roar goes up from the BACK of the house, and some people up front clap some.

Fear Factory [5.5/7]:
This ought to give the lie to any developing impression that national headliners automatically get great scores just for showing up. A seven is a seven is a seven, whether by a local band at a local show or an international legend headlining Wacken, and this set, despite being by a recognized band headlining a major club, would still have pulled a 5.5 whether it was delivered at O'Brien's or on the Party Stage. If I had to pick three words to describe this set, they would be "competent", "loud", and "boring"; some of this is probably lingering aftereffects of the underground portion of the bill, but seriously, Decapitated played a couple songs that were themselves more technically challenging than Fear Factory's entire set. Hell, HYPOCRISY played some songs that were more technical than Fear Factory's entire set, and they're hardly known for being bruisingly technical as a death metal band. Of course, music need not be technical to be good, but Fear Factory here was trying to play nontechnical music while still coming off as technical and brutal by virtue of pure volume. Unfortunately, they were too loud for the hall and crushed their actual sound, while still not managing to cover up the fact that Christian would go for minutes at a time without changing his fingering, just changing where on the neck his hand was. If I could actually be bothered to learn to play Fear Factory songs, even I could do that; emulating the other instrumentalists on this bill would require a significant talent transplant and approximately five thousand years of practice.

The pit was nice and turbulent for Fear Factory, but I wasn't in it, and there was precious little especially appealing about their set. It was well-executed, and the band was on their game, but the standard of execution here is necessarily lower because the songs are a lot easier to play. It was still a good performance, but it followed a long night of balls-out incredible performances by the nominal openers, and necessarily felt like somewhat of a letdown. This leads into the contention in the next paragraph, but first it must be mentioned that before going on, they played Iron Maiden's "The Number Of The Beast" in its entirety. Nu-metal is officially dead and buried; I thought they were going to just steal the Vincent Price intro, but no, they stole Iron Maiden's thunder and their complete whole classic to get the crowd up for them. I was singing along and lolling inside, much the same as the other undergrounders around me who had pulled up onto the carpeted area to give the FF fans the floor.

The core contention here is that Fear Factory maybe shouldn't have played this at all. Granted, I'm not sure that either Suffocation or Hypocrisy could have filled the Palladium on their own, and there isn't really a club between that and the Middle East in size for them to play in Massachusetts, but as far as Hypocrisy's catalog goes, there's a lot of stuff that just plain got left out, and the way Suffocation was just crushing along, they could have gone on for two hours and no one would have really cared. This was a kickass show, but it would have been flat incredible with one or two local openers, Decapitated getting 45 minutes, and Hypocrisy and Suffo coheadlining at about an hour each, flip a coin while the local guys are going on to decide who's closing the show. The lesson of course out of this is to PUMP UP THE FUCKING UNDERGROUND, so that a tour like this is economically viable. Continue supporting brutal music, and make sure the bands know that we want them to stay heavy, stay underground.

Even so, it's fairly admirable of Fear Factory to put together a package like this; it shows both their confidence in their own ability to control the attentions of their fans, to provide a good experience so that their people will still see them as a highlight even when they get technically shelled by the support, and their continuing commitment to the brutal underground, because no matter how much they try to call themselves "heavy alternative", it's still metal fans buying their albums. As Seth Putnam's said in the past, "face it, you're a metal band". Fear Factory are facing up to this, and also showing some integrity by paying back dues to the brutal bands who were around with them when they got their start. Good intentions didn't necessarily make their set any better, but they deserve credit for it all the same.


Working hard on the second book, which is going to be less metal but more brutal; next show is probably Blind Guardian due to family holiday commitments.