Dubbed “the most extreme tour of the year”, The Summer Slaughter Tour began on the northern side of the west coast working its way across North America in a month long run. Headlined by death metal legends Morbid Angel, an army of talented extreme metal bands aligned for the final four nights of the tour with a stop in New York City on Friday August 8th at Irving Plaza. With ten billed bands scheduled to play, it was a show ready to rattle the city that never sleeps in an enormous way.
Kicking the night off was Michigan based progressive death metal band Boreworm. Winning the “Headbang For The Highway” National Competition in order to join The Summer Slaughter Tour, the band has won over a large amount of fans over the past month with aggressive and intricate metal outputs. Check out their new Black Path EP.
Next up was Californian band Fallujah. Recently releasing their sophomore album The Flesh Prevails to positive reviews, they not only prove to be worthy musicians on The Summer Slaughter, but brought with them a growing following. Having a solid base in the big apple, tons of crowd surfers soon began raining two songs into their set. Performing a balance of new and old material in their time on stage, Fallujah kept the momentum going.
Rolling out more aggression, Massachusetts’ Within the Ruins brought new material to the table with their fourth studio album Phenomena. Their devout followers made themselves know right away, starting the first mosh pit of the evening. Exhibiting a slightly different style than other bands scheduled to perform; Within the Ruins was the perfect jolt of diversity and made their presence known during their forty minute thrashing.
Soon after, Santa Cruz, CA band Decrepit Birth brought an onslaught of brutal death metal to the stage. Having not released a new album since 2010’s Polarity, their hungry fan base awaits new material patiently. In the meantime, as soon as they began with “Metatron” pits broke out and only became more intensified with other songs to follow such as “A Gathering of Imaginations”. Joined by crowd surfers, it was chaos for the length of the Decrepit Birth’s technical metal beatdown.
Continuing the path of destruction was Origin from the heartland of the US. Beginning with “Expulsion of Fury”, lead vocalist Paul Ryan pleaded for crowd surfing and moshing to keep the fire burning. Answering the call with an overwhelming response, the pits opened up to their largest point of the night as the band played through concluding with “Unattainable Zero”. Their newest album Omnipresent is out now.
From the southern land of Voodoo, Goatwhore was up next. The amazing amalgam their music is of black, death, and heavy metal is always such a great display of what metal can be when not given the limitations of just one sub genre. Bringing on new material from their recently released Constricting Rage of the Merciless including “Poisonous Existence in Reawakening” and “Baring Teeth for Revolt”, they also mixed in older material in “Alchemy of the Black Sun” and “Apocalyptic Havoc”. Satisfying their rabid fans who screamed and head banged along with them, the moshing was nothing short of ardent and proves Goatwhore is a force to be reckoned with.
Adding an international flavor to The Summer Slaughter Tour all the way from Australia was Thy Art is Murder. Mixing core and death metal textures, the band has garnished much attention over the years. Though they had toured the US a few months back, their return to NYC had everyone pumped up as they kicked off the set with “Defective Breed”. Thrusting onto to the microphone with a firm grip, vocalist CJ McMahon belted out a violent assault of words that shook the floor. Playing on with other songs like “Dead Sun” and closer “Reign of Darkness”, Thy Art is Murder completely dominated Irving Plaza.
Continuing on, Los Angeles, CA’s The Faceless were ready to go. With technical death metal roots, their progressive take has earned them a hearty, stable allegiance of fans. Coming off a successful run with Between the Buried and Me last fall, the buzz around this band is larger than ever. Still following the success of their 2012 album Autotheism, they awed the crowd with a dazzling display of instrumentation. Unleashing songs like “Accelerated Evolution”, “Hymn of Sanity”, among others; their performance was flawless and inspiring at the same time. This was certainly a fitting journey into a different world of metal that everyone enjoyed.
Bringing on rage, Maryland based Dying Fetus had the audience’s blood boiling. After their headlining tour last year with Exhumed, the slam legends were welcomed in their return to NYC. Wasting no time, they delivered nothing but head trauma inducing waves of metal through the venue with songs like “One Shot, One Kill” and “From Womb to Waste”. Showing nothing compares to the brutality of Dying Fetus, they closed with “Praise the Lord (Opium of the Masses)” nearly rupturing the eardrums of all in attendance.
With the walls of Irving Plaza practically dripping sweat, exhaustion was not an option as it was time for one of the forefathers of death metal in Morbid Angel. With the highly regarded 2013 tour in honor of the twentieth anniversary of Covenant, fans came back out in droves to bear witness to this force of metal nature once again.
Setting the bar high with opener “Immortal Rites”, the rest of the set answered the call with an array of powerful and classic Morbid Angel tunes. Clearly excited to be back in NYC, Vincent and company provided enough punch to have everyone’s full attention from start to finish. Playing songs such as “Fall of Grace”, “Day of Suffering”, and newer piece “Ageless, Still I Am” left for no dull moments in this death metal exhibition.
Concluding the fourteen song performance with “World of Shit (The Promised Land)” and fan adored track “God of Emptiness”, Morbid Angel had every single voice screaming in appreciation. In their thirteenth year as a band, that through ups and downs and lineup changes, they proved their talents are still stronger than ever. They certainly were the icing on the cake for the night and long-time fans, as well as newer generation metalheads, rejoiced in their appearance; confirming Morbid Angel will forever be a force that helped establish and cement the foundations of the genre.
No comment