A monstrous momentous show rolled through Minneapolis’ Fillmore as The Black Dahlia Murder brought their Beg to Serve tour supporting new album Servitude through our lovely twin cities this past Sunday, and they brought an army of death metal madness with them to show out, including deathgrind extraordinaires Dying Fetus and Los Angeles Deathcore’s finest in Spite. The evening gave way to near constant headbanging and circle pits, right up until the very last minute as “Deathmask Divine” closed out its final notes.
Vomit Forth were the first act up – an up and coming death metal band out of Connecticut. Vocalist Kane Gelaznik set the tone for the evening to come, screaming “I’m making war up here <expletive>” as he made repeated demands for Minneapolis’ supply of moshers to circle harder. Their quick set featured a wide variety of breakneck-paced tremolo riffs and neck snapping breakdowns, closing out with a wall of death to the closing song. They’ve got a new album Terrified of God dropping very soon that is well worth checking out as this band made quite the impression in a concise amount of time!
Canadian deathcore legion AngelMaker took to the stage next, immediately demonstrating their mesmerizing vocal interplay between legacy vocalist Casey Tyrson-Pearce and newcomer Ian Bearer, who previously spent a long stint as the vocalist for Rings of Saturn. The interplay between these two feels rehearsed but its spastic nature reveals it to be organic, as Casey dips back into full-body screams and Ian counters it with a kneeling growl – this back and forth is constant and pervasive through, which is all the more shocking considering that the band has another 5 members up on stage backing them up, members who are never stationary. Casey got into the crowd for set closer “Leech”, supporting himself up by gripping the thrusting hands of the crowd as hard as he could and screaming his lungs out.
Spite are up third on the Beg to Serve mayhem extravaganza, and they wasted no time asserting themselves as the real aggressive masters that they are. The staccato riff of “Snap” leading into the breakdown mountain that is “Caved In” – off their latest Dedication to Flesh – is one of the most impressive openings to a band I’ve seen in some time. It’s usually pretty easy to keep a straight head in the pit despite the experience of it all, but nothing can say more about Spite’s excellence that I simply could not resist headbanging along in between trying to snap shots of Darius Tehrani turning into an animal before the eyes of everyone in Fillmore, seemingly allergic to staying still for even a moment as Alex Tehrani’s riffs brought the entire room down. An absolutely enormous set, one that would set a precedent for the bands before and the bands to follow.
Deathgrind’s Dying Fetus followed that tough act, and they knocked it out of the park. As a band that could probably be best described as “really knowing they way around a riff”, they came out and brought headbanging devastation that more than matched the three bands before them. John Gallagher’s intricate fretwork dazzles as Sean Beasley’s masterful basswork frits along under his higher end screams to contrast John’s throaty gurgles. In sum – a circle pit manifesting maelstrom of carnage, and one that works with ruthless efficiency as Dying Fetus ripped through 11 tracks in just shy of an hour, leaving devastation in their work.
The Black Dahlia Murder came on last to the opening symphonic notes of Servitude‘s opening track “Evening Ephemeral”, and from there it was just pretty much standard fare TBDM live – meaning one of the absolute highest energy, best and most flawless live shows around, and as well as strong a compliment as could be paid to the band as the precedent set for their performances has already been etched in stone by time. Even with the remainder of the Verminous tour in 2023 playing out with Eschbach in charge, there were still doubters out amongst the droves of the internet doubting that the band could resemble what they had before.
With Servitude’s recent release, and with the demonstration this past Sunday, there is not a single doubt in my mind that anyone could come away convinced that this band is not still the very best that American Death Metal has to offer. Eschbach’s stage presented as sort of a demented gravekeeper perfectly compliments the razor tight guitar work of Ryan Knight & Brandon Ellis, bolted solidly in place by Alan Cassidy’s best in class drumming. It is absolutely perfectly executed on every song, complimented even further by a new and improved production rig by their lighting director Evan Burke, saturated flashes of light neatly timed to each double bass hit to then fade into a flash of light – their performance is second to none.
Fans looking to get a look into their upcoming tour dates can expect pretty much all the usuals from them – “Statutory Ape”, “What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse”, “Nightbringers”, and of course the closing on “Deathmask Divine”, the trademark extended solo midway through the song still remaining one of the most effective metal displays I have ever seen and still good no matter how many times I’ve seen it.
