Australian tours have been a rare occurrence for Cannibal Corpse during their 24 year existence. They spent a good portion of their career banned from even coming to these shores due to the fact that ARIA deemed them “potentially offensive” in 1995 and didn’t lift the ban until 2006. Even since then the Floridian kings of death metal have only toured twice; once in 2007 and again in 2009, so it’s no surprise that this year’s Australian tour in support of their latest LP Torture has seen pretty much every venue sell out.
It’s a packed out crowd of rabid Cannibal Corpse fans at the sizeable Billboard, and the atmosphere is electric as the eager hoards of denim and leather clad brutes await to have their ear drums pummelled by the undisputed masters of the unholy genre known as death metal.
Tasmanian technicians Psycroptic get the crowd warmed up with a blinding set played with boundless energy, technical prowess and the precise execution of brutality of a razor sharp axe to the head. Psycroptic’s modern and technical style of death metal does showcase the sheer range of sounds under the blanket of extreme metal, as well as proving how far the genre has come, but it’s clear as soon as Cannibal Corpse take to the stage that you can’t beat some good ol’ meat’n’potatoes brutality. It’s death metal played the old fashioned way, and it’s what Cannibal Corpse do best.
It’s absolutely terrifying how heavy these boys are when they are on their best form, and they are close to perfection tonight, pummelling out slab after slab of bone crushing, ear bleeding heaviness. Vocalist George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher cuts an imposing figure on the stage, the man mountain that he is. His neck alone is probably as thick as the average man’s thigh, and you can see why as he windmills his hair in time with the frantic blast beats provided by Paul Mazukiewicz.
The tracks from Torture such as Demented Aggression and Encased In Concrete sound even heavier live than they do on record, but it’s the old classics like Fucked With A Knife, the gloriously grim I Cum Blood and of course Stripped, Raped And Strangled that really get the pit swirling in a heaving mass of limbs, sweat and hair, and leave the crowd aurally demoralised by the end of their 90-minute set.
BY ADAM ROBERTSHAW
LOVED: Being aurally demoralised.
HATED: The severe neck ache the next morning.
DRANK: Beer and Jäger.
