Kataklysm
Kataklysm is a band passing through slow transition from a speed-based past to a melodic present and they wear their history proudly on their sleeves. This Canadian band believes in all of the violent potential of death metal, their destructive lyrics emphasized by massiveness of lead singer Maurizio Iacono, who introduced one song by demanding that the surprisingly large crowd tell him exactly what [we] do with traitors. It was certainly an intense experience.The set list backing these calls to destruction demonstrated the breadth of the band’s sound, with plenty of time given to both the chaotic frenzy and Amon-Amarth-like riffing that characterizes much of Kataklysm’s music. What truly impressed me, however, was that the minimalist crunch of the band’s sound filled the space with the power of one guitar; given the almost assumed necessity of a twin guitar attack in modern metal, Kataklysm’s ability to make less equal more made their act very tough to follow.
See pictures of Kataklysm from this show.
DevilDriver
Kataklysm threw down the gauntlet; DevilDriver kinda failed to pick it up. The Los Angeles-based thrash/death/groove outfit started strong: a DJ from Sirius came out to warm out the crowd with a wild introduction that might have hyped the music a little too much. Not that DevilDriver couldn’t work out a solid groove, but half the time when I closed my eyes I felt like I was listening to Testament – and Alex Skolnick had, unfortunately, taken the day off. While singer Dez Fafara did a good job with the front man duties – keeping up the energy, berating the crowd, the usual stuff – the rest of the band had the bored rock star look down way too well. End result: a lackluster set that wasn’t good enough to thrill or bad enough to annoy.See pictures of DevilDriver from this show.
Unearth
By contrast, Unearth was the “I’m blown away” surprise of the night: five guys all absolutely determined to leave everything they had on the stage, in a performance that uniquely, frenetically energetic for even a punk-influenced genre like metalcore. Guitarists Buz McGrath and Ken Susi were whirlwinds of movement, running around stage, smacking into each other and singer Trevor Phipps, climbing up onto and jumping off the drum riser – all while playing – flailing around in their madness like snake charmers possessed by the metal gods. In fact, their energy was so over the top that I’m pretty sure the venue management asked them to tone it down: for a fifteen-minute interval in the middle of the set movement practically ceased, the ecstatic contortions reduced to limited gestures in set sections of the stage. It was a sad sight, like something was keeping Unearth from their true form of expression and I was glad to see the band warm again at the end.See pictures of Unearth from this show.
Dimmu Borgir
At last, the soul-cleansing evil could begin. Dimmu Borgir is a band whose stage show drips with theatricality and they take every possible symbolic gesture to the hilt. Lights patterned in the standard metal blood reds and gangrenous greens when singer Shagrath’s shrieks and growls dominated the microphone switched to blinding angelic white when bassist ICS Vortex sang the clean vocals. Corpse paint and body armor, leather and pentagrams were the clothing of choice, while behind the massive cover image from In Sorte Diaboli loomed like an ominous omen. The band, hiding the stage behind a thick, black curtain to start the show, opened the set with a three-minute orchestral intro tape.All of the theatricality doesn’t mean the band didn’t know how to rock: there were plenty of opportunities to bang your head to both new and old tracks and more than enough opportunity to let the sheer blackness flow over you in a dark wave. However, Dimmu Borgir’s infatuation with their own sense of the dramatic was sometimes too over-the-top for the good of the show: moments started to drag and there were a few times where I wished the band would get on with the music. In the end though, while it made for an experience that did not quite meet expectations, I still had a lot of fun seeing these guys play.
