On Monday afternoon my buddy, Mike and I drove down to Chicago, Illinois to see legendary reunited death metal act, Pestilence. For me the band’s 1988 album, ‘Consuming Impulse’ remains as an absolute landmark within the death metal genre with its only competition being Morbid Angel’s, ‘Altars of Madness,’ but will save the best death metal ever rant for another time. While the two or so hour drive down to Chicago is a bit undesirable, this time it was actually worth it since all of the five bands that played were quite enjoyable.
This was also my first time visiting Reggie’s Rock Club. It’s not a very big place and it’s not exactly in the best neighborhood either, but I liked the place. It doubled up as both a bar & restaurant, so we were able to get some food and have a few drinks before the show started, which is always a nice thing. Both the bar/restaurant and the venue itself was appealing to look at with a bunch of crazy things on the wall, mostly sports memorabilia, but still interesting, I suppose. Also the sound was surprisingly good though the room for us the fans was somewhat limited and of course when the moshers started their crazy antics things became even more compact. I didn’t appreciate the guy that bumped into me while I was snapping photos either, but I suppose that’s the risk I take for lowering my guard. That aside though I liked the place and I’ll definitely visit this venue again if some interesting bands come to town.
Oh, and there was also a music store on the top floor of Reggie’s called, Record Breakers. It happened to be a rather big place with a huge selection of genres available, but the actual amount of metal releases was a bit less. Also the place was ridiculously overpriced; though strangle my friend found the Katatonia live album for $11. A rare find, I suppose, since I couldn’t find anything interesting except the $30 vinyls, which I wasn’t about to fork over, but, yeah, anyway on to the show.
Sacrificial Slaughter: Hitting the stage a little after 6PM was a band named, ‘Sacrificial Slaughter’ from Anaheim, California. These guys have been around for nearly ten years now and have two albums behind them, but this was the first time I’d ever heard their name. Anyway, they played a fairly standard form of death metal with some melodic hooks and plenty of energy to get the moshers going and the headbangers bangin’. All in all it was a good start for the evening, but like I said it was just standard and nothing that really provoked me to run over to the merch table and buy their album. Even so if I find them ever opening a show again I’ll definitely be on time to see them perform again since I enjoyed what I saw.
Enfold Darkness: Following Sacrificial was, ‘Enfold Darkness’ from Nashville, Tennessee. I actually caught Enfold Darkness live back in March when they were touring with Goatwhore, and while I’ll admit it was a good set, it wasn’t superb. It seems in the months since that show the band has been practicing a lot because what I heard tonight was much more convincing and overall quite good. Musically ED plays melodic death metal with some thrash characteristics as well as black metal style vocals. What I really liked about these guys is that they brought a lot of energy to the stage and it seems lead singer Justin was really able to get the crowd interested in what they were doing up there. There wasn’t any specific song that really stuck out or really grabbed my attention, but rather the whole set was just enjoyable thanks to the good amount of energy and the musicians ability to play interesting songs with cool riffs and killer solos. I guess I probably should have bought their album while I was there, but maybe next time.
Vital Remains: Next up was long running death metal act, Vital Remains from Providence, Rhode Island. I must admit VR are a band I’ve known about for a long time, but really didn’t get around to checking out until 2003 when Glen Benton from Deicide joined them as vocalist. Since ’08 Glen has parted ways with VR and returned to Deicide, but a new singer named Scott Wily joined a couple of years ago to replace him. I could be mistaken, but it seems like VR were the band that really stole the evening with their relentless and brutal death metal. I really can’t say if the band played a lot of new or old stuff, but all of it was quite enjoyable and I found myself headbanging a lot for this bands set. There was also quite a bit of fan participation with a few people hoping on stage and then diving off, even one guy who shared the mic with Scott for a few moments while the band was blasting through, ‘Dechristinize.’ All in all quite the death metal experience and between insane mosh pits, stage diving and plenty of headbanging, I can honestly say Vital Remains tore the place up. I’d have to suggest if you have any love for this band or just brutal death metal in general that you go see these guys. This is the real shit right here!
Warbringer: Finally it was time for Warbringer, and, well what can I say about this band that I haven’t already said? They basically are one of the best bands within the current new wave of thrash metal bands and this is no less than the fifth time I’ve seen them perform in the past three years. These guys have a song called, ‘The Road Warrior’ and they truly do live up to that name since it seems like in the past couple of years they’ve been doing nonstop touring around the world. However about midway through their set lead singer John announced that when the tour is finished they’ll be heading to the studio to start work on album number 3. I can’t wait.
Anyway, Warbringer’s set tonight was more or less the usual with songs like, ‘Total War,’ ‘Instruments of Torture,’ ‘Jackal,’ ‘Living in a Whirlwind’ and of course their usual set closer,’ Combat Shock.’ Towards the end a lot of people were shouting for a cover song, but instead they played, ‘Beneath the Waves,’ which was a great song to hear too. The odd thing about this show was it seemed like there was A LOT of teens at the show, which is mostly annoying especially since some of these kids had to be playing stupid little kissy games with their girlfriends, but that aside, I suppose it’s always good to see more youngsters getting possessed by metal. At any rate, another fantastic set from Warbringer.
Pestilence: At last, it was time for the band I came to see, the almighty, the amazing, the… the… Well, Pestilence really didn’t deliver and exciting performance like I had expected them too. Basically the problem was that lead singer/guitarist Patrick Mameli is absolutely the worst and most boring front man I think I’ve ever seen in my entire life. After each and every song he would talk to the crowd but it was so monotone and lacking emotion that it made me think that this guy wanted to be just about anywhere else in the world at that moment. Usually death metal vocalists will, ya know, yell and scream out song titles or ask us how were doing in some aggressive voice. But no, not Mr. Mameli tonight. His between song banter went something like this, ‘Hey… so, how you guys doing tonight? You happy to see Pestilence, huh, you happy to see Pestilence, huh? You want to hear a song from Consuming Impulse, huh, you want to hear a song from that album?’ Of course keep in mind once again he was completely monotone the whole way and with his heavy accent it made him seem even more uninterested in what was going on. It really wasn’t until the encore that he realized that yelling at us and trying to get us all pumped up was a good idea. Oh well.
Anyway, despite the lack of emotion the band actually performed quite well. They ripped through a bunch of new songs as well as some of the classic stuff from, ‘Consuming Impulse’ & ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ as well a few from other two albums though they didn’t seem to stand out as much as the stuff from the 80’s that I know so well. I have to admit though when they played songs like ‘The Process of Suffocation’ and ‘Dehydrated’ I lost myself for a moment and had to give into my insane headbanging desires just like everyone else there.
All in all this turned out to be an enjoyable evening and it was also cool checking out a new venue too. Of course I wish the guys in Pestilence could have displayed more emotion during their set, but I guess not everything is going to be perfect, nevertheless I enjoyed myself and had a great time.
To see the full-size versions of the photos I shot head on over HERE.
[Oh, and the guy that was on stage with Vital Remains. Please send me an email if you still want those photos. Thanks. luciferoverlondon@gmail.com]
Great post pal.
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