Live Review: Cannibal Corpse, Dark Funeral, Ingested and Stormruler | Rock City Nottingham | 23/04/2023
It’s a Sunday night in Nottingham, the thirty eighth and final show in this extended trek across Europe for Death Metal icons Cannibal Corpse. Bringing a stacked bill of supports with them; Dark Funeral, Ingested and Stormruler bring a night of full force intensity of the best in extreme metal to a celebratory final night in Rock City.
Stormruler
Taking to the stage rather early at 6:30pm, only half an hour after doors, a healthy and excited crowd has gathered to see St Louis, Missouri based melodic black metal newcomers Stormruler open tonight’s show. For a band who are still fairly young as a live unit, forming in 2019 and releasing their first two albums in 2021 and 2022 respectively, the band convey the impression they’ve been playing together for decades, however this is Stormruler’s first ever run of shows outside of North America. Blending catchy, melodic hooks and guitar solo’s with their penchant for traditional relentless Black Metal, the band tear through their thirty minute set. Due to the long form nature of most of their songs, choice cuts are taken from both their albums, even throwing in a cheeky cover of Dissection’s ‘Where Dead Angels Lie’, featuring Dark Funeral drummer Jalomaah gleefully supplying the vocals for a total of five tracks. Stormruler clearly have a bright future ahead of them and set the right atmosphere for the night ahead.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn (@synthesizephoto)
Score: 7/10
Ingested
Being the only band on tonight’s bill hailing from the UK, Manchester’s slamming deathcore veterans Ingested are greeted to a ‘hometown heroes’ feeling welcome from the eagerly anticipatory audience. From the opening blast beats of ‘Rebirth’, from 2022’s Ashes Lie Still, frontman Jason Evans has the crowd in the palm of his hand for the entirety of their thirty-five minute set. Joking that “since it’s the last night of the tour, I’ve been let off my leash”, inciting chaos, encouraging larger and more expansive circle pits and drumming up as many walls of death as possible, the crowd are eating it all up with fervent enthusiasm. Ingested choose to stick to their more modern offerings, the set’s focus is on the aforementioned Ashes Lie Still and 2020’s Where Only Gods May Tread for five of the seven tracks, throwing in fan favourites ‘I, Despoiler’ and ‘Invidious’, from 2014’s The Architect of Extinction and 2018’s The Level Above Human respectively. Ingested make their face-melting technical chops look effortless, grinding away for years to perfect their performances and tonight really shows that. They are clearly one of the best live acts going in the UK’s extreme underground, fully deserving of not only this support slot, but any future opportunities that push the band further up the ladder.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn (@synthesizephoto)
Score: 9/10
Dark Funeral
It would be pretty easy to argue that a large portion of the crowd are here tonight to see Swedish second-wave black metal legends Dark Funeral. This is not to diminish the headliners draw or impact, but as a band Dark Funeral are only five years younger than tonight’s headliners and have a similar underground mystique and legend status about them. With almost an hour to fill, the opening notes of ’Nosferatu’, from 2022’s We Are The Apocalypse, sets the stage wonderfully with its anthemic and atmospheric opening lending itself perfectly to the start of the set before proceeding into the classic, raw and punishing second wave sound. Immediately following with Diabolis Interium opening track ‘The Arrival Of Satan’s Empire’, much like Ingested before them, Dark Funeral are not a band that dwells too heavily on their classic material tonight, keeping focus on their 2016 ‘comeback album’, Where Shadows Forever Reign and supporting their aforementioned recent offering.
‘…Satan’s Empire’ makes up a trio of classic tracks, ‘My Funeral’ of 2009’s Angelus Exuro Pro Eternus and the title track of the bands 1996 debut The Secrets of the Black Arts to the delight of the receptive crowd before shifting focus back to We Are The Apocalypse with the sombre atmospherics of ‘When I’m Gone’. The band are done more typical black metal garb and simplistic corpse paint, while vocalist Heljarmadr has an incredibly commanding presence, almost as if he is an envoy of Satan himself and the rest of the band are there to help with the conjuration of their dark lord. It isn’t all doom and gloom black metal seriousness, there is a light tongue in cheek atmosphere with some playful banter with the crowd and large calls for every to join in a ‘HAIL SATAN’ chant. Dark Funeral’s individual performances themselves are spectacular, their caliber and years dedicated as performers and musicians shining through immensely, particularly with the incredible quality and detail of tonight’s sound. Lord Ahriman and Chad Mol’s interplay between one another on the guitars work wonders, each getting various moments to shine. The rhythm section of bassist Adra-Melek and previously mentioned drummer Jalomaar are tight and technical as ever, holding the band together through their oppressive and ferocious atmospheres. Closing the set with the double header of the solemn and melodic ‘Let The Devil In’ and the uncompromising 2016 title track ‘Where Shadows Forever Reign’, Dark Funeral prove their legacy and stature is well warranted as they put on an excellent, engaging setlist for their Black Metal fans and blending enough intensity with the atmospherics to win some of the death metal persuasion as well.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn (@synthesizephoto)
Score: 8/10
Cannibal Corpse
What’s left to say about death metal royalty Cannibal Corpse? The band have been going for about thirty-five years now and are rightfully considered legends, with their high brutality music and chaotic live shows. There is a burgeoning atmosphere before the band even make it to the stage, hot pink lights are set onto disco balls and its clear that the band and the audience are all here for nothing but a good time. Making their first return trip to Europe and the UK since 2018, there is definitely a feeling of celebration in the air, helped significantly with the knowledge the band are letting loose for their thirty eighth and final show of an extended European run.
Tonight’s show isn’t sold out, but it is so close to capacity it might as well be as the floor is packed with fans hungrily awaiting the band’s arrival. From the opening notes of ‘Scourge Of Iron’, the crowd is whipped into a frenzy. The floor looks like a bar fight, limbs are flying in the pit, pints are sailing through the air showering everyone in booze. The crowd looks fluid like an ocean as it sways across the floor and crowd surfers are launched into the air; security have their work cut out for them as they call for any and all additional staff to the barrier to help. It’s non-stop for ninety minutes straight, a mass of bodies and carnage in motion, this intensity from the crowd only slows for the brief moments between songs where George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher regularly teases and jokes with them when introducing the upcoming tracks. Corpsegrinder gets a little payback a few songs in though, he’s surprised by the boys in Dark Funeral joining them onstage to throw out balloons and streamers, detonating confetti cannons and at one point bringing out a Fleshlight to mime vocals into, much to the delight of the audience. As dark and intense as the musical and lyrical themes can be, there is a silly side to it all and genuinely feels like a twisted party.
Cannibal Corpse are masters of their craft, having spent well over a month playing these songs, you might expect the last few shows to be lacking enthusiasm but that couldn’t be further from reality. Corpsegrinder spends the majority of his time onstage showcasing his inhuman ability to near-constantly headbang and windmill his hair between his guttural vocal talents (at one point even challenging the audience to match him and mocking them relentlessly when they fail to keep up). Drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz makes his high endurance rhythmic patterns look like child’s play as he effortlessly reigns over his kit. Guitarists Rob Barrett and Erik Rutan, as well as Bassist Alex Webster‘s hands are near a blur, constantly focussed on the unyielding, blistering speed of their riffs.
This is technically a tour finally in support of their latest album, 2021’s Violence Unimagined, however this more so feels like a true ‘Greatest Hits’ set for the band. With only three tracks off the 2021 release, the band touch on almost every album in their back catalogue, the only exceptions being 1998’s Gallery of Suicide and 2002’s Gore Obsessed. Otherwise each album is at the very least represented by its prominent single or most popular track, if not a handful, for a truly career spanning setlist. More modern cuts such as ‘Code Of The Slashers’, ‘Kill Or Become’ and ‘Inhumane Harvest’ are weaved expertly between cult classics like ‘Gutted’, ‘A Skull Full Of Maggots’ and ‘I Cum Blood’, all eighteen songs receiving nothing but excitement and enthusiasm from the crowd.
It is worth mentioning at this point just how strong the sound has been all evening; all of the support bands had an excellent presence and were mixed spectacularly, however Cannibal Corpse were something else entirely. The fidelity of their sound blasting through the PA was mesmerising, everything sounded clean, polished and expertly balanced. There was some polite stereo spread going on as well, just enough to give the sound that appropriate wider, encapsulating atmosphere without detriment to audiences on the opposing sides of the room. It didn’t just feel like you were watching the band on stage, it felt as though you were fully enveloped within their sound stage. Rock City is a Nottingham institution, long-established as a venue having been open for well over forty years now, and on nights like tonight it’s easy to see why they have ‘The UK’s Best Live Venue & Club’ plastered out front.
The band’s ninety minute headline slot sails by, its hard to believe that much time has passed as Corpsegrinder takes the time to thank the band, the supports, all the crew members and of course the audience in attendance. Dedicating what is seemingly their final song, ‘Stripped, Raped and Strangled’ of 1994’s The Bleeding, to recently passed and former The Black Dahlia Murder frontman Trevor Strnad as well as the rest of the band who were students and fans of Cannibal Corpse for a touching tribute. They were only joking about the final song though, as no set would be complete without the 1992 classic ‘Hammer Smashed Face’. Fists pump in the air in time with the opening beats, before the bass bridge brings the full force intensity of the pit raging for last time tonight.
This is everything anyone could have wanted or expected from a Cannibal Corpse set after such a long absence from the UK. The band are arguably in the best state they have ever been, both in terms of their performance and their sonic presentation in a live environment. The lengthy near five year wait was worth every single second as tonight proves that the extreme metal is as alive and healthy as it ever has been.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn (@synthesizephoto)
Score: 10/10