Taya Llewellyn
February 12, 2025| Harry Shiels |LIVE REVIEW
Live Review: Cattle Decapitation, Shadow Of Intent, Revocation and Vulvodynia | O2 Institute, Birmingham | 28/01/2025
Cattle Decapitation and Shadow Of Intent join forces for a co-headline tour showcasing their particular brands of extreme intensity. Joined by Boston’s technical death metal stalwarts Revocation and South African deathcore unit Vulvodynia for a night of brutal music in the home of metal.
Vulvodynia
It’s a Tuesday night in January, it’s not even gone 7pm yet, but already modern deathcore icons Vulvodynia are whipping up a cyclone on the floor of the o2 Institute, and it’s only their opening song. Admittedly, their 2016 title track ‘Psychosadist Design’ makes for one hell of an opening move, especially when paired with fan favourite ‘King Emesis’. Granted, the band were only just here last year playing with Manchester slam progenitors Ingested, yet it’s quite easy to see why they’ve stuck in the locals memories. They suffer somewhat as the mix is a little all over the place as they start the night. Fortunately, getting better as they went on though and sounding suitably oppressive when they fire on all cylinders. Vocalist Lwandile Prusent had the audience in the palm of his hand for the entire set, encouraging mayhem to go alongside the band’s molten hot penchant for technical brutality and punishing breakdown beatings. Closing the set with ‘Unparalleled Insubordination’ leaving a powerful impression of how unhinged the rest of the night is going to be.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn
Vulvodynia
Revocation
Using the artwork for their most recent album, 2022’s Netherheaven, it makes for an imposing backdrop as Revocation take to the stage. Wasting little time and kicking off proceedings with the vicious ‘Diabolical Majesty’ then tearing through other big hitters from the record, ‘Godforsaken’ and bringing ‘Nihilistic Violence’ to the table later in the set. It is going over a treat for the Birmingham devotees, so much so that lead vocalist and guitarist (and best name in the game) David Davidson himself can feel it. Addressing the crowd and acknowledging, “the fucking energy in this room is palpable tonight”. Frankly, that feels like an understatement in and of itself, they’re on phenomenal form. Sounding unbelievable in the old theatre space, Revocation take command of the stage and room. Whether near album quality displays of classic tracks like ‘Teratogenesis’ and ‘Scorched Earth Policy’, or when they take the time to show off a new track, ’Confines of Infinity’, everything goes down a storm. The set flies by, a blur of death metal madness, arriving at the finale and a double helping from 2018’s The Outer Ones; ‘That Which Consumes All Things’ taking the crowd to a fever pitch before the title track and the mammoth breakdown at the end sends necks wringing with unbridled violence. Technically flawless and commanding their live environment like respected veterans, when all is said and done, Revocation leave the room pleading for more after their forty-five minute show stealing set. Put bluntly, this band fucking rips.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn
Shadow Of Intent
Seeing an act like Shadow Of Intent co-headlining mid-size academy venues on their second ever tour of the UK, just over ten years into their career, is a prime showcase of the resurgence in popularity of modern deathcore. Whilst not quite the status of genre leaders Lorna Shore, the Halo lore nerds find themselves as a notable standout among their contemporaries like Enterprise Earth and Signs of the Swarm. The band get off to a hot start with their particular symphonic tinged brand of brutality. Taking their positions in the heavy haze and vibrant lighting as the intro passage of ‘We Descend…’ stirs and breaks into deathcore punishment, bombarding the pits with oppressive synchronised strobes and grandiose instrumental beatings. Moving straight into the orchestral intricacies of ‘The Horror Within’, a double helping from their breakthrough 2017 album Reclaimer to get the crowd riled up. Setting them up for an hour of strobes, symphonic beatdowns, technical brutality and soul shattering guttural vocals.
Vocalist Ben Duerr is a monster as he commands the larger space, levelling the audience with primal guttural roars and fast paced rhythmic spitting, yielding a magnetic presence from the frontman. It’s clear from the opening moments of their set through to the final notes that an equal amount of the crowd tonight are excited for each of tonight’s headliners. The Brummies are going absolutely ape shit for Shadow Of Intent, the sea of humanity on the floor only stopping to part for a regular wall of death or take a moment to breathe when the band does. Elegy’s lead single ‘Intensified Genocide’ kicks the set into overdrive and gives way to recent non-album singles, 2023’s inquisitive pulveriser ‘The Migrant’ and 2024’s blackened apocalyptic anthem ‘Flying The Black Flag’.
It’s a master crafted setlist, weaving through the band’s back catalogue for choice cuts and fan favourites. Another standout technical anthem lands in the form of ‘The Heretic Prevails’, dramatically crashing into the sombre and tragic horror of ‘Melancholy’. Never slowing down; OSDM and thrash inspired ‘Blood in the Sands of Time’, stirs one of the bigger circle pits of the night followed by ‘Barren and Breathless Macrocosm’ which threatens to tear the room asunder.
Whilst Duerr’s vocals sound gargantuan live, the drumming from Bryce Butler is impeccable, Chris Wiseman’s technical insanity on the guitar and most of the band’s samples seem to be balanced quite nicely, there is a clear problem with the low end, namely the bass and bass drop samples. The bass samples are very loud and regularly try to swallow the rest of the low end noticeably for their hour-long set.
A welcome breather in the form of an extended drum solo takes Shadow Of Intent into the final stretch of their tracklist. Duerr takes a moment to thank the fans for their enthusiastic dedication at what is only the band’s second ever show in the home of metal. Immediately dropping ‘The Battle of the Maginot Sphere’ from their debut as thanks is lapped by the crowd in rabid fashion. Bringing their set to the end with a double dose of album closers, ‘Malediction’ from Melancholy and ‘The Tartarus Impalement’ from Reclaimer is a genius move, building the dramatic tension to unprecedented levels. The latter especially at almost eight minutes long, stuffed with elaborate guitar melodies and expert sonic tensity. Leaving the audience breathless, Shadow Of Intent are a sight to behold in the flesh. The mix issues are unfortunate when they otherwise manage to put on a show that proves deathcore absolutely has a place at the table for the conversation of larger heavy music acts. For them the only way is up, that is a certain truth.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn
Cattle Decapitation
You’d be forgiven for thinking that after Shadow Of Intent almost brought the roof down that the show was over. You’d be dead wrong. With the animorph’d hell creature also known as the Terrasite now looming large over the stage, it is time for extreme metal royalty in Cattle Decapitation. Having levelled the UK last year on their lengthy European excursion, it is safe to say there is a lot of excitement in the room for the technical death metal icons, even well over 20 years into their storied career. Immediately drawing the opening track from their masterpiece 2012 album Monolith of Inhumanity, tonight’s set starts as it means to go on with the savage majesty of ‘The Carbon Stampede’. Swiftly hopping to ‘The Prophets Of Loss’ from The Anthropocene Extinction keeps the performative intensity at a fever pitch in the band’s opening run.
Despite continuing to draw from the same well of their four ‘modern classics’ as their tour last year, (Monolith of Inhumanity [2012], The Anthropocene Extinction 2015], Death Atlas [2019] and Terrasite [2023]) for the most part there is a completely fresh shake up on cuts on display with only three holdovers; lead singles from recent Terrasite ‘We Eat Our Young’ and ‘Scourge of the Offspring’ alongside Death Atlas’ ‘Bring Back the Plague’. Not that those three tracks are anything to scoff at either, as they are well established fan favourites as standout singles from their respective albums. Conveniently, the massive singles all follow each other tonight. ‘We Eat Our Young’ and ‘Scourge Of The Offspring’ are next for the ever hungry Birmingham crowd, receiving huge ovations and scream-alongs in their chorus’, the strangely prophetic ‘Bring Back the Plague’ is still a fan favourite among the band’s recent works and encourages unstoppable cathartic chaos in the pits.
Cattle Decapitation’s pace as a live unit is deceptive, relentless, and at times almost asphyxiating from the unceasing extremity. Their set is a road-tested thing of beauty, using plenty of timed and themed interludes to give them a much-needed breather. Thankfully, moments like using a spoken word prelude and a ‘David Attenborough Segue’ to introduce tracks from Terrasite allow a second to let your heart-rate calm, if only for a moment. Similarly, following the tracklist of Death Atlas to have ‘The Great Dying’ interlude run straight into the ferocious palm-muted stomp of ‘One Day Closer to the End of the World’ is a magnificent touch live.
Cattle Decapitation have a reputation as being one of the best in the game, and tonight is no exception. Frontman Travis Ryan is inhuman, hitting his complex vocal patterns and delivery flawlessly, whilst simultaneously goading the crowd into giving him every ounce of energy they possess. Bassist Oliver Pinard and drummer Dave McGraw are locked in tight, keeping the unstoppable pace for guitarists Josh Elmore and Belisario Dimuzio to shred the maniacal extreme metal riffs and hooks with impeccable accuracy. The production is equally technical, with non-stop lighting patterns and strobes matching the dynamic rhythmic shifts beat for beat, their visual and sonic presentation is flawless.
Fellow Terrasite single ‘Solastalgia’ delivers a slab of melodic tech-death with a chest-pounding chorus, a thousand extreme metal fans screaming “What the fuck did we think we could prove?” at the top of their lungs is an enthralling sight. Nothing tops the experience of Ryan’s gleeful and frenzied introduction to Monolith of Inhumanity fan-favourite, howling ‘Forced Gender Reassignment’ with a guttural screech, received by the audience with ecstatic cheers. This leads to waves of crowd surfers going over the barrier and some of the most ludicrous mosh-pits of the entire evening. This deep into a night of uncompromising ferociousness, you’d be forgiven if you notice a dribble of brain matter leaking from your ears from the sheer force of the irrepressible auditory hammering. It isn’t quite over yet, there is one flag left to plant in each of the four albums.
There is something strangely comforting about hearing the dulcet tones of David Attenborough in an interlude before a further Terrasitic assault from ‘Dead End Residents’, arguably the album’s most relentless punishment and with hooks that drag the bruisers in the crowd to their knees. Monolith pushes the nihilism further with a crushing rendition of ‘A Living, Breathing Piece of Defecating Meat’, another strange yet infectious crowd chant-along in the chorus between the gnarled high tempo technicality. The churning shift as Anthropocene’s ‘Plagueborn’ starts does nothing to lessen the stamina moving on the floor. The epic grandeur at a slightly lower pace still drives the pits towards a wild crescendo landing in the form of title track and album closer ‘Death Atlas’. Which has all the ferocity, technicality, anthemic spirit and simultaneously feels not only a fitting conclusion to another legendary set, but damn near feels like the end of the world as we know it. If you’re a fan of extreme metal in general, and you’ve somehow never found the time to see Cattle Decapitation, do yourself a favour and rectify that as soon as possible. Critical standouts for a reason, the band are seemingly incapable of putting on a bad show.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn
