Every night’s a new struggle, every day is the same… Not every day as Thursday night means deathcore night in Chinastraat, Ghent. Some of deathcore’s finest are coming together to bring mayhem!
Oi, piggy deathcore mate
Coming straight from Sydney, Australia the guys in To The Grave stormed the stage to present their newest album Everyone’s A Murderer. Vocalist Dane Evans was barely recognizable as he wore his pig mask all through the first song ‘DxE or Die‘.
From the first songs we knew this was going to be one hell of a deathcore night, filled with pig squeals and bleghs! ‘Burn Your Local Butcher‘ , a song that was made to state their stand against animal cruelty, was the perfect occasion for 2 stepping, ending in an epic pig squeal breakdown.
On the other hand, ‘Dead Wrong‘ is such a song that contains it all: metal riffs, 2 steps, clean vocals, pig squeals, deep growls, guitar solo… and just wait for that massive breakdown when Dane Evans utters the words “Everyone Dies”.
The hellish gutterals in ‘A Body For A Body‘ were out of this world! ‘Made In Aus‘ was the last song tonight for the Australian deathcore pigs. As you can see their setlist was all about presenting their newest album Everyone’s A Murderer which was only released end of the Summer. If not for the songs ‘Gaschamber P.T.‘ and ‘Eight Four One Six‘ we could say they played the album in full.
Setlist: DxE or Die – Vegan Day of Violence – Burn Your Local Butcher – Dead Wrong – Set Yourself on Fire (In Public) – A Body For A Body – Terrormilitary – Made in Aus
Danish CABAL: Even better than Danish pastry
Because Veil Of Maya decided to go on an hiatus for indefinite time (check the full post here), it was a challenge to find a band brave enough to fill in the gap: enter CABAL.
After the intro song the Danish deathcore band opened with ‘Exsanguination‘. They were off to a good start as you could feel the bass pumping in your chest. After the heavy bass it was nice to hear a change of pace in the rhythmic intro of ‘Exit Wound‘.
Off to a ‘Death March‘ with catchy riffs and everyone shouting “Death March! Death March!”.
Vocalist Andreas Bjulver got everyone’s attention as he announced the next song was going to be a brand new song which has not been released yet. Say no more… people got running in circles again, 2 stepping, moshing… This was true mayhem, someone better had called the ambulance!
Another song everyone was looking forward to tonight was their latest release ‘Still Cursed‘ and I can tell you, it did not disappoint!
Contrary to its name ‘Violent Ends‘ would suggest, it was not yet time to end the violence. The mosh pit proved its worth once again when Andreas shouted the words “When I look at you I don’t see a man in power. All I see is a fucking coward. You fucking coward!”. With the song ‘Magno Interitus‘ it was time for CABAL to say goodbye to their Belgian fans.
Setlist: Intro – Exsanguination – Exit Wound – Death March – (Unreleased song) – Bitter Friend – Still Cursed – Violent Ends – Magno Interitus
Varials: Angry music for happy people
Varials was the odd one on the line-up as their music has been influenced more by metalcore than deathcore. Nonetheless, they compensated big with an energetic and aggressive live performance!
They kicked off with an older heavy song ‘The New Damnation‘ which at the end seamlessly transitioned into ‘Empire Of Dirt‘. Moving on with a more recent song ‘.50‘ from their 2022 album Scars For You To Remember: ‘.50‘ which ended with a massive breakdown.
The mosh pit got really going strong on the song ‘Pain Again‘. Big shoutout to Mitchell Rogers on the backing vocals. Time to take it down a notch… The clean vocal parts in ‘Romance‘ sounded so pure it just gave me the chills. With the next song ‘South Of One‘ it was time to get things going again in the mosh pit.
Afer a short musical intermezzo, the Philadelphia heavy hitters concluded their set with 2 older songs ‘Anything To Numb‘ and ‘Stigmata‘ which got the fans losing their mind. Varials delivered an amazing set. Hope to see them on stage as headliner in the near future.
Setlist: The New Damnation – Empire of Dirt – .50 – Pain Again – In Darkness – Romance – South of One – Anything to Numb – Stigmata
Cesspool of filth, courtesy by SOTS
Finally, time for David Simonich and his band Signs of the Swarm to tear down this place.
As soon as the first notes on ‘Amongst the Low & Empty‘ were played the party got started, both on stage as in the mosh pit. For the next song ‘Tower of Torsos‘ David Simonich once again proved his exceptional vocal range. At some point it even felt like Satan himself was calling upon us.
‘Borrowed Time‘ was one of those songs that had more melody which at first didn’t sound like your typical Signs of the Swarm song. Big shoutout to bass player Carl Schulz for his clean singing vocals. The first lyrics of ‘Between Fire & Stone‘ in which David sings “Charred and bleeding. This is my throne. Forged between fire and stone. ” gave me goosebumps.
Just like To The Grave they also had a song that contained it all: ‘Shackles Like Talons‘. For this song the room got dark at some moments. You could see limbs flying, not knowing for sure when they were going to hit you.
“Where are my slamheads at?” with this question David announced that the next song ‘DREAMKILLER‘ was one for the slamheads! With the next song ‘Faces Without Names‘ they showed they could also include melody in their songs. As the fans probably noticed, Signs of the Swarm played their latest album Amongst The Low & Empty from front to back. But that was not enough…
As soon as David announced there was time for one last song , we all knew our prayers have been heard: The first lyrics “This is how blessings work” they unleashed their newest single ‘IWONTLETYOUDIE‘ , for the first time live on European soil!.
Setlist: Amongst the Low & Empty – Tower of Torsos – Pray for Death – Borrowed Time – Between Fire & Stone – Shackles Like Talons – DREAMKILLER – The Witch Beckons – Echelon – Faces Without Names – Malady – IWONTLETYOUDIE