Sepultura and Death Angel Launch Sonic Assault at The Studio

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Punters decked out in patched denim and band shirts packed into the Studio last night for a stellar lineup of thrash metal led by Sepultura and Death Angel. High expectations were met and exceeded!

I arrived in time to catch local openers Just One Fix who set the tone admirably. Their intense brand of thrash has a crunchy rock influence in the tone of the guitar and the swagger and swing of the riffs, offset by vocals harsh enough to veer toward death growls in parts. Lee Steele‘s fat-sounding bass was prominent in the mix, adding much more bounce than you tend to get with thrash. It was my first time seeing Just One Fix, but they’ve been around for 20 years or so, and it showed in the large, appreciative crowd of headbangers they drew. A rare sight for an opening act.

The stage was soon set for Death Angel, and they didn’t make us wait too long. Some bands you can tell something special is happening as soon as their first notes hit you, and Death Angel were something special indeed. Their music and personalities burst out over the crowd like a concussion! The shockwave visible in the spreading ripple of snapping necks. It only took the first song Father of Lies to establish that this was nothing but superb, world class thrash, and The Dream Calls for Blood just confirmed that with its fist pumping chorus (The Dream! Calls! For Blood!). It’s hard to pick stand outs from the musicians, they all excelled together as a unit; soaring vocals running over breakneck riffs; epic guitar solos and a thundering rhythm section.

It was old-school and pure, as they later introduced themselves: “We are Death Angel, we’re from the Bay Area California, and we play thrash metal!” That’s all you need to know about them, really. I wasn’t around to see Metallica or Exodus during the 80s, but having seen Death Angel I no longer feel completely left out of that legendary era. They were that good. They made a moshing, horn-throwing fan of me and the rest of the crowd, and for their part they looked truly touched by their reception. Singer Mark Osegueda poured love into the crowd repeatedly between songs. We were “a step in our dream coming true….you know as a kid on Christmas, and you’re so excited about getting the gift you want, and you get it, and it’s something even better? That’s how we feel, we are that kid right now.” We in the pit were all that kid too. Slapping each other’s backs, shoving about, making random eye contact and grinning manically. It was pure joyous energy! My favourite live experience of the year!

It was hard to think how Sepultura would top Death Angel after their show, and for me they didn’t quite manage to. That’s no slight on them, just a compliment to their show mates.  Sepultura’s show was still superb and well worth the ticket price alone. When Sepultura hit the stage with I Am the Enemy, the immediate standout for me was Eloy Casagrande on drums. Igor Cavalera’s legacy is a hell of a reputation to live up to, and Casagrande played- and to be fair, was mixed- like he had something to prove. The drums were an absolutely massive presence live, especially when the rolling tribal-influenced patterns on older songs Territory  and Desperate Cry came in.

Derrick Green was an energetic frontman, limiting himself to a few comments between songs but communicating physically during them, leaning over the crowd, air drumming, and bouncing his hands to the groove. Vocally he was more at ease with the material that had been written while he was a member, which better fit his hardcore-esque roar-and-scream style. Fair enough too- as guitarist Andreas Kisser lauded him. This year marks 20 years since Green joined Sepultura, so as much as old purists may hate to acknowledge it, he has as much a legacy with the band as Max Cavalera at this point.

However, there was one flaw with the set last night. Sepultura’s back catalogue encompasses many different genres, not all of which sit together that easily. Machine Messiah, title track from their latest album, was actually a damned good piece of slow building industrial menace, but it sits oddly alongside the defiant stomp of Refuse/Resist just two songs later.  Adding to that dynamic was the disconnect between an audience with a passion for the old thrash material, and a band who have a new lineup and 20 subsequent years of back catalogue they feel just as passionately for. The crowd was warm enough to the new stuff, but nothing compared to the absolute mania when the band busted out Arise. This was a small note of dissonance overall, almost a nitpick, and the band’s energy and tight performance carried us easily over the potential speedbumps.

Chants of “Sep-ul-TURA” carried them back onstage for a three song encore, capped off by Roots Bloody Roots. I felt that the Roots album always got a worse rap than it deserved, and it was gratifying to see fans apparently warmed to it in hindsight, judging by the cheers and exuberant mosh pit. Energy expended, we dispersed in a babble of high spirits after, the consensus that we had just witnessed a superb showing of international metal.

Cameron Miller

Click on an image to see a photo gallery by Reuben Raj

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