Six Feet Under, Cattle Decapitation, Wretched
Friday, November 2 at Kingdom
I got to this show a bit late, knowing there would be a handful of pay-to-play bands taking the stage before the three headlining acts.
Six Feet Under, Cattle Decapitation, Wretched
Friday, November 2 at Kingdom
I got to this show a bit late, knowing there would be a handful of pay-to-play bands taking the stage before the three headlining acts. As much as I want to support up-and-coming bands and give everyone a chance, I’ve experienced some pretty bad openers at shows like this before. Still, I was stoked on seeing Cattle Decapitation, a band I have always listened to and admired, and Six Feet Under, who are legends in the death metal scene.
As it was, I got there just in time to catch Wretched’s set. They put on a good show and seemed to have the energy and spunk of a newer metal band, but failed to excite in the area of originality. Their name is Wretched, they have a typical death metal logo, a typical death metal sound, a generic album cover, and all their songs are called things like “My Carrion” and “Fetal Consumption.” They powered through a decent set of fast-paced, groovy songs, but there were no moments that completely grabbed my attention or made me want to check out their recordings later
Next up was Cattle Decapitation, who have always been one of my favorite bands. Cattle Decapitation gained their reputation in the exploding metalcore scene in 2002 with their most popular album, To Serve Man. (For those who are too young to remember how big this stuff got, think the dubstep scene of the past two years.) Although Cattle Decap fit into the scene because of their low, screeching vocals, their blend of slow, groovy death metal with faster, more hardcore-influenced metal, and their political lyrics calling out the mistreatment of animals and the cruelty of humans; they always resented their place in this scene, rebelling against it with catch-phrases like “Gore Not Core” and “Blast-beats not Breakdowns.” In other words,they prefer the tongue-in-cheek sick humor of grindcore and death metal fans to the fashion aesthetics of the deathcore scene, and champion traditional fast music over the self-indulgent, slow breakdowns utilized by many of their contemporaries.
In 2012, it seems like Cattle Decapitation are running out of things to rebel against. The scene they were a part of a is long dead, having since been replaced by the rise of “bro-step” style dubstep artists like Skrillex and Deadmau5. They still have the “Gore Not Core” bumper stickers for sale, but they lack the witty punch they carried a few years ago. This, along with their lack of a consistent lineup (their drummer and bassist joined a few years ago and their lead guitarist joined the band in 2001, making Travis Ryan, the vocalist, the only original member of the group) [actually, even he is not an original member–he’s not on their first EP, Ten Torments Of The Damned–ed.], made for a somewhat sloppy and half-assed performance.
Many of the more complex riffs and faster drumbeats fell out of time with each other, and Ryan’s once-hilarious snarky frontman act seemed tired and overdone; he spent most of the night half-heartedly saying things about killing humans and constantly calling for more beers from the bar. The band recently came out with a music video that is so gory and horrific it was banned from YouTube, but hearing the song live without the video, it seems like they may have used this gimmick so that no one would pay attention to the generic nature of the music itself. This was also just one of the newer songs they played live, only playing a handful of the well-known tracks from their older albums. I have been a fan of their music for nine years now, and once ate french fries next to Travis Ryan when they played in my hometown, so it pains me to write this, but it seems like the guys may need to either tighten up their act and look for a new angle, or take a break to work on some other projects.
Finally, Six Feet Under, fronted by the legendary Chris Barnes, took the stage. Barnes was the original vocalist of Cannibal Corpse, one of the first and most famous death metal bands ever in the scene. He left Cannibal Corpse to form Six Feet Under, a sort of metal-legend supergroup of aging guys who smoke a lot of weed and play very slowly. They are more similar to stoner rock and sludge than most death metal, and have always been given somewhat of a free pass in the death metal scene due to their all-star lineup and their purposely kitschy humor. With the exception of a few major hiccups in their career (their second cover album, Graveyard Classics II, focuses only on AC/DC’s Back in Black), they have remained a respected and loved band throughout their lengthy career.
They started off the set with a Cannibal Corpse cover entitled “Stripped, Raped, and Strangled,” which took the audience by pleasant surprise and gave them a much-needed speedy start, as all of their original material is significantly slower. They then played a good mix of classic songs and newer material, and ended with another Cannibal Corpse cover, “Hammer Smashed Face.” Sure they were old, burnt out, and a little out of touch, and Chris Barnes isn’t really pulling off the whole balding-with-dreadlocks look, but the band is still fun to see live. Despite the fact that they’ve been around the block a few times, they still put on a good show. I left feeling content with their performance and filled with the warm glow that comes from seeing legendary musicians perform, even if I was somewhat disappointed by the rest of the night.
