CELEBRATING 35 YEARS OF CAUSE OF DEATH

When Cause Of Death clawed its way out of the Florida everglades over three decades ago, it rewrote the anatomy of death metal itself. Obituary’s sophomore release fused uncompromising brutality with groove, all wrapped up in a grotesque atmosphere that filled the air with a sound so thick you could choke on it. Now, 35 years later, the band has resurrected this rotting masterpiece, dragging it from the murky swamp it was birthed, reeking and alive, to corrupt a whole new generation of death metal fans.

SPIRITWORLD

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we missed Pest Control. We did, however, hear from those who did catch their set that it was tight, aggressive, and completely locked in, as one might expect from this young crossover/thrash band from the UK. If Thrash Zone era DRI mixed with the contemporary sounds of Municipal Waste is your thing, be sure to check these guys (and gal) out!

At first glance, pairing Spiritworld with Obituary might make little sense, but live, it grinds like wagon wheels over sun-choked bones lying in an unforgiving desert. Spiritworld’s blend of death metal, hardcore, and apocalyptic Western vibes feels like the logical extension of that violent blueprint Obituary helped create—only this time it comes with spurs, a six-slinger, and a demonic preacher’s snarl. Tonight, Spiritworld preached a gospel of metal etched in lead and stone: tight, ferocious, and steeped in a blood-soaked cowboy swagger. By the end, they had successfully whipped the crowd into a duststorm of chaos.

Setlist
‘Relic of Damnation’, ‘Waiting on the Reaper’, ‘Lujuria Satanica’, ‘Oblivion’, ‘Unholy Passages’, ‘Committee of Buzzards’, ‘No Vacancy in Heaven’, ‘Ulcer’

TERROR

Again, one would think that stacking up the hardcore punk of Terror with the death metal intensity of Obituary might seem like a stylistic curveball, but in practice, it’s a move that made perfect sense. Both bands are cut from the same cloth: pure extremity, zero gimmicks, and a deep-rooted respect for underground music. Tonight, the hardcore legends schooled the death metal faithful with a slew of songs born in the gutters and trenches of LA’s hardcore scene. Their gut-punch energy and ethos transformed the crowd into a sweat-slicked, teeth-clenched, pit-swinging beast. At the end of the day, Terror might speak a different language than Obituary, but the end goal is one and the same… to bring about the apocalypse, which they absolutely achieved!

Setlist
‘One With the Underdogs’, ‘Spit My Rage’, ‘Stick Tight’, ‘Boundless Contempt’, ‘Overcome’, ‘Pain Into Power’, ‘Always the Hard Way’, ‘Can’t Help but Hate’, ‘Keep Your Mouth Shut’, ‘Keepers of the Faith’

NAILS

Nails live is akin to a volley of grenades thrown from a bunker, flinging sonic shrapnel in every direction. This Californian four-piece exploded with twenty-five minutes of pure, unrelenting violence that left my soul feeling scorched and brain bleeding. To be honest, by this point, I was jonesing for some old-school death metal brutality. The ear-splitting cacophony of both Terror and Nails was certainly energizing, and Nails did a great job of ensuring the crowd’s necks were loosened up and pushed the venue’s roof one step closer to collapse from all the brutality. Still, I wish Obituary had thrown one other death metal band on this bill to compliment the low-tuned obliteration that was yet to come.

Setlist
‘Suffering Soul’, ‘Lacking the Ability to Process Empathy’, ‘Conform’, ‘Scum Will Rise’, ‘Violence Is Forever’, ‘God’s Cold Hands’, ‘Made to Make You Fail’, ‘Give Me the Painkiller’, ‘Wide Open Wound’, ‘I Will Not Follow’, ‘I Can’t Turn It Off’, ‘Endless Resistance’, ‘You Will Never Be One of Us’, ‘Unsilent Death’

OBITUARY

There is still something very primal about Cause of Death. Thirty-five years later, the album still crushes skulls like the day it was released (September 19th, 1990). It is truly a timeless piece of death metal art. So when the band exhumes this beast back onstage in full, it becomes both a history lesson and a crash course in simplistic, all-consuming Floridian brutality. For those of us who were there at the beginning, it’s like being caught in a death metal timewarp, except the riffs feel just as deadly now, if not more. For those just getting into death metal, the songs do an excellent job of showing the next wave of fans and bands exactly how it’s done. Sure, they’re ageing, but they are also still infecting (as the leadoff track ‘Infected’ implies). Cause Of Death remains a plague worth catching, both on the live front and in a killer set of headphones! The best way I can describe the entirety of the set is to give one specific example: when the medley of ‘Chopped In Half‘ and ‘Turned Inside Out’ hit, the pit stopped being your typical circle pit of bodies and turned into a fucking slaughterhouse. It wasn’t anything that resembled moshing anymore; it was a fight for survival, like someone let a chainsaw loose in a meat locker full of zombies. Boots and shoes jutted into the air, bodies slammed, and the air thickened with that sweat-blood-ass cocktail only a band like Obituary can summon!

Setlist
‘Redneck Stomp’, ‘Sentence Day’, ‘A Lesson in Vengeance’, ‘The Wrong Time’, ‘Infected’, ‘Body Bag’, ‘Dying’, ‘Cause of Death’, ‘Circle of the Tyrants (Celtic Frost cover)’, ‘Chopped in Half / Turned Inside Out’