Thy Art Is Murder, Signal TheFiring Squad, The Ailment,Electric Dynamite @ The Fort(18/07/2010)

Mon 26th Jul, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Western Sydney death metal troupe Thy Art Is Murder have been making a name for themselves over the last couple of years with their distinct brand of breakdown laced musical violence. With no less than four opening acts, tonight’s all ages gig at The Fort promises to be an evening of spine crushing brutality.

Opening with a brief hardcore cover of the cheese classic The Final Countdown, Melbourne’s Electric Dynamite instantly prove themselves as tonights clear wildcards. Fusing a diverse mix of power metal riffs and falsettos with a hair metal image and metalcore breakdowns, their sound comes across both fresh and undeniably catchy. Lead by the over the top bassist Ice (probably not the name on his birth certificate), the six piece run through a short and sweet set which probably confuses the death metal obsessed portion of the crowd, but ultimately wins over the more open minded patrons.

On the complete opposite end of the metal music scale, Widow The Sea pick up the pace and aggression from the start of their blitzkrieg set. With an obvious nod to The Black Dahlia Murder in their sound, especially in front man Colin Jeffs vicious vocal attack, the band unfortunately deal with more than their fare share of equipment gremlins and a less than decent mix. The lack stand out riffs and song structures also works against the band, causing a majority of their songs to run into one another without much to decipher between them.

While Widow The Sea were weighed down by throwing too many notes into the musical pot, The Ailment suffer for going the complete opposite direction. With a highly derivate deathcore sound it’s hard not to feel that their songs are simply excuses for breakdowns, while the vocals move between tired hardcore shouts and weaker screams and growls. Despite this, the fresh faced five piece get a surprisingly huge reaction from The Fort’s slowly growing crowd, with their last two songs in particular showing off the enthusiasm from the band’s growing legion of fans.

With an impressively evil intro tape, Sunshine Coast’s Signal The Firing Squad turn up the brutality a notch or two from the word go. Debuting songs off their soon to be released full length Earth Harvest, the band’s sound smashes together the intensity of Decapitated with the breakdowns of Despised Icon. Keeping the crowd and band energy running high throughout their short set, older favourites such as Obliteration Of The Ages and Origins show why the young band are one of the strongest up and coming death metal acts in the Australian scene.

While the four support acts definitely showed their worth, none of them compare to their sheer musical intensity of Thy Art Is Murder. With their debut album, The Adversary freshly released, the Sydney hard men turn the Brisbane crowd inside out from start to finish. While the newer songs come across a lot stronger than their early tracks, it’s the older ones that gets the biggest crowd reaction, such as Infinite Death and the infamous Whore To A Chainsaw. Despite looking like an escaped prison inmate, frontman CJ McMahon comes across as both exceptionally passionate and grateful of the huge reaction his band receives – while simultaneously pushing the crowd into borderline senseless violence.

While the baying masses beg for more after a criminally brief set, it is safe to say that Thy Art Is Murder and supports have annihilated the ears of the eager Brisbane faithful.