The first can't miss tour metal tour package of 2015 featuring The Contortionist, Revocation, Fallujah and Toothgrinder stopped at the Brighton Music Hall in Allston, Massachusetts last night. As expected with a lineup of this caliber, it ended up being one of the most fun and flat-out best shows I've attended in a long while.
Due to my friend and I's inability to find a place to park for 45 minutes, I missed the local opener Swarm of Eyes. From what I heard while getting food next door to the Brighton Music Hall, it doesn't seem like I missed much. By the time I finished up eating and got inside the venue, New Jersey mathcore upstarts Toothgrinder had just started their set. Toothgrinder is a relatively new act on the national level with just one EP under their belt, but based on their performance here, I'd be surprised if they stayed unknown for long. Their music mixes the tornado-like destruction of Dillinger Escape Plan with the raw griminess of Hot Damn!-era Every Time Die. Their beautifully chaotic sound is matched by a relentless stage presence that demands attention and energy from the crowd. In short, Toothgrinder ruled and I'll be checking out their music further immediately.
Fallujah, the first widely know act of the evening, started about 15 minutes later. Much like the last time I saw them at Summer Slaughter last year, they blew the doors off the previous time I'd seen them. Their continued improvement as a live act can be directly linked to a boost in their confidence level. Since The Flesh Prevails came out last July, the entire band has developed a winning stage presence that matches their immense technical ability and that has made their shows that much more memorable than they were a couple of years ago. Their setlist was focused almost solely on material from The Flesh Prevails. "Starlit Path", "Sapphire" and "Carved from Stone" were all crushingly beautiful, but it was the nuanced epic "Levitation" that served as the set's crowning achievement. The only downside of their set was that they played for just under 30 minutes. Seeing them play these short sets are a huge tease and serve as a painful reminder of just how I want to see them headline. Fallujah is quickly becoming just as formidable as a live act as they
are as a studio band, which further solidifies their standing as one of the most important young bands in extreme metal today.
Boston's own Revocation took the stage next. I somehow didn't see them at all in 2014 after seeing them three times in 2013, so it was great to finally get an opportunity to see them again. Per usual, they owned the stage and got an amazing reception from the hometown crowd. Like Fallujah, Revocation primarily played material from their most recent record Deathless. This was completely fine by me as Deathless was my pick for the best album of 2014 and is my favorite Revocation album to-date. The title track was a fiery set opener that got the pits going right away while "Labyrinth of Eyes and "Madness Opus" were even heavier live than on disc. While the other Deathless songs kicked ass, it was set closer "Witch Trials" that proved to be the best song of the night. The solo at the end is perhaps the best single best showcase of David Davidson's guitar playing abilities in their entire discography and the effectiveness of the various tempo changes are fully realized in a live setting. Revocation is one of the most consistent live bands in metal right now, and hopefully they do a headlining tour soon so they can play even more material off Deathless.
After a moderately long changeover, The Contortionist came on to close out the show. This was my fifth time seeing them and the biggest takeaway from this performance was the monumental impact vocalist Mike Lessard has had on this band. Since joining in 2013, Lessard has allowed The Contortionist to tackle a bunch of new musical territory, as evidenced on their latest album Language- which is easily the mellowest they've put out to date. In addition to taking them in a new, bolder direction musically, Lessard also does a great job handling the band's older material. He stays true to the vocals ex-vocalist Jonathan Carpenter originally laid down but gives them his own flare. The setlist was pretty standard as they peppered their hour-long set with some jams from Language as well as longtime set staples such as "Flourish" and "Oscillator". The only real surprise on the night was the presence of "Contact" from 2010's Exoplanet. "Contact" has been been my favorite Contortionist song since I first heard Exoplanet ,and it was unreal to finally get to see them play it. While The Contortionist put on a good show, I'd be lying if I said they weren't a bit disappointing. Seeing The Contortionist play after Revocation and Fallujah is kind of anticlimatic. Their reserved stage presence put a serious damper on the high-energy vibe that was running through the room before they took the stage and their music just doesn't pack the same punch as those two bands do. That being said, The Contortionist still put on a pretty solid performance that served as a nice cherry on top for a glorious evening of heavy music.
Scores:
Toothgrinder 8.5/10
Fallujah 9.5/10
Revocation 9/10
The Contortionist 8/10
Setlists:
Fallujah:
Starlit Path
Carved From Stone
Levitation
Cerebral Hybridization
Sapphire
Revocation:
Deathless
Dismantle the Dictator
Labyrinth of Eyes
Madness Opus
No Funeral
Witch Trials
The Contortionist:
Flourish
Geocentric Confusion
Language I: Intuition
Language II: Conspire
Thrive
Contact
Exoplanet II: Void
Solipsis
Primordial Sound
Encore:
Oscillator
The Parable
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