Decibel Magazine has a long track record of sponsoring diverse and talent-loaded tour packages. Their most recent tour featuring At the Gates, Converge, Pallbearer and Vallenfyre,which rolled through the Royale in Boston, Massachusetts on Friday night, proved to be yet another booming success for the metal magazine.
Vallenfyre got things started bright and early at 5:30. I'd never listened to their music nor I had I heard any positive or negative buzz about them before they took the stage, so I was going into their set completely blind. Fortunately, Vallenfyre ended up being pretty solid. They played a style of death metal that was a nice combination of atmospheric gloom and brisk, Cannibal Corpse-esque sloppiness. The one common denominator between both sides of their sound was an aptitude for strong riffs. No matter what subgenre of death metal you're playing, memorable riffs are a must to be successful and Vallenfyre delivered in spades in that department. It also helped that their vocalist Gregor Macktintosh is an absolutely hilarious frontman. All of his between song banter was fantastic with a mid-set rant about the disco lights at the venue standing out as the highlight. After this performance, Vallenfyre has definitely gained a new fan in me.
Pallbearer was up next. With just a mere two albums under their belt, Pallbearer has already become one of the most critically-lauded metal bands of the past 15-20 years. Despite the heavy hype around them, Pallbearer has never really clicked with me and, their performance here did nothing to change my mind. Their music was actually more grating and lifeless in a live setting than it is on disc. Every song they played in their three song, 30-minute set was so plodding in nature that it felt like they were on the stage for a fortnight. Not only is their music extremely boring, they also had a god awful sound mix. I've heard in the past that they purposely bury their vocals in the mix and that certainly seemed to be the case here. Their mix was pretty much entirely guitars and drums with the vocals only occasionally piercing through. However, it was a probably a wise choice for them to hide the vocals because they sounded horrible at the few points of the set where they were audible. Pallbearer is one of the most overhyped bands in metal today and their underwhelming performance here only further confirmed that.
After Pallbearer had put me into a monotony-induced coma, I needed something to pick me back up. Thankfully, there is pretty much no one better at injecting life into a room than Converge. Their impact as a defibrillator for the heart of the crowd was felt within seconds of them starting set opener "Eagles Become Vultures". "Eagles Become Vultures" incited the first pits and crowd-surfers of the night, and put an abrupt stop to the alarming stillness that had plagued the room for the past hour. The energy and passion level from both the band and crowd didn't let up as they ripped through material from their two most recent records, Axe to Fall and All We Love We Leave Behind, at a breakneck pace. While the entire set was captivating, the closing duo of tracks from their 2001 classic Jane Doe served as the evening's finest moment. "Concubine" was chaotic even by Converge standards while "Jane Doe" is an 11+ plus epic that reenforces just how gifted they are at tempo changes and incorporating melody into their music when called upon. Converge never fails to bring tornado-like destruction to the stage and it's never less than thrilling to watch.
After a 20-minute-changeover, it was finally time for At the Gates to hit the stage. Their 1995 masterpiece Slaughter of the Soul was one of the records that got into extreme metal during my early high school years and it remains one of my all-time favorite albums to this day. Despite my love for At the Gates, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about the quality of their live show. This is a band that just recently reunited full-time after disbanding twice and they haven't done a full U.S. tour since their first-reunion tour in 2008. Those doubts were erased as soon as the band came thundering onto the stage with "Death and the Labyrinth". The whole band sounded excellent and they were visibly excited to be performing together again. The setlist was primarily devoted to material from Slaughter of the Soul and their 2014 comeback album At War with Reality. The Slaughter of the Soul material was clearly the highlight for me, but the material from At War with Reality sounded significantly better live than it did on record. "Heroes and Tombs" and "The Circular Ruins" were particularly great and managed to hold up surprisingly well against the standout tracks from Slaughter. Unfortunately, I did have to leave the show a little bit early (At the Gates had 7 songs left when I departed) in order to make it back to my hometown to see my friend's band play. Despite the fact that I had to leave before they finished, it was still a distinct pleasure to finally see At the Gates live and I really hope that I will get another chance to see them in the near future.
Scores:
Vallenfyre 7.5/10
Pallbearer 4/10
Converge 9/10
At the Gates 8.5/10
Setlists:
Converge:
Eagles Become Vultures
Dark Horse
Aimless Arrow
You Fail Me
Trespasses
All We Love We Leave Behind
Predatory Glow
Reap What You Sow
Cutter
Worms Will Feed/Rats Will Feast
Concubine
Jane Doe
At the Gates (partial):
Death and the Labyrinth
Slaughter of the Soul
Cold
At War with Reality
Terminal Spirit Disease
Raped by the Light of Christ
The Circular Ruins
Under a Serpent Sun
Windows
Suicide Nation
Heroes and Tombs
Nausea (left during this song)
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