Live Review: Cannibal Corpse, Hour Of Penance

The swelling line of black shirts was still trailing outside and skirting around the corner at 8pm with the west coast metal legion descending upon Capitol to see Buffalo death metal veterans Cannibal Corpse smash up the city alongside their Italian powerhouse brothers in arms Hour of Penance on the Perth leg of the Cannibal Corpse 2014 Australian tour.

Hour of Penance last tore up Australian stages with the Behemoth tour in 2013 and riding on the back of the release of their latest album, Regicide, in May, this band continue to build a formidable fan base in the land down under, with the Perth ranks out in full force this night to welcome back these lush European boys with open arms.

Standing in the voltage glow of the electric blue lighting, Hour of Penance immediately kicked the night into high gear with a cocktail of orchestral sounds and a menacing tribal drum beat before launching into Sedition Through Scorn, with its ludicrously speedy guitar work, thundering drum rolls and overbearing, guttural vocals.

Cutting a seriously fierce frontline of European brutal death metal at its finest, Hour of Penance delivered a pummelling set, hammering Capitol with a barrage of drum artillery, pounding riffs and soaring, wailing electric thunder. Heavy and technically brilliant, the frenzied pit was treated to sensory destruction with, among others, Paradogma and Incestuous Dynasty Of Worms, from 2010’s Paradogma, the jewels in the crown of their latest album offering, Theogomy, Reforging The Crowns and the album’s namesake, Regicide, and was ultimately decimated by the blasting classic, Misconception, from the 2008 album, The Vile Conception.

The venue was swollen to capacity in a sea of booze and black when reigning overlords of brutal death metal Cannibal Corpse took the helm under the searing red lighting to be met with a roar of allegiance from the Perth punters. Indeed, no strangers to our shores and notorious for their brutal, crippling stage show of destruction, Cannibal Corpse proceeded to boot the spiralling carnage into over-drive with a punishing hour and a half long head-banging manifesto.

With frenzied, enigmatic frontman George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher’s vicious and aggressive stage presence backed up by the instrumental prowess of Alex Webster on bass, Paul Mazurkiewicz on the drums and Rob Barrett and Pat O’Brien on guitars, Cannibal Corpse successfully riled up the crowd into a blood-letting frenzy with such charming crowd-pleasers as Staring Through The Eyes Of The Dead, Stripped, Raped And Strangled, the chunk and heavy whammy acrobatics of Ice Pick Lobotomy and crushing renditions of Make Them Suffer, Hammer Smashed Face and Devoured By Vermin.

A highlight of the night was when the blistering crowd was taunted into a challenge, Corpsegrinder expressing his high expectations of head-banging failure from his subordinates before launching into the ferocious I Cum Blood, which saw the crowd explode into a diabolical wall of death, liquor, mills and insanity.

Nuclear in velocity, Cannibal Corpse gave the crowd fiending for the forthcoming album exactly what they were looking for, delivering their signature crushing onslaught of brutalising depravity that pummelled the ocean of black into submission. It could be a few years before we see these boys gracing the west coast again with their debaucherous presence and insanity, so if you missed this one. . . you missed out!
Overall, with the decline in festivals and subjectively low ticket sale projections, Perth has copped a lot of backlash of late, with ominous warnings floating around on the social media grapevine that Perth is directly under threat of being pulled from future tour dates due to our perceived economic drudgery. Determined not to sink without a fight and in an effort to prove our worth and infinite appreciation to the bands that treat their fan base well, the WA legion of death metal fans united together this night and came out in full force to represent a city that remains steadfast in its loyalty to the music, a city that will continue to stand strong and united beneath the death metal war banner.