Cavalera Conspiracy & Lazarus A.D.: A Killer Performance

By Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal

My rating:

April 28th 2011, House Of Blues, Hollywood CA: On the back of an excellent new studio release, Cavalera Conspiracy set foot on a North American run of dates starting tonight at the Sunset Strip House Of Blues. Supporting them on this trek are Wisconsin metal heroes Lazarus A.D., with the opening slot going to Mold Breaker, the hardcore band featuring Max Cavalera's songs Igor and Zyon on guitar and drums respectively. Having never seen a live Cavalera Conspiracy performance, I was eager to see how they would fare tonight, specially with the absence of Igor Cavalera Senior, who couldn't make the gig tonight due to visa issues.

To be honest, Mold Breaker weren't really my cup of tea, so I'd refrain from judging them. If you're into straight up hardcore vocals, I guess you'll like them. I talked to a few people after their set and they seemed to like what they saw from this band.

Lazarus A.D. were up next. After having seen them multiple times opening for Death Angel on their previous tour, I've grown really fond of them as a live band, and they didn't disappoint tonight either. I enjoyed every minute of their performance. They slightly changed up the set from that tour as well, which was great to see. Sometimes bands get stuck playing the exact same set of songs tour after tour and leave no scope for making progress as a live act. Not the case with Lazarus A.D., as this time they played "Light A City (Up In Smoke)" in place of "American Dreams". The song came across as a great live tune and I'm extremely glad that it found its way in their set. Other than that, their set consisted of four songs from the debut album and one other tune from the latest release "Black Rivers Flow". The crowd was small at this point, but gave the band a good response, even opening up the floor for mosh pits on a couple of occasions. If you haven't seen the band this year, you'll see a completely different Lazarus A.D. as compared to a couple of years back. Dan Gapen's clean vocals add a whole another dimension to their sound, and all four members come across as pros in terms of their stage presence and live musicianship. This is one band that's at its peak at present, and if you're going to any of the shows on this tour, you wouldn't want to miss them.

After Lazarus A.D. were done, the wait wasn't too lengthy before a Brazilian tribal intro signaled the arrival of Cavalera Conspiracy on the House of Blues stage. They wasted no time in bringing out the kickass new material, starting with the song "Warlord". It sounded as good as I had imagined it would, just straight up brutality at its best. Besides Max' powerful performance which was there to be witnessed right from the outset, guitarist Marc Rizzo came out all guns blazing and flawlessly laid down some highly enjoyable solos. They actually ended up playing only three songs off of "Blunt Force Trauma", even though Max told me in our interview that they'd be doing five. I was slightly surprised and disappointed by that, simply because I love the album. The absence of Igor must have been a huge factor in tonight's set list ending up being mostly devoid of new material. But with that said, last minute fill-in drummer Greg Hall from Sacred Reich did an excellent job tonight. People sitting at home found it easy enough to say that the show wouldn't be the same without Igor. Honestly it didn't even come to my mind through the performance that Igor wasn't behind the kit. In my opinion, only the singer is the irreplaceable member of any band, in terms of the live performance aspect. The music can be learned by seasoned musicians outside of the band who can fill in if need be, but a different vocalist changes the band completely.

There was plenty of material from the band's first album "Inflikted", and each of those songs drew tremendous response from a rather surprisingly half-packed House of Blues. But surely the highlight for the fans was the Sepultura portion of the set. They did as many as five Sepultura tunes, and the intensity of the mosh pits during these songs was enough to prove their worth. I certainly felt that the Sepultura songs blended with the Cavalera Conspiracy material better than they ever did with the Soulfly stuff. That's why I was all the more surprised by the poor turnout tonight. I was under the impression that Sepultura fans would dig Cavalera Conspiracy more than Soulfly, but clearly not! Anyhow, I certainly do, and I'm glad I came out to this show.

Besides the usual suspects Max Cavalera, Rizzo and Johny Chow, a few other musicians got a chance to show their prowess as well, including Max' sons Igor, Zyon and Ritchie. Igor played drums on "Troops On Doom" while Zyon did so on "Roots". Ritchie Cavalera contributed vocals on "Black Ark" and pumped up the crowd even more than they already were. I've always been a fan of his on-stage energy which he shows in plenty when he plays for his band Incite.

Overall, Cavalera Conspiracy put on a killer show tonight. With Igor back on drums starting with the next show in Anaheim, and with a support act as terrific as Lazarus A.D., this is one tour Sepultura/Cavalera fans can't afford to miss.

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