By Avinash Mittur
[Live photos by Vince Edwards]
May 25th 2013, The Glass House, Pomona CA: It’s been over twenty long years since Bolt Thrower last stormed across America. Unless one has been lucky enough to attend Maryland Deathfest over the last few years, American metalheads have had to live without live Bolt Thrower for far too long. Sure, Bolt Thrower basically have a spotless discography to treat our ears, but that has made the wait all the more agonizing. Luckily, Southern California was finally offered the chance to see these guys once more. The location was the Glass House in Pomona, and it proved to be the perfect battleground for the carnage that would ensue. With more than able assistance from fellow death metal legends Benediction and Autopsy, this show proved to be an utterly flawless night of classic death metal- a show that has forever raised the bar for live extreme music.
This was my first visit to the Glass House, but after what a pleasant experience I had, it absolutely won’t be my last. Full in and out privileges for everyone, fair and competent security, a wide open and obstruction-free floor, fantastic sound and cheap and easy parking made for a shockingly smooth and hassle-free concert experience. It certainly helped that Ben & Jerry’s decided to give away free ice cream before the show. Cheers to Bolt Thrower for the amazingly priced merchandise too, with shirts being offered for a modest ten to fifteen dollars. Sadly, due to transportation constraints, I arrived at the venue just after Benediction finished their set. Given that these guys are British death metal veterans alongside the headliner, I’m more than confident that their scheduled 40 minute set did the job just fine.
I entered the Glass House in time to catch Autopsy however, and my favorite East Bay death metal band failed to disappoint me once again. The last time I caught the band was at the Slaughter By The Water festival last summer, but this performance quite easily topped that one. Instrumentally, the band was as tight as ever. Even though their live shows are somewhat infrequent, there’s never a duff note to be heard from Autopsy. Drummer and vocalist Chris Reifert once again offered a perfect show, growling with the best of them despite his arms pounding out lightning-fast beats. It was bassist Joe Trevisano and guitarists Eric Cutler and Danny Coralles who showed off the most improvement though. At last summer’s show the three were mostly static presences onstage, but this time they all made the effort to move often and even goof around with each other. Coralles and Trevisano’s playful bumping into each other was a fun sight, and when they weren’t moving they were banging their heads.
The audience at this show was lucky enough to witness the premiere of two brand new Autopsy tracks, ‘Arch Cadaver’ and ‘Mangled Far Below’. Both songs ripped by with a righteous intensity, and were indicative of the speedier moments from their classic Severed Survival album as opposed to the doomier sound of Mental Funeral. The rest of the set list reflected this, offering fans many tracks from the former record. The new tracks are classic Autopsy songs in the making- their upcoming record, Headless Ritual, should be a killer one if the two tracks played on this night were any indication. After a nice and lengthy hour of their brutal death metal, the band exited the stage. Of course Reifert, as is his wont, began mulling about and casually chatting with fans as soon as he could.
Autopsy Set List:
1. Severed Survival
2. Pagan Saviour
3. Embalmed
4. Dead
5. Gasping for Air
6. Arch Cadaver
7. Mangled Far Below
8. Seeds of the Doomed
9. Voices
10. Critical Madness
11. Charred Remains
12. Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay
13. Ridden with Disease
After a pleasantly short changeover, the British masters themselves, Bolt Thrower, ascended their throne and launched into ‘The IVth Crusade’ after a rather long intro tape. The next 75 minutes were to be some of the heaviest, most bludgeoning and downright ruthless death metal unleashed upon the Glass House stage. Vocalist Karl Willetts kept his banter to a minimum, usually joking with the crowd about how long the band had been away; he and his cohorts were more or less all business. The band fired off classic track after classic track, with a heavy emphasis on their final record, Those Once Loyal. The onslaught simply never let up, even though Gavin Ward ran into an issue with his amp during the first song or two. The situation was quickly rectified and hell, it would be surprising if the crowd even noticed the problem. The three axewielders onstage, Ward, guitarist Barry ‘Baz’ Thomson and bassist Jo Bench all had a truly monolithic presence. Much like a Cannibal Corpse show, the three didn’t move much and opted to only swing their heads on the beat. They didn’t looked bored in the least though. It helped that Ward and Thomson’s tone was downright punishing, easily some of the heaviest I’ve heard barring Exodus’ Gary Holt and Lee Altus. For such a small person, Jo perhaps had the most menacing and imposing presence between the three though. When she moved or banged her head, she did with the full force and authority she could muster. Her massively distorted bass intro kicked off the wicked stomp of ‘Anti-Tank (Dead Armour)’, and the huge riffs elicited many a banged head.
Looking back at the set list, it’s truly remarkable how the band kept the show completely fat-free. Literally every song played is a highlight of the Bolt Thrower catalog, but the run from ‘Anti-Tank’ through ‘When Cannons Fade’ might have been one of the most visceral and awe-inspiring hours of live music I have ever heard. When Willetts announced that they were going to pull the big guns though, that’s when shit got real, for lack of a more eloquent phrase. The man was referring to the massive barrage of ‘World Eater’, but the band didn’t even offer us a break between that track and ‘Cenotaph’, which saw the pit reach the apex of its activity. “Oh, so you all like that one eh?” Willetts said with a wicked grin on his face as the violence settled upon the end of ‘Cenotaph’.
After the epic finish of ‘When Cannons Fade’, the obligatory encore break happened and a ‘Bolt! Thrower!’ chant made the rounds. But then the band finally did return, and they gave us an encore more jaw-dropping than anything we could have asked for. Willetts announced “It’s time for a war!”- my heart couldn’t help but race with excitement as I knew what was coming next, the unholy one-two punch of ‘War’ and ‘Remembrance’ from the For Victory album. The band finished things off for good with ‘The Killchain’ and ‘Powder Burns’ and the crowd was more than satisfied. Normally, I would be one to complain about a 75 minute set, but the no-nonsense approach that Bolt Thrower took, along with the sheer unrelenting brutality made it feel just long enough. Any shorter and we would’ve been gypped- any longer and the band ran the risk of making the show monotonous. In other words, this was a flawless set in every single sense.
Bolt Thrower Set List:
1. The IVth Crusade
2. Entrenched
3. In Battle There Is No Law
4. Anti-Tank (Dead Armour)
5. When Glory Beckons
6. …For Victory
7. World Eater
8. Cenotaph
9. Salvo
10. No Guts, No Glory
11. When Cannons Fade
Encore:
12. War
13. Remembrance
14. The Killchain
15. Powder Burns
This was easily the best death metal show I have ever witnessed, and it was certainly one of the most stellar ones I’ve attended in a very long time. I want to find a fault, but I can’t- I honestly cannot. A fantastic venue, perfect support and a set that transcended heaviness itself added up to what will forever be an unforgettable heavy metal experience. Metalheads would be wise to catch Bolt Thrower on this tour by any means necessary- I reserve no sympathy for the poor souls that do otherwise.