Review by Andrew Bansal, photos by Chad Alexander
August 21st 2015, House Of Blues, San Diego CA: The 2015 edition of the annual Summer Slaughter touring festival began its trek in Denver CO in late July and three weeks later, made its way to California for four shows, the first of them taking place at the House Of Blues in San Diego last Friday August 21st. This year’s lineup features an intriguing blend of sub-genres encompassing extreme music, headlined by Arch Enemy with Born Of Osiris, Veil Of Maya, The Acacia Strain, Cattle Decapitation and Beyond Creation in support. In past years, there has been no such thing as a boring Summer Slaughter show, and it remained to be seen whether this edition would live up to the reputation.
Doors opened as early as 3:45, and a sizable queue of ticket holders was already formed outside the venue even at this point of the day. People were then let inside in an organized and swift manner by the House Of Blues security staff. You know you’re at an extremely extreme metal show when the security take such extreme measures as digging your hair and running their hands all the way up your inseam to check for drugs, weapons and whatever other paraphernalia you might hide in those places. But the scene inside was a whole another story, and for the majority of the event, instead of a metal show the confines of this House Of Blues resembled a gymnasium/sports training facility, with headbanging, moshing, fist-pumping, devil horns and air-guitaring replaced by ab crunches, squats, karate and kickboxing sessions. It was the kind of event that would provide you plenty of comic relief even if you weren’t finding the music played on stage to be your cup of tea.
Talking of the music, the first touring band to take the stage was Beyond Creation, a technical/progressive extreme metal band from Montreal QC, and they impressed every single attendee with an excellent exhibition of dynamic musicianship. People that showed up early enough to see this band were heard talking about them throughout the entire evening. All four members showcased supreme skill and technicality on their respective instruments, but in a manner that would interest even prog/tech non-fans. The band has two full-length albums out and has been in existence for a decade, but this may well be their biggest step forward in the United States. Folks attending any of the remaining Summer Slaughter dates are strongly encouraged to invest the time and effort to arrive at the venue for Beyond Creation, because aside from the headliner, they are musically the finest band on this entire Summer Slaughter lineup.
Next up, San Diego’s own Cattle Decapitation arrived on stage and it was instantly clear that they were the solitary hometown band, as the applause for them was as loud as it was for any other band, even though there was a smaller number of people here for Cattle Decapitation’s set as compared to bands that played later. Plus, they are carrying the best-looking shirts on this tour. No amount of praise is excessive for Cattle Decapitation, because over a period of nearly two decades, they have remained consistent and prolific yet pushed the boundaries of their creative extremities as well as on-stage performance levels, led by vocalist Travis Ryan and ably complimented by his three band mates. They put forth a typically fierce set here, boosted further by the addition of tunes from their latest grindalicious full-length Metal Blade Records offering ‘The Anthropocene Extinction’. With this set, Cattle Decapitation did San Diego proud and earned the respect of fans, first-timers and critics alike.
Cattle Decapitation were always going to be a hard act to follow for anyone, and Massachusetts deathcore/metalcore quintet The Acacia Strain were handed the unsurmountable task on this occasion. As vocalist Vincent Bennett said it on stage himself, this band is not akin to everyone’s musical tastes on this tour. But they showed that they are good at what they do, and they succeeded in extracting a lively response from the crowd, the karate kids coming out in full force on the floor. The set also included a heartwarming tribute by Bennett to recently deceased After The Burial guitarist Justin Lowe. Whether or not The Acacia Strain’s performance was enjoyable simply depends on one’s own preferences, but there is no denying that they win the award for the best shirt among all shirts by all bands on this lineup, even though Cattle Decapitation have the best group of shirts overall. This one right here.
The deathcore continued with Chicago IL group Veil Of Maya taking the stage next. In comparison to their performance on the 2010 edition of Summer Slaughter, they seem to have incorporated a lot more of the deathcore elements into their musicianship over the past five years, but in this lineup they stood out as the only band with usage of good clean vocals. That said, the role of the lead guitar was minimal in this set, which was rather unfortunate because Marc Okubo is by all means a masterful player of his instrument, but more power to them for taking their own desired path and clearly building a larger fan-base as a result.
As main support at this event was another deathcore band from Chicago, Born Of Osiris. Their performance on the 2013 Mayhem Festival was not entertaining in the least bit, but this time they impressed far more than this writer imagined or expected them to. It was refreshing to note that they outdid the efforts of the other deathcore bands in this lineup with their usage of melodic lead guitar parts. But at the same time, the keyboard player doubling up as the second lead vocalist was disconcerting, as frontman Ronnie Canizaro does the job by himself and the band really does not need a second vocalist. Besides, the two kept interrupting each other when talking to the crowd in between songs. The usage of instrumental backing tracks was also very noticable. But other than that, it was a pleasant surprise to walk away with a largely positive impression of this Born Of Osiris set.
Even though the event was not sold out, the turnout was not bad by any means, but a section of the audience departed the venue after the end of Born Of Osiris’ set, which was, in all honesty, not unexpected considering the disparity between metal and deathcore, but certainly unfortunate because they missed what turned out to be the most powerful performance of the evening by Swedish/American/Canadian melodic death metal mainstays Arch Enemy, truly deserving of being billed as the headline act. They played an hour-long set excellently compiled with solid selections from the band’s recent and early material, and not only lived up to the fans’ expectations but succeeded in delivering a show that would enhance their reputation purely as musicians and performers, as they ended up earning the unanimous respect of this audience.
Starting out with the newer tunes, Arch Enemy soon laid into some older gems such as ‘Ravenous’ which was one of the standout items of the set along with tunes like ‘My Apocalypse’, ‘Bloodstained Cross’, ‘As The Pages Burn’ and ‘No Gods, No Masters’. The show was this writer’s first time seeing this band with frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz at the helm and Jeff Loomis partnering Michael Amott on guitar, and there is no doubting that compared to the several times seeing previous versions of Arch Enemy in the past, this was by far their best performance. Alissa emerged undisputedly triumphant from the challenge of doing justice to songs she did not originally sing for the band, and undeniably adds a whole new dimension to the live show with her stage presence, agility and minimal but precise crowd interaction, injecting all of her artistic abilities into Arch Enemy. Her success at this show was evident from the manner in which she commanded the audience and got them to do whatever she wanted. Also, her outfit was just as elegant as her performance. Besides, Jeff Loomis has enhanced the band’s overall live musicianship and as a result of his combination with Michael Amott, Arch Enemy now boasts of one of the strongest, most pedigreed guitar duos on the planet. Loomis did not write or record any of these songs for Arch Enemy, but with certain guitarists the magic is in their fingers alone, and the guitar parts in all of these songs sounded absolutely fantastic.
That being said, the praise for the new members is by no means a gesture of disrespect towards past members, as they contributed to previous versions and played important roles in the Arch Enemy history. But this is Arch Enemy 2.0, stronger than ever before, and their next album with both Alissa and Loomis is already a highly anticipated release.
The most interesting aspect of this Arch Enemy set was the fact that most people in this audience were actually unfamiliar with the band and were seeing them for the first time. But everyone in attendance for the first song stayed till the last song, which meant Arch Enemy ended up making a lot of new fans. Aside from the first few rows of die-hards, most people were standing still but more and more mosh pits broke out as the set progressed, and the applause level was rising rapidly. For a headline band to play to a new audience instead of their own fan-base at a show like this is indeed strange and unheard of, but more than anything, it vindicates the band’s decision to do this tour as part of this lineup.
Arch Enemy have garnered hate from critics, elitists and hipsters for being ‘too mainstream’, but in this writer’s opinion, their musicianship was never in doubt, and specially isn’t now with the new lineup. Taking into consideration the musical elements they incorporate in their songwriting and the professionalism they employ in the visual aspects of their live shows, Arch Enemy possess all the selling points to be the biggest band in the world, but at the same time be respected by the underground. This band does not deserve your hate.
All in all, a very entertaining Summer Slaughter for extreme metal fans of all kinds.
Set List:
01. Yesterday Is Dead And Gone
02. War Eternal
03. Ravenous
04. Stolen Life
05. My Apocalypse
06. Bloodstained Cross
07. As The Pages Burn
08. Dead Eyes See No Future
09. Avalanche
10. No Gods, No Masters
11. Dead Bury Their Dead
12. We Will Rise
13. Nemesis
More Arch Enemy photos:
Remaining Tour Dates:
8/22 – Anaheim CA @ Grove Of Anaheim
8/23 – San Francisco CA @ Regency Ballroom
8/24 – Los Angeles CA @ Regent Theatre