Live Reviews : THY ART IS MURDER, WAR FROM A HARLOTS MOUTH (GERMANY), THE BRIDE, MAKE THEM SUFFER, TRAINWRECK @ THE CORNER HOTEL, MELBOURNE. 10/12/2011

After being tour support for Confession when they toured for their successful new album The Long Way Home, Blacktown death metal band Thy Art is Murder organised what will probably be the last tour for their The Adversary album; titled The Soldiers of Immortality Tour. Not only did they bring two of Australia’s finest rising local acts to join the tour, but they also brought down a band from the Northern Hemisphere to help them cause chaos. I was a little disappointed that the tour wasn’t coming to my hometown of Geelong, where Thy Art usually plays for their tours, but making the trip up to Melbourne for one of the last shows of the tour was definitely worth it. The last time I went to a gig at The Corner Hotel, I was disappointed with the mix, as you could hear the double kick rapidly over all the other instruments for every band, and that’s the last thing you’d want to hear at a death metal/hardcore gig. Luckily, the mix was nothing like that this time.

Trainwreck were the local support band of the show. The opening breakdown was a real kick in the head by both the music, and nearly a hardcore dancer. The crowd left a huge hole in the floor for all the hardcore dancers, but there wasn’t really much movement going on. Although they didn’t seem too confident about the crowd, claiming that nobody came to the gig for them, Trainwreck delivered some tough hardcore tunes.

Make Them Suffer came on after Trainwreck, and I must say that although I didn’t know them, they were very impressive! Some tough sounding deathcore with evil symphony crammed in got the crowd going, as their overly long haired bassist was fired up with energy and swarming the stage with vicious windmill head banging. People got the going more for this band, as the guitarist joined the crowd for a circle pit during one of their songs, and the head bangers up the front were swinging back and forth on the barrier, trying to pull it down. For a while, I thought the barrier was actually going to be pulled down as so many people were swinging back and forth on it, but it surprisingly stayed together, even though people were doing this for nearly the whole set! I will definitely say that I am a fan of this band now.

With the release of their debut album President Rd just a couple of weeks before, I’ve been seeing The Bride posted over Facebook a lot recently. This gig was my chance to check them out, and although they were the odd ones of the whole tour as a hardcore band, they still delivered an enjoyable set. The set was filled with energy, and their singer was entertaining. He made a deal that in one of the songs, if someone jumped up on stage, he’d give them a friend shirt, and if they punched him in the face, he’d give them two free shirts. The song didn’t even start before someone jumped over my head onto the stage, and was taken off stage by security before he punched the singer in the face. I’m not sure if he got a free shirt or not, but all I can say is he left a nice lump on my head, as his knee hit me on the top of the head as he jumped over the crowd on to the stage.

It’s cool to see bands from the other side of the world come all the way to Australia to be tour support for one of our bands, and that’s what Germany’s War From A Harlots Mouth did for their first time in this country. I had never given them a proper listen before, but I’m also a fan of this band now after seeing them. As soon as I saw two people come out on stage with 8 string guitars (as well as a 9 string I think?!), I knew that things were about to get brutal and unique, with a nice mix of jazz and math in their signature sound of metal core and death metal. At some points, watching the guitarists hands flail up and down the fret board shocked me, as some seriously insane guitar work was happening, but sometimes that was also put off by too much double kick overpowering it. The German’s got everyone to do a wall of death to the outro of their song, which to me is a pretty unusual time for a wall of death. But it was still a good wall of death, even with the massive pole right in the middle of the floor.

After a quick sound check, the lights went out as a hardstyle intro came over the PA, and after a minute of it, headliners Thy Art is Murder came on stage, and opened with Soldiers of Immortality, the first song on their most recent album The Adversary. The front rows erupted into people pushing and shoving, people trying to steal the microphone off front man CJ, and others crushed and not being able to move. A few were swinging back and forth against the barrier as they were head banging, but unlike the Make Them Suffer pit, nobody was interested.

Going straight into Laceration Penetration punched everyone in the face with left-to-right panning triplets from the guitarists, but early into that song the lead guitarist was having problems. He was off the stage for nearly the whole song trying to fix his guitar for an unknown reason, but he came back on stage for the last solo and breakdown of the song. When I yelled out one of the fan favourite tracks (or at least one of my favourite tracks) Infinite Death, CJ replied “You want it, you fuckin’ got it!” and they played that song. This song got more people up the front getting mic grabs, as it was one of their older songs, and it started a run of crazy fans jumping off the stage. Thy Art went back into a couple of songs off The Adversary after that, and opening with thunderous blastbeats was the ever-so-brutal track Engineering the Antichrist. CJ demanded a massive circlepit to open that song up, but nobody started one, which was pretty poor. Coming into the song after that called False Prophet; CJ dedicated the song to all of the non-believers in the audience, saying that there needs to be more of them. He then congratulated a kid in the front row for yelling out “Fuck you God.”

Just like every Thy Art is Murder gig I’ve been to since The Adversary was launched, their set was finished with the same two songs closing it; their most popular song Whore to a Chainsaw second last, followed by Cowards Throne. As always, Whore to a Chainsaw had the whole crowd singing along and trying to take the microphone, while Cowards Throne was an epic outro song that got the head bangers going nuts. After Cowards Throne finished, people started the one more song chant almost immediately, and they got what they wanted. Before the song started, CJ talked to the crowd about how much he’d enjoyed touring with the German’s (War from a Harlots Mouth), and then taught the crowd how to say “cunt” in German (Fotze) with a count of 3 chant. As an encore, they played the crushing tune Parasitic Autopsy, and it was enough to bring in a second security guard to catch all of the crowd surfers. One dude got up on stage and went for a cracking stage dive, but failed and went face first into the ground. I still wonder how that kid is feeling, because from what I heard he got hurt pretty bad, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he went to hospital for it!

Every band played an amazing and energetic set at this gig, and it was good seeing Thy Art is Murder again, as they are one of my favourite Australian bands. It was also great being introduced to some new bands, which I hope to see again soon. Thy Art is Murder will be recording next year to follow up their incredible album The Adversary from last year, and I’m excited to hear if they’ll change their sound a bit.