Live Reviews : Cattle Decapitation, Revocation, Remains @ Max Watts, Melbourne 20/02/2020

Cattle Decapitation and Revocation is a perfect pairing for one main reason; they’re both bands that somehow continually get better with age and there’s nothing more exciting that seeing a band at their peak (so far).

Opening duties fell to Remains who sounded huge and incredibly tight given they’re less than 12 months old, although when you consider that the band is comprised of guys from Blood Duster, The Day Everything Became Nothing, The Kill and a bunch of other Melbourne classics, that shouldn’t be a shock. There’s nothing too surprising about their style but they’ve ultimately nailed that grinding death metal sweet spot. While the (painfully long) line was still filtering in, hitting merch and the bar, and getting organised as they started, those paying attention were clearly enjoying what they saw with a lot of nodding heads and a warm reaction. Bring on an album.

The room was full and already getting sweaty when Revocation,
no strangers to Australia, hit the stage. Leaning heavily on their latest album The Outer Ones, Revocation are one of those bands that make their technicality look effortless. There’s this perfect balance in their sound of straight up aggression to mosh to and more progressive elements to stop a live show from ever becoming monotonous. It wasn’t long at all before the moshpit awakened so that people could warm up for the chaos that is…

…Cattle Decapitation. Talk about insanity. To put it simply; it’s hard to fault a set from these guys. More than half the set came from last years Death Atlas, including using the few interlude tracks on the album to break the show up and give fans a well needed breather, and looking past the musicianship on display they really highlight what a talented vocalist Travis Ryan is, swapping between his unique high cleans and growls with ease. Tracks like “Time’s Cruel Curtain” that contain some more melodic sections are superb additions to their sets to add some extra dynamics to what is largely a blistering onslaught, and the 9 minute title track from Death Atlas was something incredible to watch. The only real issue with a Cattle Decapitation set is deciding whether to spend your time going wild in the mosh or watch closely at how these guys pull off what they do.