Live Review: Decapitated - Academy 2, Manchester
Support: Cryptopsy, Warbringer, Carnation
8th May 2025
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Tim Finch
They must be adding something to the water back in the homeland, as there’s an embarrassment of riches coming from some of Poland’s premier extreme metal exports at present. Both Behemoth and Hate have recently issued killer blackened-death considerations, with Hate ably bringing their own level of darkness to the Venom, Inc tour; and, obviously, The Shit ov God is odds-on to feature in the end of year polls. Then there’s been Vader, laying waste to concert venues at the end of April, and with a new EP, Humanihility, out on the 30 May, which our Richard will be reviewing shortly.
But tonight is about tech death legends Decapitated, and their Infernal Bloodshed Over Europe tour, a thirty-six-date odyssey across the continent with the mouth-watering supporting cast of Crytopsy, Warbringer and Carnation to further scramble brains and shatter bodies.
As United are at home tonight and playing a European semi-final, the traffic into town is even more horrendous than normal. Even my additional time added can’t save the day and I’m stuck in a tail-back as far along the M61 as Bolton.
The upshot is I miss most of Carnation, save the closing bars of Plaguebreeder and a rampant Where Death Lies. The Belgian crew have an old school approach to the genre, out of the Entombed playbook and – of what I managed to catch of them – showed themselves to be a tremendous way to kickstart this evening’s proceedings.
Something of a square peg in the tour’s round hole, LA Thrashers, Warbringer seem a little out of place on this death-centric bill. No one’s bothered to tell the band that, and they set about showing the crowd they aren’t here merely making up the numbers. Severed Reality opens their account with some old school heavy hits and the dirtiest of riffs; A Better World takes you right back to when it being a school night was of no consequence and beer would flow and bodies would be smashed; while Crushed Beneath the Tracks rolls along at a comparatively low tempo without foregoing any of the big, bludgeoning hits.
Opening track of Warbringer’s most recent record – this year’s Wrath and Ruin – sees the band going a bit power metal with the epically heroic The Sword and the Cross, though the noodling solo, circle pit and fat transitions remind us that, for all the bombast, they are here to party. The set climax of older favourites Living Weapon and Remain Violent show Warbringer are the kind of party-crashers you want when it’s not your house. Sitting somewhere between Municipal Waste and Exodus, these Californians are good clean violent fun.
It's been a long time since I last locked horns with the technical brutality of Canadians Cryptopsy, back in 2006 at Jilly’s Rock World (don’t look for it, it isn’t there any longer) when they were touring their Once Was Not album and had a supporting cast that featured, among others, Aborted, Grave and Dew-Scented; that was so long ago that Lord Worm was still fronting the band.
This then could be Matt McGachy first trip to Manchester, having been the band’s vocalist for eighteen years – Cryptopsy really do need to get over to the UK more often. As proof of that there is enough band merchandise being traded to make that financially viable, so all that’s left is for the Quebec quartet to do their thing.
Using For Whom the Bell Tolls as an intro tape brings the crowd nicely to the boil before smashing the room with eight tracks, evenly split between the very old and the very new. Slit Your Guts from 1996’s None So Vile record lights the touchpaper with massive deathy riffs and gravelled vocals, but with enough competing factors to make you realise here is a band with some vision.
Cold blue lights flicker and flash for As Gomorrah Burns’ Lascivious Undivine; Matt points out the constant Cryptopsy watcher will see there’s been a switch on bass, as Olivier Pinard is taking a hiatus this tour.
They go back to the very beginning with Open Face Surgery’s unrelenting savagery; bring in some dissonance for Godless Deceiver; and call for both a mass headbang and a circle pit during Graves of the Fathers.
With new album, An Insatiable Violence, locked, loaded and ready to fire in June, it’s only right the band should showcase a new tune. Until There’s Nothing Left feels like the world is about to end and, under blood red stage lights, you kinda get the feeling that the Ghostbusters have crossed the streams. Flayed the Swine and Phobophile come with the enticement to crowd surf and stage dive, which a few take up, as fast, technical tempos leave the room in a state of submission.
Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonate is their outro tape, which is a bit like bolting the stable door after the horse has been on a shooting rampage.
Making a swift and welcome return to Manchester after their headlining slot at last year’s Night of Salvation, Decapitated are in no mood to cede the tile of the most brutal band of the night to anyone. New vocalist, Eemeli Bodde, has had time to settle into the role of fronting the band, after the unexpected departure of Rafal Piotrowski not long before that November show.
Now, Eemeli joins the role of Decapitated singers and can stand shoulder to shoulder with Sauron, Coven and Rasta to give voice to those overwhelming technically brutal compositions.
All eight of the band’s full length studio releases get a visit, with A Poem About an Old Prison Man starting things off with a low hum and a fierce and fearsome, yet crystal clear tone. Just a Cigarette grooves as it scythes, and Three-Dimensional Defect is layered and has a brutal beauty all its own.
Earth Scar reveals some of Decapitated’s progressive, symphonic leanings, as does Last Supper’s proggy mid-section, while Spheres of Madness takes the listener on a journey across galaxies.
The combination of brutal efficiency and technical prowess occasionally gives the Poles a Meshuggah vibe, mind-bending and uncompromising, Decapitated have the ability to lull you into a sense of complacency, as with the danceable, skipping rhythms of 404, until its complex patterns kick in and melt your brain.
Winds of Creation takes us back to the very beginning, Kill the Cult is oddly bouncy and upbeat, while Suicidal Space Programme cuts about as cleanly as anything from the most recent Cancel Culture record. Which leaves just Iconoclast to bring the curtain down on the show.
As ticket buyers we really are being treated to some incredible touring packages of late. Whether that’s due to financial constraints or some other economic reason, it’s we punters who are the real winners. The Infernal Bloodshed Over Europe will rightly be remembered as one of 2025’s most brutal – but enjoyable – evenings.
And United apparently won - or so I’m told.
Photo Credits: Tim Finch Photography
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