Dying Fetus, Chelsea Grin, Despised Icon and Vitriol treated us to a riotous night of brutal Death Metal at the Electric Ballroom Camden last week. It was a night of destroying personal demons and celebrating life with friends via a high-tempo battering and appreciation of the music genre from hell.
Dying Fetus – Chelsea Grin – Despised Icon – Vitriol
Electric Ballroom Camden – 5 December 2024
Words: Lucy Dunnet
Photography: Ashlinn Nash
Dying Fetus
John Gallagher, by far our favourite Gallagher, has been leading the legendary Death Metal outfit Dying Fetus for 33 years, and his guitar-wielding, growl-emitting force doesn’t look like it will be dwindling anytime soon. From the moment the Electric Ballroom speakers transitioned from Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go into Dying Fetus’ set opener, From Womb To Waste, carnivorous spirit spread through the crowd and the sizzling energy that had been present since Vitriol intensified tenfold.
In a destructive world that makes it so hard to find peace, the trenches of brutal Death Metal gigs offer a cathartic space for escapism; anger, aggression and rage became enthusiasm, excitement and joy. Gallagher, Sean Beasley (bass, vocals) and Trey Williams (drums) made three feel like a glorious crowd with the titan stage presence they possessed.
Intentional Manslaughter, with Gallagher’s iconic guttural vocals, Williams’ hazardous drumming and Beasley’s gut-wrenching heavy bass, ripped the crowd into a ravenous mosh pit. Constant screams for Dying Fetus and an extreme exertion of energy followed every track. Thoughts of catching your breath? No chance. Dying Fetus performed song after song of impossible-to-ignore brutality.
Screaming the lyrics to Wrong One To Fuck With at the impressively large number of women in not just the crowd but in the mosh pit left a feeling of camaraderie and female ferocity. Shoulder barges followed by knowing winks are something you can only get away with at a Metal show, and we have decided it is one of our favourite ways to make friends.
Mosh pits and circle pits came out of every possible direction; Dying Fetus put on a set that aimed simultaneously to murder you and inject you with the verve of life. The night finished with the most appropriately named track: Subjected To A Beating.
Limping, dripping and grinning from ear to ear is the only way to leave a Dying Fetus show.
Chelsea Grin
Chelsea Grin are a deathcore band that don’t stop grinding. Lead vocalist Tom Barber, who has been fronting the band since 2018, emerged onto the Electric Ballroom stage glowing with charisma. After warming up the crowd with fan-favourite Hostage, Barber shouted at the crowd to “open that fucking pit and give me something to look at.”
The visibly younger moshers obeyed and got a massive, if a little vacant, hole open in the crowd for The Isnis. Barber’s transitions from high-pitched squeals to deep death growls were both impressive and disturbing, and the whole band put on a performance of telekinetic-level mastery.
A man dressed as a banana disappeared just as quickly as he appeared, adding to the night’s craziness. Crewcabanger saw ominous hand waves and hilariously odd facial expressions from Barber, and a rip-roaring guitar solo finish from Stephen Rutishauser. The pit of thrashing limbs during Playing With Fire transformed into a wall of death for Dead Rose.
Next up in Barber’s weird crowd interactions were games of rock, paper, scissors, several of which he won and several of which he lost atrociously. The crowd was split between those who watched with bated breath and those who were baffled, but everyone’s breathing was all over the place as the band slammed on the intro to Cheyne Stokes.
Chelsea Grin certainly made us grin, mainly thanks to Tom Barber’s antics and frontman charm.
Despised Icon
We are forever grateful that the Canadian deathcore sextet Despised Icon saw sense in 2016 and re-formed, for this iconic band is far from despised. Their delight and excitement to be playing for their London fans poured from the stage. As Alex Erian informed us, they don’t get to do this often and only play about 20 shows a year; London, we should count ourselves lucky.
“London, let’s do this shit!” The set began with synchronised headbanging from the crowd, a most sacred part of Metal gymnastics. A Fractured Hand and Snake In The Grass allowed the crowd to warm up, with Erian and Steve Marois’ back-and-forth screaming duets immediately impressing the whole Electric Ballroom.
Every time Erian and Marois screamed for a circle pit, the crowd responded, ensuring they were bigger and better on each revolution. The impossible-to-ignore spinning drums and breakdowns of Retina gave way to carnage on the floor, and Furtive Monologue had all of the hardcore two-steppers in the crowd come out to play.
It was grins all around: on stage, up on the balcony, and on the beer-soaked, well-trodden floor. Despised Icon are a band that are impossible to ignore and addictive to listen to. They demonstrated the magic of a great live band in being able to visibly rile up the whole crowd; the difference in energy from the start of the set to the finish was a complete rowdy eye-sore.
Despised Icon closed their set with Purgatory, and the crowd made sure to enjoy every last second of their favourite screaming duo and menacing band of icons. We may have only been halfway through the night, but this was an absolute triumph of a second support act.
Vitriol
Kyle Rasmussen and Matt Kilner stepped onto the stage with the unassuming calm of a Black Mamba before attacking its prey with the fastest, most vicious strike; Vitriol were about to spew a set full of visceral intensity, and we were not prepared.
They kicked off the night with I Drown Nightly, and the ear-crushing volume and unbelievable blasting riffs sent whole-body shivers ricocheting through the crowd. Rasmussen explained the empty stage and informed us that the rest of the band had quit a month before the tour. Their loss, we thought, to not be a part of this magnificent creation.
A sparse but vicious pit immediately accompanied Weaponized Loss, but our jaws were too busy touching the floor in awe of this two-man force of Death Metal. The instrumentals were actually so loud that we could barely hear Rasmussen’s growls. Still, it worked: straining ever so slightly to catch the demonic growls of Vitriol’s frontman felt like stepping too close to the edge of a cliff, and by the time you realised the danger, you were already falling.
The obnoxiously fast stage lighting created the illusion that Rasmussen was pulsating and his body was being raised above the stage (or maybe we were hallucinating at this point). Was the frontman undergoing an exorcism, having an orgasm, or both? Alternating between eye rolls to the heavens and biting the air, Rasmussen was terrifying to watch, and we couldn’t take our eyes off him.
Kilner’s aggressive drumming in Victim gave us calf cramps, but that didn’t mean we stopped erratically pulsating our legs, trying to keep up. Rasmussen then seared our eardrums when he screamed out The Parting Of A Neck, a sadistic song that confused all our senses, leaving us unsure if we wanted to cry, scream, laugh or fuck. Kilner and Rasmussen evacuated the stage as abruptly as they arrived, leaving the crowd breathless and hungry for more.
