Short, fast, and fucking loud. That’s the name of the game for tonight’s underground gig at Mary’s Underground. Four bands, four totally different points on the extreme metal spectrum, grindcore meets sludge, blackened hardcore and power violence in a calamitous double header of a tour.
The sold out basement was packed from the moment doors opened. The merch line snaked around the back wall, and punters began staking out the best spots for the ensuing carnage.
Up first, local grindcore trio Maggot Cave blasted their way through a short 32 song set. Drums, guitar, and rabid vocals, ‘Welcome To The Maggot Cave’ sucker-punched the shit outta anyone in front of the speakers. Blast beats and frantic riffs aplenty, with one track that breached the ninety second mark dubbed their “doom metal offering”, Maggot Cave are a solid start to what’s set to be a frenetic school night gig.
Next up was Burial Pit – an apt name for the Sydney five piece – as the pit succumbed to wave after wave of sludgy blackened doom. Like a lumbering dinosaur caught in a tar pit, a cacophony of noise that built upon itself, pummeling the ears and chests of the front row. With tracks taken mostly from debut release Subhuman Scum, frontman Scott Tabone takes aim at trash humans, spitting venom, and with every line screeched you can feel the hate flow.
Louisiana has produced some of the nastiest sludge metal your ears have ever heard, with several of those bands hitting our shores in 2024. Eyehategod and Goatwhore were here recently and now Baton Rouge nihilists Thou have finally graced us with their presence after two decades, and multiple cancelled tours.
Opening with Narcissists Prayer, the tightly packed Mary’s floor erupted in a storm of chaos, people were pushed like a washing machine for the entirety of the set, shins dinged on the edges of the small stage.
Skinwalker, Nandy, Lonely Vigil, Thou’s frontman Bryan Funck with his back to the crowd for half the set, the other half with one foot on the fold back, dead eye stare, locked in and brimming with explosive bursts of screams.
Technical difficulties cut the set in two when a guitar string snapped, with Bryan offering comedic reprieve with a slew of lightbulb jokes. “How many riot girls does it take to change a lightbulb? One to change it and ten to write a zine about it” etc. Once the technical hurdle was successfully jumped, The Devils of Trust Steal the Souls of the Free – a cover of their collaboration with The Body – rounded out the nastiest, most nihilistic and abusive sludge set this reviewer has seen in a good while.
A decade between drinks for Aussie audiences and US grind band Full Of Hell has only made punters thirstier. Straight from the get-go the pit exploded, punters falling over themselves and the stage. Foldbacks were getting pushed around and unplugged in the ensuing carnage, Full Of Hell reveling in the mess of bodies and sweat.
Deluminate, Pile of Dead Horses, Kopf – spasm inducing noise melded with face ripping blast beats, Dylan Walker’s rabid screeches and growls were skin permeating.
Digital Prison, Crawling Back to God, a winning combination of power electronics and power violence. With a setlist touching on every facet of their existence, Transmuting Chemical Burns from latest release Coagulated Bliss hit like an ice pick to the chest – short, sharp, and deadly.
Like the name suggests, Thundering Hammers hits like a sledgie and the closing barrage of Amber Mote / Barb and Sap aurally assault what’s left of the heaving crowd. The merch desk is swarmed as the venue filters out onto the streets of Circular Quay, punters praying it doesn’t take another decade for Full Of Hell to return.
Review – Sarah Jay and Brendan Delavere
Photos – Brendan Delavere
