Live Review : Decapitated + Obscura + Inferi +The Materia @ Club Academy, Manchester on December 15th 2023

To the uninitiated ear all death metal must sound the same. However for connoisseurs this is a genre with a infinite multitude of different shades and textures. We have four bands on offer this evening, four bands all operating in distinctly different universes within death metal forever evolving superstructure. 

The Materia kick things off at the ungodly hour of 6:45PM. Finding anything out about these guys is quite a chore as there are at least six other The Materia's operating within our world. This is the Polish variety, who trade in a rather gorgeous melodic and refined version of death metal. There is actually a hell of a lot of melody at play here. Their sound is sumptuous, fragile and oozing with warmth. There is heaviness, because it wouldn't be death metal without it, but it's a restrained form of heaviness that strokes as opposed to bludgeons the listener. 

There is also some really rather spiffing songwriting going on. Great care has been taken in how all the individual segments of the tracks fit together and what we are presented with is a stunningly inventive flow from harsh to light and back again. Every now and again an opening act blows me away with their creativity and level of ambition. This was very much one of these times and it was obvious that those who had noted the early start time and made it in, are also rather taken with them.

Having had my head well and truly turned, I'm now rather intrigued about what happens next and I am not disappointed. Inferi, from the deepest darkest bowels of Nashville Tennessee, are nothing short of incredible. Their particular take on death metal is highly minimal, with anything that could be viewed as surplus to requirements stripped away. Part of the reason for the stark and cavernous sound is the fact that tonight (and from what I can gauge for the whole of their run with Decapitated) they are operating as a four piece with two guitars and no bass. Rather than holding back their sound, this unusual setup creates oceans of space for their riffs to breathe.

Everything sounds crisp and precision engineered. There is very little actually musically going on and that's what makes it so exciting and invigorating. The riffs are not over phased or packed in. Instead when they appear they have so much room to flex their audio muscles. If you go back to the forefathers of death metal it was all about sparsity and musical austerity. Inferi have taken that ideology and fused it with oodles of technicality. The guitar work is simply extraordinary and it is the complexity of the chains of notes melded with the lack of anything around it, that makes all so invigoratingly wonderful. 

By this point I am bouncing off the walls like a toddler with a tartrazine shot. To witness not one but two unexpectedly marvellous reinterpretations of my beloved death metal has made me as giddy as a kid on Christmas morning. Sadly Obscura are on hand to deflate the whole thing. It's not that their particular version of death metal is bad it's just messy after what had been before. After the brazen sparsity of Inferei, it feels like everything and the kitchen sink is being shoved with no rhyme nor reason into their music. There's no room for anything to breathe and the riffs just end up competing with each other for your attention. 

I adore the harsh brutality of death metal vocals. The evocative nature of their gruff delivery makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Steffan Kummere may well be a frighteningly proficient guitarist but his scuffed vocal delivery does nothing for me. It lacks the precision and passion that I think is the backbone of death metal delivery. It is obvious that the now heaving pit feels different to me as Obscura get as close to a hero as welcome as you're allowed when you are the special guest. But for me it all feels just disjointed and lacking the killer clarity that the first two bands provided.

If I am looking for technicality, precision and crystal clear clarity, then Decapitated provide it in absolute spades. The corpse of last year’s “Cancer Culture” is still warm but here they are back once again in the UK, this time playing 2002's "Nihility" in its entirety. The first 45 minutes of the show is dedicated to the playthrough and they dispense with it track by track with minimal of audience interaction. For a record that is 21 years old it still feels the last word in harsh technicality. Everything is immaculately rendered. The riffs gleam with laser pointed precision and the vocals are astonishing, blow after blow of heartfelt passion. It is a wondrous run through and it is staggering just how far ahead of time they were when they concocted it all those years ago.

The Club Academy’s floor is now a mass of swirling bodies bewitched and hexed to continually move in a circular motion by the sound that befalls upon them. It is a staggering sight to behold as a whole bottom section of the room moves as one. A good proportion of those who are throwing themselves around with gay abandonment weren't even born when the album was released, but still you can taste the reverential reverence coming off the audience. Their canter through the album is brought to a conclusive conclusion by their seldom heard cover of Napalm Death ‘Suffer The Little Children’, which appeared only on the German release of "Nihility". 

Freed from the confines of the album playback Rafal finds his tongue and proceeds to be affably chatter able for the rest of the evening. In complete contrast to the performance of "Nihility", from this point onwards every track gets its own opening monologue. In quick succession we get ‘Day 69’ and ‘Post (?) Organic’ from "Organic Halluciounous" and then it's new(ish) material all the way as the final furlong of the show gorges on stuff specifically from the aforementioned "Cancer Culture" and 2017's massively underrated and under heard "Anticult".

The size of the crowd that they gathered at this year's Bloodstock and also the fact that the vast majority of the shows on this lengthy jaunt around The United Kingdom are sold out, proves beyond doubt that Decapitated have now made the jump to a venerated legends status. They have had more than their fair share of bad luck and career jitters, but we are now at the stage where they are considered as essential to Death Metal as the Floridan legends that they tried to capture the spirit of with "Nihility". Tonight they were excellent, extraordinarily excellent. A searing mass of brutality and technicality burning in the nights sky. Stunning! 

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Decapitated, Obscura, Inferi, The Materia