The Chaos and Carnage Tour is going on its fourth year running (would have been 6th year if it weren’t for covid!) and this year is bigger and better than ever. The lineup included death metal/deathcore behemoths like Aborted, Born of Osiris, Dying Fetus, and Suicide Silence. Chaos and Carnage (CnC) is a show I personally love to see every year I have the opportunity. It has been amazing to watch this tour go from playing small clubs like Club Red in Phoenix, Arizona in 2018 to large venues like The House of Blues in Las Vegas this year. Every year our community grows due to social media and it has been amazing to see bands, and tours alike, grow along with it.
This year boasted a wild line-up but there was one band that stood out from the rest. That band was Slay Squad. This Los Angeles-based rap-metal group is like nothing I had ever heard. Of course, we grew up with that awkward and early 2000s rap-rock/metal music with bands like Limp Bizkit, P.O.D., and Kid Rock, but this was different. I was a bit skeptical before they hit the stage but within 10 seconds of the first song, I was diggin it. They came out swinging and they were taking no prisoners. Everyone in that room was banging their heads and going off for this group. While they do have rap influence in their music, the overall feel is just heavy. Which is exactly what was able to break through and connect with the audience that night. No matter where we come from, our social status, or who or what we identify as metal has a place for you. We have some of the most intriguing genre-blending bands out there that draw fans from all walks of life. I loved seeing hip-hop influence breaking into the deathcore scene and I hope to see them on tour again soon.
After Slay Squad took off for the night we were treated to the sultry sounds of Crown Magnetar, and by “Sultry” I mean “Brutal as fuck”. Vocalist Dan Tucker is a brilliant vocalist with an intimidating stage presence. If there was someone, I wanted fronting my deathcore band, it would be this dude. If you weren’t beaten into submission by their barbaric beats and guitar-laden savagery then I commend you on your immunity to all that is heavy as fuck. This band may have been one of the openers but these dudes can keep pace with the best of them. Crown Magnetar played a short set but I would absolutely pay to see them for a headlining tour. Crown Magnetar kept the energy flowing till they played their final song – “Black Lotus” – and left the stage.
Up next on our journey through the blackness, we had a band that I had never heard of prior to this show, and I personally still have trouble pronouncing their name. Sanguisugabogg (which means “Bloodsucking toilet”) hit the stage in dad hats and jeans. While it wasn’t your typical deathcore attire, these dudes tore the roof off the house of blues with their downtempo guttural brand of metal. Musically, Sanguisugabogg reminds me a lot of the crust bands I used to listen to growing up like Dystopia. Vocally the band is much heavier and vocalist Devin Swank tends to stick to the low gutturals which I think gives this band quite a unique sound. Near the end of the set, Swank pulled out a football and held it up. He told the crowd that they would be playing a game of “Murderball” and whoever had the ball at the end of their set and brought it to them at their merch table would get hooked up with a bunch of free stuff. All. Hell. Broke. Loose. The crowd fought over that ball for two entire songs and a few fights almost broke out over it. Security sent multiple people into the pit to keep an eye on the game, and in the end, a boy around the age of 16 or 17 walked away with the ball.
The next band was the beginning of a barrage of brutality that would last over the next 4 hours. Aborted somehow become larger than life when on that stage. This Belgian quartet knows how to throw down and they’ve been doing so since the late ’90s! This band has endless energy and an absolutely colossal stage presence. Vocalist Sven De Caluwe is a rabid beast that dominates the stage from start to finish. This band is pure sonic violence, assaulting your eardrums and raining chaos down from the skies. I have had the opportunity of seeing them live a couple of times and each time just gets better and better. Aborted has perfected their stage presence over an almost 30-year career. Aborted played a decent-sized set with 9 songs including some of their most popular like, “Retrogore”, “Cadaverous Banquet”, and “The Origin of Disease”. When they left the stage, the crowd was in a frenetic frenzy. The metal had been unleashed in full force and they were dying for more. Luckily, we had deathcore badasses Born of Osiris up next.
The last time I saw Born of Osiris was back at the 2008 Summer Slaughter Tour. That show was insane and one I will never forget…but God damn have they come a long way since then. They opened their set with one of their best and most well-known songs ‘Bow Down”. That song is enough to get any metalhead off their ass and jumping around. They followed it up with “Poster Child”, “White Nile”, “Angel or Alien”, and “Threat of Your Presence” all of which are in chronological order from their newest album Angel or Alien (2021). I personally had no idea that keyboardist Joe Buras was also a vocalist in the band. During songs like “Under the Gun,” he leaves his keyboard to deliver some awesome vocals for the chorus lines. The back and forth between Buras and main vocalist Ronnie Canizaro provides a captivating and deeply emotional touch to their music. Recordings can be dubbed with multiple lines of vocals running at once, but to be able to provide that fullness live is something that truly brings a band’s sound up another level. Born of Osiris added such a perfect little break in the sonic onslaught that night. Their music is heavy as fuck, but their melodies and lyrics add more deep emotion to the bill than the songs all about dismemberment and opening gateways to hell. I love Born of Osiris and I think they were a perfect addition to this tour. They closed out their set with “Machine” and that was it, they took off backstage and we were onto the next one!
Dying Fetus is well known in the heavy metal community. This band has been around for over 30 years and they show absolutely no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Dying Fetus has quite a unique setup for a death metal band. With only three members – consisting of drummer Trey Williams, Guitarist/vocalist Jason Gallagher, and Bassist/Vocalist Sean Beasley – it is phenomenal that they pull off such a massive sound while playing live. Dying Fetus is and always has been a band that thrives on shock and awe. Beyond having a name that would throw almost any Christian mother into a catatonic seizure, they keep their fans coming back for more with gruesomely awesome song names like “Justifiable Homicide”, “From Womb to Waste”, “Grotesque Impalement”, and “Kill Your Mother, Rape Your Dog” (all of which were played that evening). Dying Fetus had these fans frothing at the mouth, crowd surfer after crowd surfer poured over the barricade and security was having one hell of a time trying to catch them all.
Finally, we came to the headliner, after 6 bands blasting non-stop heavy metal straight into our faces, here we were. There was blood, sweat, and tears on that venue floor and still, we wanted more. When Suicide Silence made their appearance, the crowd went berserk. They opened their set with “Unanswered”, even after seeing Suicide Silence 5 or 6 times in the past, I can tell you that it never gets old hearing huge crowds scream “Where is you fucking God!?”. This band has a tendency to write phenomenal lines that people cling to for dear life; “You only live once so just go fucking nuts”, “Pull the trigger bitch”, “Fuck Everything”, etc. Vocalist Eddie Hermida is such a beast on stage. He has an intense stage presence and loves engaging with the crowd. At one point he had called out that he needed a “Pit Jesus”. He told the crowd that he had seen a man in a kilt and a shirt that said “Not today Jesus”. When the man stepped forward, Eddie declared him Pit Jesus, cleared the center of the room, and left Pit Jesus in the center to command the pit and tell the band when the crowd was hyped enough for them to start the next song. During “You Only Live Once” Las Vegas local Auzzy Blood came out on stage to swallow swords for the crowd, Eddie even took the opportunity to put one of the swords straight down Auzzy’s throat. Like every Suicide Silence performance, it was filled with unbelievable energy and nothing but love for the fans. They closed out their set with “No Pity for a Coward” and said their farewells.
The Chaos and Carnage Tour is one unlike any other on the road right now. It is packed with some of the best death metal and deathcore bands that the scene has to offer. While much of the music we listen to is “angry”, and filled with some pretty dark subject materials, the metal community is one filled with nothing but love and support for one another. Metal will always have one of the most accepting communities in the music scene and I am proud to be part of that community, and I will be a part of this community till the day I die. If you are a metalhead or a fan of heavy music in any capacity, this tour is something you shouldn’t be sleeping on. I look forward to watching this annual tour grow in size and production over the coming years and I hope you’re there to witness it as well.
