Live Review : Decapitated + Cryptopsy + Warbringer + Carnation @ Club Academy, Manchester on May 8th 2025

When is an undercard not an undercard? When the supporting bill seems to receive as much, if not more, love and adoration as the main feature. Tonight in Manchester doesn't feel like a typical package tour with several make-do filler acts leading up to the central event. For all intents and purposes, it has the air of a triple headliner affair as Warbringer and Cryptopsy are treated with the same level of reverence as nominal stage closer Decapitated. This doesn’t mean the Polish legends get short shrift, it means that every one of them receives a reaction fit for a canopy-topping act.

Even openers Carnation seem to have won the jackpot when it comes to pulling a crowd. The Belgian Death Metallers may well be shoved on at the ludicrously early ten to seven, but the Club Academy is already pushing capacity and hungry to get its mosh on. Whether it is United’s processional progression to the Europa League Final or the adulation of a new pontiff, the crowd are hyped up before they even enter the subterranean wonderland. They take to Carnation's raw and simplistic take on death metal like a duck to water. The sound is purposefully muggy and distorted, and the monitors are set way too loud. This is music simple by design. Coarse, granular and nihilistically nasty.

It is the perfect accompaniment for some early doors slam dancing and the pit fires up in all its resplendent ugliness. This music is meant to have a repugnant feel, and the band revel in their self-proclaimed unpleasantness. Vocalist Simon Duson comes across as a cross between an Auton and a corroding Terminator. He stands stock still, stage left, replete in chains and blood red corpse paint. For all his lack of movement, he still manages to be a commanding presence, belting out grunts with equal derision and authority. This is Death Metal taken right back to its primal foulness. Overall, they lack the house-trained nature of their tourmates but still manage to be strangely enticing in their stoic indifference to everything. 

There is a lot of love for Warbringer. The floor is now a heaving mass of bodies, and the anticipation is frizzling. This is modern thrash done exceptionally well. Tight and taut in delivery, but epic and anthemic in scale. It is fast, frantic, and driven by enormous swathes of kinetic energy. The beauty of thrash has always been its hurtling speed and ravenous dynamism. Warbringer display those components and then some. It is also unashamedly fun. John Kevill is a devilishly delicious front person. He has a magnetic personality that immediately bonds with the audience. Due to the amount of Decapitated’s covered up kit cluttering up the stage, there isn’t a lot of  room for movement available. However, our John admirably balances himself on the lip of the stage and throws shapes like his life depended on it.

‘Woe to the Vanquished’ sees an already impressive level of velocity nudge up a couple of gears as the inhabitants of the pit tear around in an infinite perpetual circle. At no point does this feel like the second act in a four-way extravaganza. Warbringer own the room and the energy expended by the hordes gives the impression that they will be off for a good lie down afterwards. It is a wonderful melee of brutality and silliness, crowned by John flourishing a sword in all our faces for (unironically)’The Sword and the Cross’. This is metal at its fevered and ferment best, and even the abrupt ending (they literally run out of time), can’t take away from its brilliance.

There is a wonderful flow about tonight's bill and within barely fifteen minutes Warbringer's galloping thrash is replaced by the monolithic technical death metal of long-standing Canadian troubadours Cryptopsy. The onstage space is truncated further by the expansion of the drum kit to fit Flo Mounier’s expansive spec, but that doesn’t stop them coming out of the traps flying. There is a wonderful juxtaposition between the intricate musical technicality summoned up by Flo, Christian Donaldson and last-minute stand-in Remi LeGresley and the guttural vocal delivery of Matt McGachy. Whilst his bandmates weave sumptuous tapestries of interlocking sounds, Matt stands there and bleaches forth the most grizzled grunts and groans. It’s an astonishing marriage of textures that should not work but is absorbingly enrapturing.

Cryptopsy are frankly astonishing this evening. There is something startlingly evocative about the depth and continually churning contrasts that they managed to sculpt in their version of death metal. It is frenetic enough to build up a highly impressive pit but there is so much light and shade in play that is usual alien in heavy music. There is a complexity on show here that belies Death Metal neolithic roots. Whilst most of the room is happy to throw itself around to it, this is music to make you think and make you contemplate. The response is astonishing and even as the staggeringly short set grinds to a halt, there are mournful cries for one more song. An absolutely masterclass in the art of constructing intelligent death metal.

What a difference six months make. It was only last November that Decapitated were last in this city. They had the honour of headlining Damnation’s opening Night of Salvation. It was also their first ever show with new boy Eemeli Bodde, whilst he did do a grand job, in the cavernous confines of the BEC Arena there was a level of rabbit in headlights as he performed with his new bandmates for the first time. Fast forward to now, and it is like we are looking at a different person. It is not clear what fitness regime he has been on but Eemeli has clearly aged a good ten years and put on five stone of pure muscle. The lanky slightly in awe youth that stood before us on the other side of town is now a mountain of a man filled to the brim with self-confidence. It is to his eternal credit, that we do not at any point this evening miss Rafal Piotrowski. He has taken Decapitated’s impressive back catalogue and made it his own

Initially the signs are that the frankly bonkers audience reaction will subside for them. ‘A Poem About an Old Prison Man’ is met not with a furious flurry of bodies but with an almost motionless wall of patrons drinking it in and filming for posterity. The crowd remain stationary for ‘Just A Cigarette’ but then suddenly it all kicks into gear. ‘Three-Dimensional Defect’ from “The Negation” kicks in and the floor reassuringly explodes in a carnival of primal violence and flailing limbs. From then on in, Decapitated can do no wrong. Musically this is hostile technicality. The riffs are beautifully rendered but also vicious and caustic. It is death metal full of anger, angst and marginalisation. It is crushing in its density, but it is also obvious that it is meticulously engineered and astonishingly well constructed. Any fears that they were about to be blown away by the other two performances are quickly dispelled. This is their tour, and they now own the night. 

Whilst 2022’s “Cancer Culture” may seem an age away, they still rely on it as the tentpole of the set. New material is completely absent, and there is no mention of forthcoming releases. To be honest, when they have the wealth of material to rely on, it does not matter that they haven’t craved any new ditties. The reaction when they crash into ‘Spheres of Madness’ is frankly astonishing. Partners drag their better halves onto the dancefloor like they are in some suburban club and the pit consumes the entire room. It is one of those magical moments where every single person in the room is consumed by a song. Decapitated continuously prove that there is a reason that they are now considered death metal royalty. Tonight they show that not only can they do it without their recent focal point but that the old magic is still there and the fire still burns. A blazing testimony to the blistering brilliance of death metal on a small stage. Astonishing.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Decapitated + Cryptopsy + Warbringer + Carnation