 | Written and photographed by Alex Stojanovic (C) 2022 All rights reserved by MetalMasterKingdom.com CANNIBAL CORPSE w/ Dark Funeral / Immolation / Black Anvil @ Danforth Music Hall Toronto, ON, Canada November 6, 2022 Presented by Inertia Entertainment The end of the year is approaching, and with live music's resurgence continuing this year, Toronto has already seen an array of incredible shows this year, but there's still some more shows to come before the end of the year. That being said, fans gathered at the Danforth Music Hall on a rather warm Sunday evening on November 6 for a night of brutality that included windmills, gutteral vocals, rampaging riffs, and a whole lot of notes, as one of the most brutal tours of the year was in town, which was Cannibal Corpse with special guests Dark Funeral, Immolation and Black Anvil. This tour seemed like an interesting mix because it was a 50/50 split between death metal and black metal. Even though they're two of the most extreme subgenres, it's a bit of an odd mix, because they both have blast beats and gutteral vocals, but death metal has much more going and is more fast-paced, whereas black metal seems more atmospheric with the soaring and dissonant tremolo-picked riffs. Either way, the tour proved to be a great success because the show was sold out in advance. |
| Black Anvil were responsible for kicking off the festivities, which is always a daunting task, especially when you have legends like Immolation, Dark Funeral and Cannibal Corpse following you, and it proved because their sound didn't resonate with much of the crowd, but the crowd was still respectful. I'm obviously really picky when it comes to sound, especially in a live setting, and I accept the fact that in certain venues, the sound for certain bands won't always be the best. The Danforth has a reputation for having really good acoustics for sound, but Black Anvil's sound was really muffled. What they lacked for in the music and the mix, their stage presence made up for it, so I will give them that. Next up were Immolation. It was my second time getting to witness the New York death metal legends, and oddly enough, that last time just happened to be with Cannibal Corpse in 2013 on the Decibel Magazine Tour along with Beyond Creation and Napalm Death, so along with Trivium's Dead Men & Dragons Tour, this was another tour where half of it was a throwback tour for me personally, but I digress. Beginning the death metal portion of the bill, they slammed into a double-dose of new songs with "Acts Of God" and "The Age Of No Light". Ross Dolan's gutteral vocals are still intact and Robert Vigna's energetic guitar swings were still on great display. Given that they are touring on Acts Of God, more than half their set consistent of new songs like "Noose Of Thorns", "Overtures Of The Wicked", "Shed The Light", "When Halos Burn" and "Apostle". Of course, they respected the old-school fans by throwing in some old tunes like "Of Martyrs & Men", "Swarm Of Terror" and "Burial Ground". Band #3 were Dark Funeral, who supplied the European portion of a purely New York tour. Once again, given that they were black metal, they seemed out of place musically, but they definitely had the best look on the entire tour, particularly Chaq Mol. Their corpse paint was very meticulously drawn on their faces compared to Black Anvil, whose corpse paint looked more messy. However, when it comes to the two black metal bands on the bill, they definitely got a louder response given that they are much more well-known name, and they had the better sound mix. Some songs they treated us to included "Unchain My Soul", "Hail Murder", "Leviathan", "Nail Them To The Cross", "Let The Devil In", "The Secrets Of The Black Arts" and "Where Shadows Forever Reign". Closing off the night was Cannibal Corpse. As they always do, they walked out on stage with no intro music, arming themselves with their guitars and Rob Barrett letting chords hang before they start playing. The onslaught began mid-paced with "Scourge Of Iron" before quickly going full throttle with "The Time To Kill Is Now". Throughout their near 1.5 hr set, they rampaged their way through tunes from all different eras, which included new song like "Inhumane Harvest", "Necrogenic Resurrection" and "Condemnation Contagion", as well as songs from the 2010s and 2000s, like "Code Of The Slashers", "The Wretched Spawn", "Evisceration Plague", "Kill Or Become" and "Death Walking Terror", and a good amount of classics like "I Cum Blood", "Fucked With A Knife", "Gutted", "A Skull Full Of Maggots", "Stripped, Raped & Strangled" and the ultimate closer "Hammer Smashed Face". As always, Corpsegrinder never failed to amaze and amuse with his windmills, powerful signature gutterals, and his humourous banter in between songs. Even if his banter includes jokes or song intros that he's done a million times already, and people know what he's going to say, he still manages to get laughs and cheers. He even resurrected one of my favourite crowd jokes from the last time I saw them, where he claims to have a gift in his closed hand for someone who became a target for a teasing, and it turns out that he had nothing. Classic Corpsegrinder comedy. Even within all the comedy, he still finds a spot to throw in something heartfelt. Case in point, he dedicated "Stripped, Raped & Strangled" to Trevor Strnad from Black Dahlia Murder, who we lost to suicide earlier this year. On top of that, Alex Webster, Rob Barrett, Erik Rutan and Paul Mazurkiewicz are still at the top of their game as musicians and they all haven't lost a step within their individual playing and stage presence. Aside from Corpsegrinder, Rutan wins the trophy for most energetic stage presence within the band with frenetic headbanging while still being able to execute complex riffing with precision. There's a reason why Cannibal Corpse are still the reigning kings of death metal. After over 30 years of scaring the pants off the faint of heart, their death metal dominance continues to be as strong as its ever been, and is showing no sign of slowing down. Long may they continue to entertain and terrify. | BLACK ANVIL Photo credit: Alex Stojanovic / (C) 2022 MetalMasterKingdom.com IMMOLATION Photo credit: Alex Stojanovic / (C) 2022 MetalMasterKingdom.com DARK FUNERAL Photo credit: Alex Stojanovic / (C) 2022 MetalMasterKingdom.com CANNIBAL CORPSE Photo credit: Alex Stojanovic / (C) 2022 MetalMasterKingdom.com |
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