LIVE FROM THE PIT: Cryptopsy, 200 Stab Wounds, Inferi and Corpse Pile

Death metal is a much-maligned subgenre outside of heavy circles. Heck, even within heavy music it tends to be the butt of plenty of jokes, and routinely gets overlooked as an unserious sound. However, back in 1996, amidst the strongest period of releases death metal has ever had, CRYPTOPSY released an LP that has since come to define a more niche version of the subgenre - None So Vile became the benchmark for potent technical death metal, and to this day is still hung at the very top of what that sound has to offer.

So, when the best of the best decide to tour their seminal album for its 30th anniversary, it would be a little silly to turn it down, no? We headed to London’s O2 Academy Islington to see the quartet in action, with 200 STAB WOUNDS, INFERI, and CORPSE PILE in support.

On their first ever European tour, openers CORPSE PILE were a fantastic way to start the evening. Mixing their death metal sound with a healthy dose of hardcore and more than a little grindcore, the brute force assault of their sound was more than welcome. From their equally amusing and depressing anecdote about the US’s chronic lack of walking space and public transport before Where the Sidewalk Ends, to their impassioned speech before Fed to the Starved, the band stood proudly behind their politics and decried fascism, capitalism, racism, queerphobia and more in a show that was as morally strong as it was sonically pummelling.

Second up was INFERI, an act with a much less stomping sound - opting to take their guitars the more refined route of progressive death metal, with a little black metal thrown in for good measure. Fitting just five songs into their half hour compared to CORPSE PILE’s ten, their differing influences make themselves as well known on the set list as they do in the flesh. Whilst they were technically fantastic, they did not engage the audience to quite the same degree as their precursors, although final track Heirs of the Descent was certainly received well.

As opposed to the technical excellence they followed, 200 STAB WOUNDS’ name sounds as aggressive and savage as their music. The menacing act stepped up the ominous tone of the evening with their pulverising guitar tone and gargantuan riffs - so hypnotically brilliant were they, a crowd-surfer who looked to be roughly fourty years past his athletic peak managed to evade a security guard just to climb onstage and headbang with every member of the band, before finally being escorted off by a chuckling member of security. From Masters of Morbidity to Fatal Reality, the set was a hit and they walked off having caused suitable devastation.

Of course most, if not all, members of the audience were most excited for the final act - the headliners, the technical death metal kings, the Canadian icons themselves in CRYPTOPSY. And not a soul was disappointed. Playing all but two songs off of the album of the hour - sadly Dead and Dripping and Lichmistress did not make the cut - it was a true celebration of None So Vile. With five other songs joining the fray on the night, including three off of their latest release An Insatiable Violence, it was not only a night to look to the past but also one to celebrate the present, and to look forward at what else CRYPTOPSY may yet accomplish. Successfully riling a crowd into a baying mass of frenzied bodies sounds like a zombie fiction, but not only did the quartet manage it with relative ease, they kept a smile (and a gurn) on their faces all the while.

CRYPTOPSY and co showed up and showed out on a night that showed us the best that the heaviest end of metal has to offer - from brutal blast beats and furious fingers flying over fretboards, to glacial guitars and vomitous vocals. Everything was of the top draw, and once again the desperate need of crushing death metal has been sated in the capital - for now…

Words: Jasmine Longhurst

Photos: Oz Davy