Cannibal Corpse
Special Guests: Dark Funeral + Ingested + Stormruler
Venue: Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow.
Date: 19th April 2023.
Review & Photos By: Dave Buchanan
The corpse paint and spiked armbands were out in force tonight, as the mighty Cannibal Corpse rolled into town with a tour package as varied as the Scottish weather. With a sold out Barrowlands filling up fast, and an early door time of 6pm (WTF) things kick off promptly with some Melodic Black Metal from the frosty recesses of…St. Louis, Missouri.
Stormruler
Like snare? Cool, then this first band have you covered.
Having only been active a few years, Stormruler take to the stage with more confidence than you’d expect. With only 30 minutes to make their mark, they launch into ‘Reign of the Winged Duke’ from their debut, 2021 album, Under the Burning Eclipse. It’s a good mix of black and chugging death, and the band seem to have all the faces/moves down, to go with their ferocious playing. As they move into the newer material of their 2022 release, things took a bit of a turn, unfortunately. Even with that extra streak of melody, it all becomes a bit…repetitive. There was also the issue of the overbearing volume of that god-damned snare drum! I know the first band of the night tends to get a raw deal with the sound, but seriously?? It should have been rectified within the first 5 minutes but, unfortunately not, and we’re treated to a snare heavy, eyeball bursting mix for the entire set.
Stormruler did seem to have a fair chunk of the crowd on side, however, as a few circle pits kicked off during their set. But, personally, as much as the pit seemed to enjoy it, it just didn’t set my church on fire. Great twin guitar harmonies, and vocally venomous, but musically it just didn’t really give me anything I haven’t heard many times before. 
(2.5 / 5)
Ingested
Manchester Death Metal/Deathcore unit Ingested take the stage next, and thankfully, all drum sounds are back within listenable levels. Ingested don’t fuck around at all, making the most of their 35 minutes on stage, and giving the crowd plenty of bang for their buck. Tracks like Rebirth, No Half Measures and Impending Dominance sound utterly pummelling, but for me, it’s the bands new material that really shines bright tonight. The tightness and groove on Shadows in Time and Echoes of Hate sound even more imposing live.
Props must also go to vocalist Jason Evans – he is on FIRE tonight! His conviction on their new release Ashes Lie Still was impressive, but hearing that raw power in person just took these tracks to the next level. Said power is evident early on, as he whips the crowd into a frenzy with a full-on wall of death on Shadows in Time. Utter carnage.
The band just get more into their groove as the set progresses, and to be honest, I kinda wish they had a bit more stage time to delve deeper into their back catalogue. That being said, hopefully with this performance they’ve gained a few more followers for their next UK headline tour. 
(4 / 5)
Dark Funeral
Stockholm Black Metal quintet Dark Funeral bring the darkness next as they slowly drift onto the stage. Full of character and covered in corpse paint, the band get to work, opening with the title-track of most recent album, We Are the Apocalypse, before treating fans to some deep-cuts of The Arrival of Satan’s Empire and My Funeral.
The band don’t break character for a second (okay, I might have got a cheeky set of horns from bassist Adra-Melek) and their brand of Black Metal comes with a huge streak of dark ambience which fills the room with the desired melancholy. Performance wise, I have to say, drummer Jalomaah is an absolute beast of a player. He looks like he’s not even breaking a sweat, yet his rapid metronomic bass drums and blasting arms would make you believe otherwise. The rest of the band deliver a worthy performance, and you can tell there’s a ton of experience up on the stage. But…and there’s a big but coming. While there’s plenty of moody theatrics, Satan-hailing and fist-pumping from vocalist Heljarmadr, it’s all a little bit too overdone for me. And not in a grandiose, Behemoth type way. I also can’t help but feel they are just going through the motions tonight, and unfortunately, the low-energy performance comes across somewhat routine.
Let the Devil In and Where Shadows Forever Reign bring the bands 55-minute set to a close, but as much as they deliver a tight-knit performance, the infernal war machine just don’t seem to be burning at full heat tonight. 
(3 / 5)
Cannibal Corpse
It’s been 17 YEARS since I last saw Cannibal Corpse in a small, sweaty room in Glasgow. Tonight the Buffalo, New York Death Metal legends fill a much, much bigger room, with a whopping 15 albums worth of material to choose from. The set list is as stacked as you would imagine, with the band rolling out the hits, one after another, and sounding utterly crushing while doing it. I mean, no real surprise there, right?
The band have obviously gone through some line-up changes since the last time I saw them, with the main remodel now including Mr Eric Rutan now on full-time guitar duties…which could be one of the best decisions they’ve ever made. Not only is Eric an utter demon on guitar, and a fantastic producer, but his stage presence tonight just takes the bands energy to the next level. He stalks the stage, pulling some of the best “metal” faces I’ve seen, whilst ripping out utterly savage riffs on the likes of opener Scourge of Iron and Inhumane Harvest.
But in front of every great guitarist, there’s a wind-milling neck with enough force to power half of Glasgow, and tonight, Mr Corpsegrinder, standing in the same spot, has set his neck to full intensity. Unsurprisingly, and rightfully so, the crowd are eating it up, and as Corpsegrinder and co. unleash the fury, the Barrowlands quickly erupts into a pit of horns and thrashing hair. George holds centre stage all night, not moving an inch…except that massive neck, obviously, and the band lay down a merciless onslaught of pummelling grooves and enough blasts to last you a lifetime.
Fucked With A Knife is elegantly dedicated to the ladies of Glasgow, before ploughing through a rather bludgeoning version of The Wretched Spawn. “This is a song about shooting blood from your cock!” bellows around the venue, before they propel into I Cum Blood, but the real standouts for me were Death Walking Terror from 2006’s Kill and Unleashing the Bloodthirsty from Bloodthirst – both absolutely crushing, with double kicks from Mazurkiewicz giving the tracks such a huge backbone.
My only gripe (fuck, he here goes), and it’s a small one, was the amount of dead air we got in between a lot of the songs. I realise these guys have been doing this for over 30 years, and they aren’t the spring chickens they once were, but the short breaks did kill the flow of the set. That aside, this was everything you wanted from a Cannibal Corpse set, and as they bring things to a close with Stripped, Raped and Strangled and the notorious Hammer Smashed Face, you can’t help but feel you’ve just watched one of the best Death Metal bands on the planet do what they do best. 
(4.5 / 5)
