Live Review: Cabal w/Vexed, Viscera and Lifesick at Camden Underworld!

The first gig of 2024 for Metal Noise finds us heading into the Big Smoke to the iconic Camden Underworld for a night of headbanging ecstasy and the first headlining European tour run of Danish masters Cabal. Dubbed “The Great Decay Tour“, it has brought them to the United Kingdom for a trio of shows in a fourteen date run that will finish with a home town throwdown in Copenhagen. A celebration of the bands October 2022 via Nuclear Blast released “Magno Interitus” album, a collection of songs about death, dying and doom laced with DJent fuelled riffs, this tour is one that finds the band humble enough to admit they didn’t know if anyone would turn up…

Having dropped a new EP in “Love and Other Lies” some 5 days before tonight’s show via Metal Blade Records, Danish Metallic Hardcore outfit Lifesick [8/10] freely admit to being influenced by Swedish Death Metal and it shows as the band launch themselves into a collection of songs that have a 90s Hardcore aesthetic and a heart of darkness. Witnessing them live is like watching the bastard child of Biohazard and Entombed bursting out of the TV set when MTV Headbanger’s Ball was blasting and they very quickly win over the crowd with their buzzsaw riffs and high energy output. That is high calibre enough to put a hole in your chest with their aggression kept to the music as they encourage everyone to have a good time. Cabal vocalist Andreas Bjulver joins them on the stage for a verse having been filming them earlier on and the crowd goes wild, the two steppers out in force along with the moshers so by the end it’s all high fives and fist bumps.

One of the many highlights of the 10th Anniversary of Tech-Fest last summer, Progressive Deathcore champions Vexed [9/10] are a different animal at a club show. DJent fuelled Deathcore riffs put bounce in the mosh pit as cuts like “Anti-Fetish” and “Nephatism” tear the crowd limb from limb with their blunt force sonic trauma, the band even managing to coax a wall of death out of a Wednesday night crowd. There are no momentarily silences as the band have a backing track playing between songs that adds extra guitar parts allowing Jay Bacon to deliver the rhythms, the light show and constant movement from the band matched by and equally energetic audience. Megan Targett feels like she’s walking in the footsteps of the original throat full of heart Tarrie B. Murphy of My Ruin fame did in the 90s and seeing the same nonsense critisms, something she references between songs but fortunately she’s using that *ahem* negative energy to her advantage. Sadly tonight’s set feels far too short as well as being sickly sweet so here’s hoping to seeing them higher up on a line up in the not too distant future.

Fronted by former Sylosis and Heart Of A Coward vocalist Jamie Graham, Viscera [9/10] are a Death Metal beast and a band we’ve some how narrowly missed witnessing over the past few years, thanks in part to the winds of plague. Recently re-tooled following a couple of departures in 2023, tonight they’re on fire, taking to the stage as a four piece with a twin axe attack and no bassist but having in their ranks a drummer in Alex Micklewright who makes up for that with enough jackhammer footwork to make an earthquake jealous. Perhaps the odd one out on this line up with less core elements than the other bands, they have plenty of sweeping leads with Gothenburg Melodic Death Metal vibes as they reduce the Underworld to rubble as Adam Bell and Charlie Michael take turns to shred. Cuts like “Lamb To The Slaughter“, “Rats With Wings” and “Layers Of Skin” go down a storm and are accompanied by constant circle pits around the venues iconic pillars while set closer “Sungazer” is an absolute beast with its sheer intensity sending a shiver down the spine. A triumphant return after a year away from London, tonight feels like it’s set the record straight.

This isn’t our first experience of Copenhagen Deathcore brutes Cabal [9/10] who absolutely decimated the weak at Radar Festival a couple of years back. Since then they have of course grown exponentially and tonight is very much a celebration of that as baithed in blue light and dry ice the five piece take to the stage. Wave after wave of non stop angular riffs run deeper than Jagermeister, slicing through the crowd like a Sharknado, the audience accepting the gift and responding with two stepping and a wall of death as the violent abrasions show no sign of abaiting. Ben Mason of Bound In Fear joins the band on stage for a verse before new song “Still Cursed” lights the place up, tonight’s set coming with a strobe light warning. It bodes well for the future with the band no doubt wanting to put out a new record before the end of the year, the chantable song title something that is simple but lethally effective live. Intermittent syncopated headbanging is a sign of unity within the ranks, the band clearly enjoying life in the limelight as the headliner before “Death March” delivers slab after concrete slab of punishing riffage and pulverising rhythmic battery. Bjulver may have a cold but it doesn’t affect his vocals even if he feels rough around the gills and on tonights evidence under watch Cabal could well steal the Deathcore crown…