February 27, 2025
DNA Lounge, San Francisco
Thursday night at The DNA Lounge!
Starting off the evening’s proceedings were LA’s virtuosic Thrash Metal quartet Exmortus. They went on 35 minutes earlier than the advertised time of the show which unfortunately killed their chances of playing to a full room. Sure, by the end of the set they were playing to a decent sized crowd but for the first…oh, I don’t know…say 26 minutes of their allotted 30 the crowd was sparse. I’m not going to point fingers at whose to blame for this but it’s total BULLSHIT!
Regardless of all this they still put on a fantastic show. Their level of musicality presented on stage was light years beyond all of the other bands on the bill. These guys love to show off their chops on each respective member’s instrument. Most of their tunes have very lengthy instrumental passages to the point where the vocals are almost an afterthought. Not a put down. In fact, I love bands where the vocals are almost secondary to the music. Take Coroner for example.
Speaking of vocals, my only gripe about Exmortus’s set were the inaudible vocals throughout. They just weren’t coming through the mix at times. These dudes were at the end of a 4 week tour. Perhaps Conan’s pipes were a bit tired but it really didn’t matter because the music on display made up for it.
Next on stage was Darkest Hour. This band wears many musical hats covering pretty much every sub-genre of extreme Metal you can think of. Well, maybe not Black Metal. But with every style they take on they do it with conviction and a high skill level. The thing I found most interesting was the drummer’s unique style and setup as you can see in the photo below. He’s a lefty (I think) but is seriously ambidextrous and leads with either hand doing fills in either direction (drummer talk). He was very fun to watch.
Next we have the MIGHTY Incantation. Funny story, during the setup for the show the club’s crew were putting up Incantation’s backdrop and were having a hell of a time with it. You see, it didn’t have a logo on it to use as a point of reference so they didn’t know which end was top or bottom. So they made a guesstimate and hung the the thing. I was talking to John from Incantation back stage during Darkest Hour and told him he might want to look at the backdrop before starting because it just didn’t look right to me. Sure as shit the darn thing was hung sideways. They had to take it down and rehang it properly which pushed the show back a few minutes.
Now these dudes are ready to bring you to hell…which is exactly what Incantation live sounds like. The best way I can describe their live sound is Black Sabbath’s BORN AGAIN. To some a horrible sounding album. To others a glorious cacophony of a dark and murky soundtrack to your voyage to Hades. That’s what Incantation is all about. For what their live sound lacks in clarity it makes up for in cold hearted, incredibly heavy, somewhat droning evil vibes. Let me put it this way. Obituary is a Death Metal band that appeals to a lot of folks who don’t even listen to Death Metal. I know people where Obituary is the only Death Metal band they’re familiar with and absolute more power to the the boys from Florida. Incantation are the exact opposite of that. You have to be well invested in DM to appreciate these dudes. This is not entry level stuff here. Incantation’s sound is as heavy as it gets and in my ears and eyes they 100% delivered the goods.
Lastly we have the headliner Decapitated. Simply put, these guys are otherworldly. You’d be hard pressed to find another band play so precise at the ungodly speeds they perform at. Watching the drummer (pictured below) was quite humbling I must say. The highlight of their set was a RIPPING version of Napalm Death’s “Suffer The Children”. I was pretty stoned at this point and turned to Paul from Origin and said “God damn this song sounds a lot like Napalm Death" and he said “IT IS NAPALM DEATH YOU IDIOT!”
From top to bottom this was one of the most solid lineups I’ve seen in a while.
