[Gig Review] ATHEIST + Supports, Leadbeater Hotel (Melb, AU), 08.06.25.
Artist/s: Atheist (US) with supports Anoxia, Vexation and Alarum (AU).
Date: Sunday, 8th June 2025
Location: The Leadbeater Hotel, Richmond, Melbourne (AU)
Organiser: Your Mate Bookings
Words: Brady Irwin
Photography: Jason Vidic (Vidic Images)
Neck: Very Sore..
(see below for relevant links)
How does one even begin to approach writing a review about last night?!
I haven’t been this flummoxed about how in God’s deity-free, Atheist-loving Earth one even goes about writing anything proportionate to such an incredible experience. I’ll give it my all, much like those who didn’t so much entertain as completely mesmerise a whole venue for hours on end.
Speaking of mesmerising, my humble blog-offering has been hugely bolstered by the killer photographic work of Jason Vidic (of Vidic Images - Facebook here, Instagram here). As is clearly evidenced throughout this article (and in other examples, such as our New Dead Festival coverage amongst others), dude has serious photographic chops.
We’re about to get into the review proper;
But First!
Necessary Thanks To Various Legends:
First and foremost, huge ups to Anthony Blayney of Your Mate Bookings for conducting yet another fantastic high-profile metal tour - as you’ll read further on, all involved artists were and are full of nothing but love and appreciation for his stellar work. Every artist I’ve spoken to prior to, during and after his recent tours has been full of nothing but positivity and gratitude for YMB and the fantastic work done wrangling the beast that is an Australian national tour.
The artists themselves also need to be thanked, of course! That’s who all of us are there for, in the end. Not only our illustrious headliners Atheist (who we’re all beaming with gratitude and appreciation for having made their first trek all the way from good ol’ US of A) but also the fantastic and talented Anoxia, Vexation and Alarum. Truly, the night was an all-star lineup of high-pedigree death-metal talent!
Thanks to Kelly and the rest of the Atheist crew for individually taking the time amongst yourselves to chat with so many of us. Such affable nature for a band playing pulverizing, mind-melting jazzy tech-death but hey - we’ll take it. Very gladly. It added such a personable layer to an otherwise otherworldly performance, and I appreciate on behalf of all local punters you took the time out for on tour.
Speaking of locals - massive thanks are in order to the staff of The Leadbeater Hotel, while we’re at it! Corralling and serving a packed venue full of thirsty death-metal goblins is no easy feat, let alone when it’s a band with 35+ years of ‘I can’t believe they’re here! In front of me!’ energy added into the mix. Thank you, staff!
Alright, here’s an imperfect treatise on live music perfection.
I/we may have been heading from all manner of locales under weather conditions doing its’ absolute Victorian best to induce a glum shroud, but you couldn’t derail the shining death-metal sunbeam in this writer’s icy, frozen metal heart. If anything, the rain-soaked visage of the drab cityscape might as well have been draped in cherubim and sweeping arcs of heavenly light (an irony not lost on anyone, considering the headliners).
Heading to a gig usually incites a tribal, caveman-like within my think-space. Me him go gig. Riff good. Me (pretend to) smash! Not today. I’m a technicolour little ray of sunshine amongst the rain, suicidal drivers and horn-toots. Ain’t nothing bringing this mood down- ATHEIST is imminent, for no-God’s sake.
I’m fairly sure this whimsical, semi-manic state of anxious, appreciative listlessness wouldn’t have been an isolated case. Indeed, entering the cramped causeway leading to The Leadbeater’s band-room, the ambient vibe of the place switched out ‘local pub atmosphere’ to ‘amorphous cloud of anxious excitement’ in the space of several metres. A vibe that only built with time and intensity - an emotional cyclone of the best kind.
There’s no need for being nosy or eavesdropping required; patrons are already loudly exclaiming pre-emptive disbelief. Must be full of metal-cherubs and death metal sunshine, too! “Dude -can you fucking believe we’re going to see Atheist play live? Tonight?!”, et cetera.
To answer you, random stranger: No, I couldn’t believe it beforehand and especially couldn’t after ambling bug-eyed out of there later on.
Frankly that excitement coursed throughout the venue like blood through a dilated vessel. No containment of our collective excitement, nor any need for it. It’s the King’s Birthday tomorrow but tonight, we’re eschewing any last shred of inherited British repression. We’re talking about god-damned Atheist, dude.
A band I’d argue is one of most influential, forward-thinking and important death metal bands in music history. One who hadn’t graced our shores their 35+ years of blazing unforeseen trails through the sonic landscape. And yet, here we are. About to see god-damned Atheist. Wow.
Not a single chord had been struck. No snare hits, no rhetoric about how we’re doing tonight. None of it, and the place already had this notion of a well-fulfilled gig. The stage was set, this was sure to be good. No two ways about it.
Speaking of stages being set?
Sydney’s Anoxia were the first of four acts to stride confidently onstage to fulfil that promise outright, and then some.
ANOXIA
The first of so many powerful chord-chugs rang out, shrill cries of a sizeable early attendance honouring the first in our regiment of death metal elites. I bee-lined through a quickly-growing early congregation to take a pew upfront, a mostly-cautious ring of interested punters hanging back a single Metric Circle Pit from the front-row neck-breakers.
This was my second time at the venue (the first being our review of Enforcer a few months back - also a successful YMB operation!). Last time, I hadn’t caught sight of the poor little feller, but the meagre playground-style green ‘barrier’ separating artist from anarchy was about to experience an engineering stress-test like no other. Additional thank-you side note to Little Green Guy for bearing the brunt of human weight that’d make lesser gig-barriers quiver.
Green Guy had a brief repose, a moment of reprieve, before openers Anoxia and their immediate eruption into a thick hailstorm of death-metal riffage owing equally to both classic and modern patrons of the death metal pantheon. Like meerkats, ears pricked, a cluster of wary back-of-venue attendees ambled right up front alongside the earliest and keenest.
I’m reminded of Melbourne’s own Contaminated with these guys, albeit with a more technical bent. That’s not to say said band aren’t talented, they are - but it’s clear why these NSW up-and-comers were plucked for the bill. Imagine Morbid Angel and Bloodbath in a grisly swamp-fight, garnish with some of our headliners’ fretboard/rhythmic trickery to boot and you’ve got yourself a hearty, warm bowl of opener death-metal soup.
Taking as much time for the crowd to get ready as a politician does to accrue some sort of drink-driving or workplace misdemeanour charges, the evening’s first track ‘Blood On The Altar’ was a suitably occultic-titled start to an altogether bruising, unrelenting set. The technically-charged flurry of extreme-metal goodness had an already-amped-up crowd hooting and hollering with the most cowboy-like “YEAAAAAAAH KAAAAAAANT” that our Aussie vernacular will allow us. As a man of Mid North Coast origin and typically one even quicker to lay the boot into my home-state’s capital than the average Victorian, I’m nonetheless swelling, bursting with State Of Origin pride right now.
Windmilling more than the Dutch, relatively recent addition to the band in James Taylor (bass) was a frenetic storm of two-hand tapping, beefy chords and clever arpeggios, helping to punctuate an equally-preoccupied Marco Alvarez on drums. More stoic off the to the left, axeman Elias Niahos was nonetheless swinging necks with those of us who’d already relinquished control of upper spinal vertebrae, lashing riffs to the slave-stick amidst all manner of licks, harmonics and shred. Other than the staff and perhaps also the most aloof, most arms-crossed patricians in there, the venue was already a sea of swaying heads. I think the photos Jason took of vocalist Joey Scott do enough justice but I’ll throw in anyway - man was an energetic, lurching prowler of a frontman, the cavernous guttural roars punctuated by his deliberate around-the-stage stomp. Legitimately fearsome, and therefore awesome where a metal gig’s concerned!
With discordant and frantic soloing, relentless stop-start shifts between triplets, palm-muted sprints and tremolo runs, ‘In The Wake of Desolation’, ‘Darker Forms of Knowledge’, ‘M.N.W’ and other choice cuts were exemplary proof of a band more than capable of translating their technical chops into a live format.
By the time their brief set was concluded, it was done so to fist-pumps, gang-chants and jeers of venue-wide applause. Well done lads, one Leadbeater warmed right the hell up! Job done goddamn well, and we’re only one band in.
INTERMISSION, AKA DUDE…THESE DUDES BE CHILL-AF:
Headed outside for some much-needed nicotine air and already mutually agreeing the sardine-tin was getting a little too cosy for between-bands, our entourage of local metallers headed back outside the venue.
Oh, look who it is!
Hanging out as though it’s a Tuesday-night matinee at his local, chatting to folks like this is just knock-off banter after a day at the office. It’s freakin’ Kelly Shaefer, heralded by many as a form of deity which betrays the bands’ namesake. Right there, just casually hanging out with absolutely no pretence. Bravely taking on the endless swarm of meekly-approaching (or drunkenly “howyaGARNMATE?!”-charging) punters with an air of such chill about his person, he’d the most stoned (stonedest?!) reggaeton frontman feeling comparatively uptight.
When interviewing Kelly, he mentioned the band would be out and about, ready to mingle with whoever was up for a chat - especially if a shot of Jager or two’s on offer. Such promissory statements felt as genuine at the time as the band members wandering in and out of the venue tonight.
No, seriously - the entire Atheist crew were available at various points for much of the evening, super approachable and more than patient with a relentless throng of fanboying, my-shout insistence, permanent markers/merch accroutement and twinkling puppt-dog eyes from all of us.
I just wanted to take a moment out of discussing the bands to note this. Not only because it’s refreshing as hell to see a band of Atheist’s stature be genuinely interested in each and every conversation with punters (they also offered a free meet-and-greet after the show, too!), but it only added to the hardcore-kid/punk-rock flavour with which they were about to decimate Leadbeater mere hours later.
Here’s a snap of myself and Mr. Shaefer, chillest death-metal frontman out. I’m sure socials are positively flooded with similar selfies and snaps - be sure to show us yours, gang! Photos, footage, everything. We wanna see it all!
VEXATION:
Given how much praise I’ve heaped onto these guys here in the past (New Dead Festival, their recent performance at Brutefest 2025, etc) and the community extreme-metal buzz about their live show particularly, it’s no surprise Melburnian death-thrashers Vexation were added to the bill.
They’re a safe bet in terms of putting on a good show - but that’s about where the safety begins and ends.
‘Consumed by Obscurity’ begins with an immediate barrage of thick, rusted sheets of distorted guitar sheet-metal, raining down on us eager filth-enjoyers in a blast of tone equally crunchy and clean. It’s like aural Dorito’s - so good, and you can’t stop. Standing planted firm and staunch, rasping a hardcore-inflected screech that’d cop an appreciative nod from even the northernmost Norwegian black-metaller, absolute-unit vocalist/guitarist Rhys Bailey stood his own through numerous shreds, solos and labyrinthine riff passages, screeching like a possessed hawk after prey. Sporting a grin halfway between “cop this one” and pure mischief, Rhys always looks like he knows something we don’t when striding onstage. Those unaware and in pit-distance were about to become the subject of this frontman’s mirth in pretty short order.
The death metal squirrels-on-methamphetamines adjoining him either side of the stage were a restless accompaniment who couldn’t be as squarely pegged expression-wise. That’s mostly because fellow lead-guitarist Ryan Butler and bassist Sam Gilfillan were an incessantly whirling, mobile mess of hair-mop, windmills and headbanging throughout the entire set. As a low-end monkey myself, I was super appreciative of this being the second band in a row to offer ample sonic space for both drummer and bassist throughout, their respective fills, trills, chords and hits punctuating the riff-den to demonstrate a band squeaky-clean on all cylinders.
Some Orc guy once said in Lord of The Rings that the age of man was over, yeah? Well, tonight’s the night rhythm-section playing second-fiddle is over, too. So far, every single band member’s been in for the count and appreciated in kind by the audience.
Belting out downright histrionic soloing and all manner of spindly, distortioned-drench riff carnage, our three metal-bards foregrounded a focussed and veritably kit-abusing drummer Storm Mahan, who was as equally fluid and rock-solid as his bandmates. Together, these four death/thrash chargers ensured the post-Anoxia hype was ratcheted up another notch, with multiple circle-pits now breaking out like spot-fires. Looks like the sum-total millilitres of alcohol consumed had a fair few more of the previously cautious now giving into their basest caveman instincts. Hell yeah. You go, half-cut Grug.
Barking only a few promissory frontman quips (such as a Bunnings-snag-with onion tried and true fave “Melbourne! How the fuck are ya?!” prior to blasting into the furious ‘Parasite’, a few circular hand-motions and “c’mon, this is a fast one - spin it around” before ‘Dismembered Effigy’), the vocalist echoed the prior act’s no-nonsense aesthetic. Efficiency was the name of the game tonight. Efficient they were, too - doubling down on the face-melt factor, Vexation not so much ‘played’ as ‘continuously erupted ‘ through a volcanic set, spewing choice white-hot chunks of molten lava towards eager faces via hits new (‘Spineless’) and old (‘Messiah of Death’).
By the time the arena-rockstar shred-heavy outro saw these gentlemen offstage, the crowd was equally as thunderous in their applause.
Yeah, there’s a reason you’re seeing these guys pop up on more bills of late.
Like Anoxia, Vex were a solid choice as supports in terms of musical fit and technical know-how - with an energetic performance to back it up.
Onya, lads, that’s two-for-two.
My gig satisfaction readings are already displaying a closing-time level of stoked - and we’re only two bands in!
NONE OF THIS ‘MUM: “WE HAVE VEXATION AT HOME” OTHER-CITIES’ NONSENSE; VEXATION’s THE REAL DEATH-THRASH DEAL:
ALARUM:
Speaking of Atheist and supports - Alarum. I mean of course Alarum - who the hell else fits the job for final support to Atheist this well?! Prior to, during and after their set, I caught myself musing on their behalf exactly just how stoked Mark Palfreyman (vocalist/bassist) and Co. must be to be playing under a band which clearly has influenced them so greatly.
Which isn’t to say our Australian progressive death-metal masters are anything near-derivative of our American visitors. Nah, there’s something intrinsically unique to these progressive veterans that’s suitably their own.
Whether it’s the rockstar moves of stupidly-fast shred-maestros John Sanders and Ryan Williams (guitars - the latter filling in for Scott Young and doing an incredibly-precise job of it!), Mark’s capacity to not only hold up but frantically shred and dance around a near tree-sized six-string bass, or the incredible diversity and groove of Jared Roberts’ drumming, these guys are never your usual aloof prog-head energy onstage.
Kicking off proceedings to some sublime soloing over a lush backing track, the greenlit troupe (literally) blasted into a precisely-controlled cacophony with ‘Imperative’, first of several select pairings from latest jazz-tech-death-prog barn-burner LP Recontinue. I went into this gig under the assumption that such a band were basically household-name, but that’s the thing about assumptions - you know the rest.
As John and co kick the foot pedals and we are veritably shoved through from a complex technical jazz-dimension into a butt-shakingly danceable Latin-inspired world-music breakout, the switch to clean tones and completely (albeit not entirely) different musical motifs were met by the audience with hoots, cheers and even some audible “WHAT?”’s of abject disbelief. Having left us jaws-open and agape, this Melbourne institution were clearly galvanised by such a supreme support-slot opportunity.
Playing with another level of accuracy, profiency and frantic intensity even for themselves, their next-level tech-metal veterancy saw us through a very deliberately-askew musical journey via ‘Sphere of Influence’, ‘Natural Causes’, ‘War of Nerves’ and (my personal favourite, especially on the live front) ‘Velocity’. The local crew were intensely-focussed but also playful and appreciative as ever. A man unable to thrive in nature without a minimum level of banter, John throws in his best bogan-Aussie-accented “Yeah, ‘Straya! Farken P-platers, kaaaaaaaaants!” between songs. Oh, and some choice words about Floyd-Rose bridges. Luck to you there mate, I just play the Big Guitar With Fewer Strings and stay away from all that, but I appreciate the trillion notes per minute you’re cleanly slicing off that goddamn fretboard during those solos.
Between that and the almost-court-mandated speech of gratitude in being part of the ceremony from Mark, the band were having fun but wore a collective furrow of pure concentration, effort exuding from them that permeated the venue in fantastic slices of some of our country’s finest and most expressive/complex prog/jazz-fusion death metal. Yeah, I’d be focussed too trying to pull off Mark’s job bouncing around the fretboard like five bass-octopi and barking out death metal growls, personally.
Ultimately, there really was no one on the planet (Australia or abroad) who would’ve been a better choice than Alarum before those headliners. Judging by the raucous, semi shellshocked howls of local-scene punter appreciation, I believe that’s yet another sentiment that is less contained to myself, and more a venue-wide theme at the time.
Seriously, if money afforded them all the opportunity, I’m sure Alarum would love a stint as artists-in-residence to join Atheist’s extensive touring stint as every night’s penultimate act. Can someone tee this up for ‘em? They earnt it.
JAZZ-FUSION PROGRESSIVE DEATH METAL FROM OZ?!
CHEERS MATE, NO CAUSE FOR ALARUM:
ATHEIST
I spent a lot of time deliberating over how to write up Atheist’s set. I mean for starters… how the heck do you bring more exposition forth from one simple word (‘perfection’)? Furthermore, does the English language even fully capture the experience? Nope, but as mentioned before I’ll give it a solid crack. It’s the least I can do after these Floridian masters journeyed all the way from the ‘States, right?
Smirking to myself at some pre-emptive hoots and hollers up the back during soundcheck (you know a bands’ going to be good when testing amps and mics gets mistaken for a start proper), that sly-grin turned into an almost painful face-wide smile as the lights doomed to a cooler shade of orange. Seriously, we all must’ve looked like variations on The Joker, such was the incredulity associated with holy shit it’s fucking Atheist here in front of us, in the flesh, it’s actually freaking happening.
I’m choked-up with awe as Florida’s finest and one of my main extreme-metal listening/playing influences takes to the stage. Looking less ‘progressive death metal frontman’ and more ‘Florida’s Mike Muir, hangin’ out you know?’ in backwards-cap, bandana and singlet, the lithe Kelly Shaefer immediately demonstrated, bottle of Jagermeister in hand, that age truly is just a number.
Bloke is in his fifties and yet, he’s swinging that mic-stand around like on an early-90’s Mike Patton, if an earlier and rowdier Faith No More played in a cruise-liner full of cocaine. Dripping ease and swagger, he’s almost nonchalant and relaxed in his mirthful jeers of appreciation as his ridiculously, stupidly, inhumanly talented bandmates lurch immediately into a bruising opener in ‘No Truth’ from much-beloved metal-tome Piece of Time.
The John-Carpenter-esque choral/synth refrains introducing the set and Kelly himself were barely audible over the crowds’ Beatlemania-din, but we were all soon drowned out by a wall of delicious, wonderful, tasty tone.
Tone as dirty and death-metal-ugly as it is crisp enough to slake a dying man’s thirst, every expertly written complex permutations of note across the set delivered with a restless thrashing, twirling and windmilling fury that’d have anyone from the simplest four-chord punk act struggling to keep up with their own instruments. And yet? Here, we have some kind of unforseen necromantic sorcery occurring between the ‘honestly, get fucked’ (in a good way, obviously) playing by bassist Yoav Ruiz-Fengold, guitarists Jerry Witunsky and Alex Haddad and, of freaking course, Dylan Marks taking on the worlds’ most impossible job (drumming for Atheist at all, let alone live) with righteous fury. The younger bucks onstage evidently had that physical advantage as a matter of chronological fact - other than that, you’d swear someone fed fifteen adolescents a sub-lethal dose of sugar and caffeine. The energy was nothing short of hectic.
Indeed, the presence of all prior Atheist members was palpable onstage through the current lineup. Particularly during a poignant memorial to the late Roger Pattinson, oft overlooked as the original mastermind behind the bands’ initial head-scratchingly complex work. Atheistic as the tone of the evening was, there’s a sense the man’s looking down from on-high with pride.
We barely get chance for a breath before Shaefer spurts out the briefest of thanks, and it’s time for yet another ripper in ‘On They Slay’. Just listening to this at home always gets me ready to throw objects at objects, beat my puny chest, grunt and throw leaves in the air, etc. It’s no surprise, then, that mere seconds into this condensed slice of jazz-fusion tech-death wizardry that I cop not one, not two, but three different pairs of shoes to my back and head. Not from stagedivers, although we certainly copped our fair share of those (ain’t that right, Ash, admin from Musolegion?). Nah, mate. This was a proper Florida scene, death metal crowds being indistinguishable from punks for ratty, feral, raucous pit-energy type deal.
Those of you who braved that swarming mass of bodies and violence that buffeted against my back like wind on an Arctic vessel, I’m sure y’all had an absolute ripper of a time. I heard so secondhand from a few, afterwards.
Me? Look, I know the bands’ called Atheist but in this moment, dudes are on a straight-up religious pedestal of sheer awe. Not only for what they bring prior to said moment, but for the absolutely riotous punk-rock energy with which guitarists and bassist are swapping sides, hopping up on foldbacks, jeering on circle-pits, gang-chants and the like.
Y’know, real casual-like, whilst they also…go ahead and simultaneously play incomprehensibly complicated jazz-inspired technical death metal that’s blazed the path for all of modern metal for decades? And also working their way around a man personifying liquid-ADHD (could be the Jagermeister there - has that effect on me too) in terms of how vibrant and just straight thriving he was in the vocal pocket. Vox themselves were a little harder to hear right upfront (a venue-specific feature, I’m told), but nevertheless his effortless flits between pained howls, manic half-spoken-word phrasing and non-stop hoots of verbal appreciation were heard damn clear enough even from my position. Heck, the bassist could be heard over the music in several instances with how loudly he was egging on the Circle Pit to Get Even Circlie-Pittier (lots and lots of hands gesturing for circles tonight, all requests kindly actioned by the maddened mob behind me, I think).
“I love you guys, man,” John hoots as on we all slayed, “Now let’s go! I’m an old motherfucker, and this has been more than 35 years in the making. Should we go on?”, he queried, the worlds’ most rhetorical question answered via an equally planet-spanning “YES'“ from a crowd I believe still screaming with disbelief from the start of the set (self included). Just sheer disbelief, all round. Incomprehensible magic being bashed out with surgical precision from…. well I guess they’re a band, not an actual barrel of jacked-up vipers, but they certainly looked the latter up there. As did the many crowdsurfers and stagedivers braving a lack of bemused security guards to catch them over the falls.
Pfsh. Yeah, cause ‘On They Slay’ was ever going to incite a riot? Surprised ‘Unholy War’ didn’t itself make the news as announcement of venue-scale warfare, such was the aplomb we eagerly threw ourselves into said track (whilst shouting ourselves to death with besides-ourselves excitement/continued disbelief). As one of more ferocious cuts off an already pissed-off, supercharged technical death-metal classic LP, this track really brought the pit-intensity up a notch.
Thankfully, I didn’t detect one hint of ambient drop in the palatable excitement-levels registering on all sensory inputs for Elements classic ‘Minerals’. I know that album’s less favoured over the first two greats in the discography, but that’s also kind of like saying you traded out your gold-plated jet with real-leather interiors for one with comfy recliners. It’s still baller as hell, and the Latin-influenced bounciness of this track got more metalheads dancing like drunk mums than at any death metal gig I’ve been to in a while. I say ‘dancing’, and mean more ‘intermittent hip-swaying whilst holding onto the nearest person/object whilst fighting for dear life’.
As if that wasn’t goddamn enough; I knew it was coming, but having the title track off Unquestionable Presence drop out of nowhere had me semi-dissociated with abject pinch-yourself wonder. Positioned in the perfect bassist-pornography spot front-left, Yoav spent as much time with his bass-sword thrust out over our heads (whilst playing, mind) as he did thrashing around the stage and audibly screaming “COME ON!” sans-mic to everyone. As if that wasn’t risque enough, we cop a regular flourish of guitarists equally capable of extending themselves off the foldbacks and peeling note-perfect, blazing solos as though it’s another week dropping the kids off at soccer practice, mere feet away. God. Damn. Dude.
‘Brains’ is self-evident; like everything else they’re rifling off at us at light-speed, were they not so bombastic, enthused and unable to sit still, this’d be yet another ultra-cerebral affair. But it’s not, because in between Kelly using every bit of vocal pause to incite or lambast us into more intense moshing, or expounding his ultra-love for Melbourne, crowd-surfers, us mopheads upfront basically kissing shoes with the arc of our headbangs/over-barrier hanging, the whole thing’s a very animated, lively, punk-rock affair. For this I’m just so eternally glad. I’m a massive tech-death (literal) autist and will always be down for the chin-stroking musicianship a band like Atheist brings - but everyone from the younger newer additions to the bands’ eternal Supreme Leader might as well have been 18-year olds on the Gold Coast at Schoolies, ten Jagerbombs deep at that.
That perennial sensation of a youthful energy was brimming over both sides of the stage throughout, and to turn-on-a-dime perfection, musically. ‘Water’, another Elements cut, flowed as easily as the mutual flecks of sweat being traded by the first few rows and band alike. “It’s Latin-jazz! I know you’re metalheads, but don’t be afraid to get down with it and shimmy!”, proclaims Kelly as we dutifully follow suit with some serious divorced-Dads-on-a-bender level cramped butt-shaking sway. A healthy injection of crusty death metal fiend moshing thrown in of course, because, well duh - it’s friggin’ Atheist, dude.
We were as it says on the tin and ‘Enthralled’ through the next number, the surrealness of our situation not escaping any still-freaked-out ecstatic punter either side of me. Seriously, the bug-eyes in the room, all the way through the set. Australian Federal Police would’ve had the dogs on us - everyone in that room wore the dinner-plate pupils shared by deer in headlights, moments of existential threat and a night on MDMA/insert party drug here. Kelly’s clamouring for the “old-heads” was jeered back in a 360-degree arc indicated that indeed, the death metal Dads of the audience were out in just as dangerous fervous as any poor unsuspecting Gen Z’s about to be folded in half by their metal-elders behind me.
So imagine our straight-up guffaw/chortle of ‘my God, that too?! I mean, we know it’s an Atheist gig bu-’” as Your Life’s Retribution brings another fan-loved favourite literally sweeping onto the scene.
And, like form of adrenaline-addicted junkie horses, we stampede as one. A room of the worlds’ most appreciative apes, a venue gone Full Caveman whilst the worlds’ punkiest tech-death scientists obscure themselves from pseudo-intellectual wank by being as animated as the fevered mob before them.
‘Room With A View’ starts, and I take one of very, very few breaks to pop notes in my app (I was otherwise enthralled, transfixed, unable to multi-task with such a ferocious and constant headbang going - it’s Atheist, dude) and realise I’m short of breath. It feels like it could be breathlessness due to exertion, the cramped quarters, and maybe it partially was. But nah, you know how you can intuit a bodily sensation to an internal state? Yeah, I think mine was just ongoing incredulity and sheer belief. Here we are, goddamned Atheist playing in the flesh, and once again they’re pulling off an ol’ fave loved by self and others for decades (many surely a decade above than my mere two-plus) with both robotic precision and loosest-grindcore-gig-ever local-fun energy.
The phone was, of course, immediately stowed. Haphazardly wrenched from a pocked cramped close to about three other people at all times to just hit record on video and hope the that’s-going-to-hurt-tomorrow (it does) over the top headbanging doesn’t throw the whole thing off. Oh well, I’m alive here and now, and basking in a perfect act of extreme-metal mindfulness.
We cop a number of requisite showman speeches from Kelly throughout, but they’re brief and succinct. Where he opens up for more airtime and praise is not only for gig-maestro Anthony Blayney (who’s offered/forced an eager Jager bottle in hand by our vocalist, prior to Schaefer going back to swinging that mic-stand like a polearm-wielding DnD Fighter), the professionalism shown on this tour, the fantastic supports and his own readily apparent sense of bewildered gratitude. We like to fashion ourselves as tough-guys, but metalheads are all softies and we either know that/accept it or we bury it under more black metal shirts.
The love in the air palpable, as we recover from the scorching imposed by ‘Fire’ andmove to ‘Air’, there’s a level of smiling, beaming and wistfulness in band and punters’ eyes that’d have normies everywhere scratching their heads and saying some stupid trope like “Aw nah-yeahyeah-nah-ayy, I thought that metal shit was all about being aggro, youse are soft” [Australian-to-English: “Oh! Huh. I express my surprise at seeing such mirthfulness in a genre typically typecast as inciting aggression, you are presenting very openly”]. I don’t know if said normies would appreciate the music, but even irredeemably can’t-read-the-room neurodivergents like myself wouldn’t miss the chokehold of such a mutually captive and engaged artist/audience. The whole set. This didn’t let up for a second. Could’ve bottled it and sold it as some new dystopian wonder-drug; Atheismo knows there was enough it lilting about the air inside.
Sure, there was love, but there was frantic pit-madness and incessant stage-writhing. Just about no one in here was about standing still, and the frenzied late-set uptick in both stage/pit intensity as we progressed through ‘Incarnation’, coupled with the body-surge following Kelly’s verbal ode to the younglings in ‘The Formative Years?’ Yeah, damn son. This intensity isn’t letting up for a second and I’m here for it.
I could write a review the long of my already long-winded dithering just on closers ‘Piece of Time’ and ‘Mother Man’ but hey, as two of some of my favourite opening tracks ever (death metal or not), a sentiment I’m again ready to wager wasn’t an isolated case - ‘nuff said. I’ve got a dodgy recording of the latter below, but these two tracks are those you’d normally hear coupled with sayings like “saved the best for last”.
Well no, dude. It’s goddamned Atheist, Atheist of all bands. It’s exactly the level of technical brilliance and cerebral knowhow you’d come to expect from a band who’ve spent decades head-and-shoulders above imitators, influencing genres, doing whatever the hell they want and wearing a Cheshire-cat grin whilst doing so.
Tonight? It was all the best. Front to back. There was no ‘last’ here, not a single moment that relented for anything below S-Tier and beyond.
If you missed out on seeing Atheist this time around, and speaking of “saving the best for last” - judging by the direct feedback from the band to crowd-wholesale and a lot of us individually? Yeah man, they’ll be back. They were having too much fun to deny it even if they did. We know. (PLEASE?! COME BACK. MOVE HERE, EVEN)
Maybe by next time my tiny metal-writer brain will have finished comprehending what I witnessed and experienced last night, but it’s a sense of abject puzzlement I am happy to bask in.
Truly, one of the most special extreme-metal experiences of my gigging life, and an almost insurmountable bar for any band that follows to reach. We say ‘Atheist’ but on this night, we truly were visited by metal gods.
Before I conclude this overly-wordy atheistic sermon, I think the below clip is a prime example of just how much love and appreciation Kelly and co had for the audience prior to ‘Piece of Time’:
And, if only to reiterate this as the best death metal song pretty much ever written, here’s Wonderwall ‘Mother Man’ (I CANT BELIEVE THIS HAPPENED IN FRONT OF MY VERY EYES WTF AAAAAAA):
Nah, for real.
THE TL:DR of this entire review really is:
[Author screaming ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA’ in continued awe and disbelief].
SOMEONE CALL RICHARD DAWKINS - WE PROVED ATHEISM WRONG! GODS LIVE AMONGST US AND THEY ROCK.
SEE HERE FOR OBJECTIVE PROOF:
Linktree Profile - Merch, International Touring, Streaming, Album Order etc
WANT A WELL-RUN TOUR BY A CERTIFIED-DUDE WITH SERIOUS METAL-TOUR CHOPS?
BETTER CALL YOUR MATE, THEN:
As Always,
Peace, Love and Grindcore, xoxo - Brady.