FOREWORD: IT’S ALL ABOUT COMMUNITY.
It’s taken a few attempts to write and rewrite this entire Gig Review, with more self-editing than even my usual Sword of Damacles overcompensator-schema would consistently remind hangs about an inch above my balding late-thirties head.
I think I’ve distilled it down to a bit more of an essence, thankfully* (*NB: My ‘distil’ is probably still everyone else’s over-the-top).
It’s about community. I mean yeah, sure, duh-genius, right?
But also, no. Listen.
Really step back and think about it. About how atomised yours or the average person’s life is right. It’s statistically likely you’re in either a blue-collar workhorse job or some knowledge-worker cubicle farm, and in either case I’ll wager technology and the app-filled screen-glow of your working/home life carries with it some faint, gnawing but ever-present sense of dissociation, derealisation, a sort of vague distance from a truly embedded and personal connection with community.
I apparently get itchy feet and my family bloodline is indeed descendent of probably-also-ADHD Celtic seafaring nomads, and thus I’ve lived on the Sunny Coast/Brisbane in QLD, Coffs Harbour (still claiming #2452 Sawty Pride as a local, born and raised)/Sydney in NSW, Geelong and now my return to Melbourne, among others. Melbourne truly is my favourite city to have lived in so far, but it’s absolutely one of the hardest within which to gain initial social-capital foothold. Hell, half the reason I’m into Tabletop was initially near-desperation sourcing another means of finding friends after a while bereft in the North-Eastern suburbs.
Blow-ins like myself and locals alike won’t be quick to deny it’s often an isolating place, which ironically comes as a feature of urban living. But I’d also argue our penchant for panhandling problems to chatbots, sourcing social-illusion through Meta apps, and even the goddamned-Zoom-webinar-that-could’ve-just-been-an-email - post-lockdown life across the globe is increasingly tech-dependent, individuated and siloed.
Having taken myself off of social media due to a WHOLE bunch of recent circumstances we’ll save for the psychologist I’m scrimping coin to save up for giving an earful about it. Suffice to say, unlike the odiously dreary whimsy of viral videos from folks like Prince Ea, it’s actually a pretty friggin’ daunting and isolating experience to excise yourself a few more degrees from your peers online when SO much of our lives are illusory fealty to ‘socialising’ through that medium. In fact, I strongly recommend against it if you’re in a vulnerable state, unless said state is just fed-up/overwhelm with it all - relatable, and granted.
But the fact is - people don’t really interact with each other as much anymore. Do some people-watching next time you’re out and about. Take a half-arsed tally of the amount of times you reach like a man dying of thirst for water into your pocket. Observe how much people are or aren’t mingling in community spaces, parks and the like. We’re all headed towards a chiropractors’ fifth investment property, the way our necks are often craned at that must-thumb-screen angle.
I’m not proselytising the evils of social media or Big Tech here, malevolent and inhuman as I believe the latter truly has become.
Nay - more than any Gig Review I’ve done for Inner-Strength Check, and indeed the reason I keep the lights on despite costs needling my already fragile budget, this review’s primarily for and about scene. About community.
More of us really do need to get a bit more serious about shaking each other out of pretending being wallflowers at other peoples’ events constitutes a community built.
I’m here to regale you, very neurodivergently and haphazardly, with some proof that we as a local, domestic and international metal community can and should start more grassroots events like this.
Punks have been doing it better than we have for time immemorial, so let’s got off our very pseudo-intellectual high-horses and follow the initiative of folks like Elissa Jewell of Deadlifts & Death Metal.
Right. That’s enough pre-gig review sap. Mush, Brady, Mush!
Deadlifts & Death Metal: 1st-Year Anniversary Bash
Okay. Having gone for one of my Charles Darwins (new moniker for my now autistically-it’s-a-rule-not-an-option-now overly-long walks), metaphorically breathed into a paper bag, and assured myself against a tsunami of ever-present RSD - we can finally begin.
One melodramatic sumbitch these days, huh?
Oh, my sweet summer-child. Why don’t we sear about 99% off the interested-percentile and I’ll let the remaining one-percenters (not THAT kind, those aren’t my target market) know that we’re not even going to get straight to the music!
Soon, though. Oh, and there’s nearly 2hrs of recorded music in this article so ahhh, form your own review that way. Visual and auditory proof awaits!
Context matters, and no one loves layering a marzipan of context on absolutely everything like the neurospicy. Sure as hell was feeling spicy enroute to this gig, that’s for sure. And by that I mean ‘extremely, woefully out of practice in both conversing with humans, and braving the raging Borderlands sequel that is Melbourne traffic’ (there’s another Brady-trope - you people are vehicular animals).
Inhaling and exhaling a very-uncharacteristic-of-me-until recently maelstrom of social anxiety, it’s nonetheless a vibrant and sunny perfect Sunday afternoon. In other words, a perfect opportunity for many to lay in bed sleeping off last nights’ Bendi/Lasties-tin/bag-sins instead. Righto, but you did miss out.
Hopped up on the positively-shameful replacement for ADHD medication that is too much coffee, brimming with all the reflexive social-camouflaging chameleonic reflexes an auDHD brain musters from nowhere, I do the cheery rounds to equally cheery folks. Is the Sun? Is it the atmosphere? The sneakily-sniggering fact we’re being naughty and seeing death metal inside a metal-gym as opposed to the usual local-band venue rotation?
I know not, my reader-liege. All I know is, folks have that balmy, lizard-sunbaking disposition that a spot-on temperature provides, and the majority are packed outside to begin with. All told and sum without headcounts, looks to be about twenty-something-ish early showers on 1pm. Not a bad innings considering how much getting folks out at Fuck Capitalism, It’s Drunk O’ Clock (Friday night) can be for any local promoter.
Head inside and ahh, oh. Hello Elissa, currently being engraved in the flesh by a man I’d later find out really takes the historical context of his medieval-heavy art stylings to heart, Steven Boyd of Goatmoth fame. There’s a dual-selection here that mirrors the duality of both our venue proprietor and the ethos of Deadlifts and Death Metal: 50% Serious Liftin’ Business, and 50% Stop Taking Yourself So Seriously googly-eyes everywhere.
Nah, I’m not kidding. I always get a chuckle out of the emoji-eyes because I myself am a walking Monty Python sketch level of silly/inner-child on outer adult sleeve. Imagine my joy then to be greeted by cupcakes with googly-eyes, a googly-eyed wrist stamp and even a selection of Boyd’s works gone…. googly. Sick of that word yet?
It’s an unsubtle ploy but a powerful one, I’ll argue. You’re asked to steep yourself in the blackened paint and accroutement of so many crossed-arms when you enter any metal-hosting venue in Melbourne, and indeed abroad. The chipper bug-eyes on everything including huge novelty skulls and the Grim Reaper Himself is a tactical move.
Come in here as a client and you’ll get your ass brutally and efficiently kicked, but it’s service with heapings of smile and humour - two things metalheads are often asked to repress like they’re Japanese businessmen in the middle of a merger deal, it sometimes feels.
Stuff that, dude. We have to do enough masking and repressing our inner-children every day, whilst we deal with the unwashed normie-masses who often seem wont to behave like spoilt children themselves.
Let your hair down a little, folks. Unpucker your rear a bit and give up the ghost on being the biggest toughest baddie in the venue now and then.
You’ll feel much lighter for it.
And hey, someone might even think you’re cool enough to 3D-print you cool stuff like a jacked cat figurine, like Elissa’s client did.
Sighing with relief that hyper-masculinity’s left outside in the Preston dirt, the physical relief deepens as Grimlock’s sound-check reverberates that sweet, distorted, amplified nectar of the Gods during a well-inspected soundcheck. No barrier, no security, no posturing, no frightful bar-staff cursing drawing the Metalhead Straw. Just riffs, an ice-filled bucket with Elissa’s payID and honesty-policy, humble merch-racks, and a whiteboard announcing the afternoons’ festivities. It’s like the heavenly reverse of what I imagine many tech-bro startup offices or indeed corporate spaces must feel like.
I wouldn’t know, I’m just one of those apparently-parasitic disableds that allegedly provides nothing of merit to society, according to I dunno, Sky News?
Whatever, man. I’m getting there. Ish.
And by getting there, I mean starting with a recollection of the opening set from:
GRIMLOCK (Melbourne, AUS):
Want to bypass my written equivalent of verbal diarrhea already?
Go peep oh, I don’t know, the entirety of Grimlock’s set right here on Youtube instead:
With a name like GRIMLOCK, you’re immediately forgiven for visualising anything from also-ran groove-metal-openers to classic rock. It’s an evocatively-nostalgic name, one that conjures up a beloved Decepticon from Transformers whose oratory is a little less Optimus Prime-eloquence and more… robotic Hodor?
Other than being encased in pure metal, though, that’s thankfully where comparisons between goober-Decepticon and Melburnian death-metal openers begin and end.
The kitsch name belies their actual nature, as their setlist heavy with material from latest release Watch Me Die In The Snow demonstrates. Caustic sheets of riff-fire rain an ironic heat off that album as the chug-heavy ‘Shadow Of The Wraith’ gets heads-a-bobbin’ right from the get-go. Like any decent floor-facing show, the crowd are hung back a little to let these guys work their modern-death magic. It’s a good thing we’re in a gymnasium where the equipment’s made for liftin’, cause the distorted and jagged bass-frequencies compressed into this brick-and-mortar structure reverberate in endless thunderclaps. Followed up, naturally, by claps from an impressed audience.
Fanfare’s present but overall minimal throughout, as the young lads get to stomping out groove-laden death metal that is both high-octane and filled with pockets of gurn-inducing slamming breakdowns and solos. There’s a bit of mirth and banter about the false-start announcement of actually-third-track ‘Imposed Corrosion’, but both that number and sophomore ‘Interlinked’ are plied with ease and precision. The ubiquity of the venue does nothing to slow these lads down, save to remark on a certain guttural-growling bassist in [NAME] making light of getting here via boat from the home of the penguins, on Phillip Island. Solid effort!
‘Adrift’ (pun intended?!) follows up next, with a more focused and melodeath-steeped vibe than its’ title suggests. Since we’re all about community here today, the smarmy reminder that a physical CD does a heck of a lot more for a bands’ back pocket than “20,000 Spotify streams” is a choice way to bring up the rear with the weighty slams and discordant riffage that abounds in closer ‘Withered’. Turns out that ISC Podcast alumnus Ben Green was able to tackle that Floyd Rose bridge tuning without incident after all!
A hearty cheer of applause, fist-bumps and locals approaching band and vice-versa, and that’s our first set down. The intimate size of the place (we are literally talking two rooms and the space out front, here) allows for more incidental conversation between all-and-sundry. It certainly feels a lot less like being trampled under hoof in the mad charge upstairs for durries/vapes/people-escape that you’ll experience at a more crammed Max Watt’s/170 Russell show.
More folks are lining up for ink from the ‘Moth, and I thank the local-metal provedore for today that I don’t have to wrestle either my destitute wallet nor panick-stricken bar-staff/endless lines for a couple of nice cool tins of IPAs for $5 apiece. Tch, yeah, try ever getting a beer in you for anything approaching that price at your average venue! Licensing and cost-of-living expenses suck.
A few more attendees grab themselves locavore garb off the humble merch-racks, but mostly everyone’s engaged in friendly conversation. There really is such a comparative lack of standoffishness here, today. Not that I really feel that much at Melbourne metal shows - clubs, maybe, but I’m not a 19-year-old who’ll drink in such places anymore. It’s an intangible feeling, but there’s a close-knit atmosphere and one of both banter, sociability and a more serious respect for the premises. Having been to quite a few house/off-books venue shows where property absolutely wasn’t respected, I’ve got to take my hat off to punters with just how studious everyone was about the gym today.
Friendly conversation’s soon interrupted, however, by the first nascent swirls of blackened death by none other than extreme up-and-comers Virulent Invocation. And if these guys invoke much, it’s a whole heap of head-shaking and pwhooooar in response to an intensity we just don’t cop enough of in Victoria’s capital these days.
Time to crank up the heat, Iron Chef!
VIRULENT INVOCATION (Melbourne, AUS):
Words not providing enough dopamine-stimulus, my fellow smartphone-Melt-Banana-brained extreme-metal enjoyer?
Fear not - you can cop a faceful of Melburnian brutality in video-form right here, via our Youtube Channel:
Abandon both the aforementioned millenial/X nostalgia from before, and prepare for a descent into something truly nasty with this lot.
We covered these guys as part of our Gig Review for Brutefest 2026, where Your Mate Bookings crew-member and perennial festival-snag-man Jim Luxford (Bass) was on double-work-duties. Mate, did he ever put on a rock-and-roll performance for that one! The energy from these guys on that set was some of the fiercest and most corrosive intensity of the whole festival, and it was blatantly obvious from the crowd-response that their clamor indicated a huge desire for more VI-injection in future.
For reasons known only to the tech gods and perhaps the Mechanicus Adeptus, my phone borked it on the very start of recording Virulent Invocation’s set. No, it actually had nothing to do with the fact I was perched atop a ladder shooting with a tinnie in the other hand- most likely the 250+GB file size from the day’s footage(!).
Either way, as you’ll see and hear by absolutely clicking the link above as you’ve done before for Grimlock [*pats your scene-supporting head appreciatively, UwU*] - these guys are vicious from go-to-woe. Like, twenty greyhounds on bath-salts with ghost reaper chilis crammed up the backside kind of vicious. These darkened druids just got done excoriating Beechworth for Metal In The Mountains 2026, and now its’ an industrial-estate’s turn. A fitting environ indeed, given the similarities I feel in their structure to things like early-era The Amenta.
‘Jester’ these guys are off-stage, but clocked-on, this units’ got considerable extreme-veterancy behind them (we’re talking current/former members of Hadal Maw, Sufferance, Infernal Method, Circle of Blood etc)
In an industrial arena and the confines of a commercial gym, there’s a risk playing with cacophonous blastbeats and cocaine-typewriter double-kicking can turn your drumming into mush. Not so much for sniper-like drummer X, perhaps the happiest dude you’ll see blasting furiously on the skins in Virulent and elsewhere. Carving out an endless procession of blasts, there’s a sense of almost imperial horror matched by the bear-like presence of frontman Matt Bell. Perhaps one of the throatiest and gnarliest growlers on the scene these days, it’s a wonder we don’t cop chunks of splayed vocal cord as he truly tears into the mic with a fearsomely guttural series of roars and growls. We’re down an Adrian (von Ahlen, Guitars) but Deo F.A. Aguanta proves himself to be a one-man tour-de-force of frantic, unrelenting tremolo, chug and leadwork irrespective. As spider-like on the bass as he is a stomper around the stage, Jimbo holds down the bass-fury with an exhaustive run of nimble fretwork as though it’s another shift flipping the snags.
Tearing through a brutal slew of tracks sourced from initial EP V.I. (‘Husk’, ‘Pail of Teeth’), the COVID-19 Demos (‘Filth Divine’) and recent venemous EP Samsara (‘Illusion of Flesh & Form’, ‘God Kill’) and more, it’s as knuckle-dragging as it is technical. You can’t really set foot in a gym where every humanoid figure’s got googly-eyes affixed and take yourself too seriously, mind, hence the affectionate dedication from Bell of ‘Pail’ to “the old cunts like me - you can bang your head to this one very, very slowly.” Rending that doom-laden anchor into a knife-point with a final one-two salvo of ‘Timeless’ and the searing ‘Cultist’, the about-face from mystical extremity into cheery thanks to Grimlock, Black Jesus, Elissa and Leah for helping turn DL&DM into a proper metal sweatbox is received just as kindly from an applauding audience.
The day’s progressing as lazily-Sunday as it is fast. Again, there’s perks involved when you’re not tethered to an entire legion of venue/touring staff that you’d see typically scurrying frantically between punters. The lack of hierarchical organisation and flattened structure does indeed evoke a bit of anarchist spirit about the place - just without the traphouse sensibilities folks would often attach to that community (wrongfully so in many cases). It’s endemic of the Melbourne scene for the most part, especially given a number of dramas within the very same social-organism of late, that folks are just here to take care of one another.
And who better to serve up the blistering finale to this trio of speedy-screamers than an equally supergroup-y entity in Black Jesus, eh? Eh?
First of all though, we get an earnest thanks from Elissa herself - not before she has to yell out to a few stragglers to get on inside. Proclaiming that Deadlifts and Death Metal is a project borne as much from the assistance of her staff and business associates as it is spite, she gives some choice and honest reflections about both the fitness industry and, by extension, how she’s chuffed at the turnaround as being indicative of real community-building in Melbourne. It’s not the first heartfelt speech given through the day, feeling akin to a hardcore gig in terms of the pure-love shoutouts being tossed from the mic across the afternoon.
Unlike that comparison, the love shown and received today feels completely devoid of pretence, of self-conscious chest-beating, aggrandising or any of the other hyper-masculine bravado that is often an undercurrent with such proclamations.
A few of us throw in last-minute coinage to a raffle hat-draw that gets a few repeat winners, who opt to share the bounty. Including a very special, could only happen in Deadlifts & Death Metals’ halls opportunity given by the one-and-only:
BLACK JESUS (Melbourne, AUS):
Yea, my beloved ISC flock! Gather ye to bear witness to an unrelenting sermon, a multi-hymnal praise to the gods of death and thrash below. Bestow upon thine eyes and ears a procession of riffs feared by God himself:
Bunch of maniacs. Absolute death-thrashing lunatics.
No, seriously, let me lay it out for ya.
I’ve picked the guys’ lens for photographic works on Inner-Strength Check before for a number of Gig Reviews, and our lead-guitarist Wookie Dan McKay proves himself once again perfectly translatable from a prolific amount of session/ensemble work into his current bewildering display of bend and vibrato heavy shredding.
You can tell this is a man whose spent a lot of time woodshedding, as he peels off an almost incessant salvo of breakneck soloing that feels like Lead-Guitarist-Squared (or even Cubed). Holding down the rhythmic backline with the thrash tenacity of an early-Haunted/Sepultura-influenced linebacker, fast-barkin’ vocalist/guitarist Mike Khrysoar’s absolutely no slouch of his own in the lead department, albeit primarily focused today on rifling out a barrage of breakneck riffing that is nowhere near safe for neck vertebrae. Unyielding seismic barrages from the d-beat-heavy engine room of a suddenly shirtless Ivan is complemented by the speedy fingers of fully-locked, also roaring bassist/backup vocalist Ben Reichman. Together, there’s triplicate gang-chants, screams, roars and shouts, the room mostly punctuated by the gravelly punk-with-a-stoma rasps/growls of Khrysoar.
Take Battlegrave back to the early 90’s, surgically graft a healthy amount of hardcore-punk and cough it back at the audience staccato, and you got yourself Black Jesus. Like with Virulent before them, they’re representative of something I dearly feel the local (and greater Australian scene) is only just starting to wake back up representation-wise: blistering, delicious death-thrash.
The trio-punches of ‘Shackled To A Corpse’, ‘Annihilation’ and ‘As The World Burns’ whizz by so fast, you half expect yourself to have a delayed deli-meat slice-apart reaction, flopping to the ground like a Tarantino-film villain under the whirling dervish of punk-thrash katana. For our investment of time in the gymnasium, we’re also provided a little treat via unreleased/unrecorded track ‘Mourning Ritual’, which maintains the crack-addled cheetah’s pace of recent LP release Onwards To Slaughter (which their setlist is heavily comprised of, but not in totality).
A moment of Queenslander (nah sorry, it’s State law up there: QUEENSLANDER!) dedication’s given to a different Dan, one who may well bend bananas instead of strings - although let’s not make assumptions, eh? Mike’s announcement of his traversal all the way down here from The Brown Snake (that’s Brisbane to you local deconstructed latte-sippers) cops a mighty cheer from the crowd and a title-track rendition of ‘Onwards to Slaughter’ - can confirm, it’s a thrash-baked bloodbath of flat-stick death indeed!
That a metal-themed gym out the back of an industrial estate in Preston has interstate pull is testament both to the services Elissa provides, and the growing recognition of said wares in the broader Aussie metal scene. Onya Dan(s)!
They love their beef especially in Far North Queensland, but our frontman had some with us, too, bantering that we’ve evidently “got the meat-sweats” and there’s clearly been “an overconsumption of protein in the room”. That gym-life hat-tip therefore also allows said frontman to briefly rebrand ‘Beyond Reconcile’ as “Beyond Protein!”, and any laughs in response are drowned in more sheet-metal death-thrash raining ballistically against melting faces.
And then we pull up on a real gem of a moment. Whether you die inside of cringe or find yourself unashamedly pirate/viking-like for one of those moshpit group floor-rows at say, Amon Amarth, I argue what transpires next is infinitely more rad.
The stakes (not steaks!) are upped, Mike offering his recent raffle-prize win to anyone who can survive push-ups through one of their fastest takes of the day, the very Napalm Death inspired thrash-grinder track ‘Detonation’. Anyone who’s trained with Elissa goes home thoroughly worked as a guarantee, and Mike announces she’ll be watching to ensure proper form’s maintained for the winner to receive his raffle prize: a workout session with the Deadlifts team. It’s like investing in pain for more pain, but that’s also double the gains, right? “No half-squats, not on the knees - I want real burn!”. ‘Least our participants who didn’t luck out with the prize got a conciliatory beer for their bravery, burning arms and pecs in front of a jury of their peers whilst blistering death metal flies overhead.
Continuing on with the havoc-wreaking ‘Withered To Dust’, the band take pause to praise Elissa and Leah for having the courage to build this local institution and their independent vision from scratch - do I even need to note we give that a haughty appraisal as a crowd, or that tributary number ‘Everything Black, Everything Dead’ continues with the thrash-inflected face-rending? More sombre and sobering but no less important, ‘Refrain’ is appended with a serious dedication to “over 140 years of Frontier Wars” and the ongoing plight of our true commercial landlords, title-holders and stewards, our First Nations Australians. “Riffs in Reserve!” (Street - puns, heh) adds a bit of levity before the gnarly ‘closer’ ‘Born In A Tomb’. One thing I really like about you Melbourne lot? You’re just as bad as Queenslanders and New South Welshmen with the ‘one more song’ goading. Thus, the band say stuff it, and drain the tank for a final burn through “our version of ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off’!” through an indeed Jello-worthy punkish rip-roar via ‘False Dawn’.
There’s no climactic ebbing of myriad house-lights, no immediate switch to some guys’ Spotify metal playlist. Folks get stuck in to both beers, helping pack up and hanging around for quite some time afterwards. I have a decent conversation with a few folks and take my leave, but there’s still quite a few stuck around afterwards enjoying what felt like a rare grace-period of sunshine for the week just passed.
Afterword:
And in summation - the proof’s in the googly-eyed metal pudding, friends. And the googly-eyed tattoos, skulls, metal posters, merch, etc…
You’ve got yourself a third space dedicated to housing, celebrating and enhancing the health of our local metal community. You either may or may not be surprised by whose on Elissa’s client-roster, but that in and of itself both speaks to a sense of community and a defiance against the trope of our kin being mostly forum-dwelling neckbeards permanently encrusted in Dorito dust (that’s just me, took one for the team).
Sincerely, once again an earnest thanks to Elissa and Co. She’s not just a business owner but a good mate to myself and many others, and a genuine, kind-hearted person. Living proof you can kick someone’s arse in a squat rack, love extreme music and carry yourself with humour and grace - all without being some snotty, posturing tryhard. Metal Gods know there’s enough of those in the world. A lot of those types are the reason you might be feeling socially adrift right now/
Today wasn’t just a gig but a meeting place, and an important dose of penicillin against the Hapsburg-AI-riddled, silicon and glass cage of loneliness we’ve been far too encouraged to cocoon ourselves in. Heck. I’ve since gone off and been to a couple of other events in the community this week, as opposed to sitting in my room like a gremlin mostly blogging, screaming at Python beginner exercises and lamenting my own partially self-made social cage. Getting those small doses of unconscious proof you’re amidst your people really can have a knock-on effect, and that’s exactly in fact both how easy it is to and how we should look at building and sustaining our local creative communities. Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman aren’t going to do it. It starts with you, Dear Reader.
We weren’t made to live like this, folks, but there’s ample opportunities for us metalheads to create and foster the actual tribal bonds we’ve all been lacking far too much of these days.
As Always,
Peace, Love and Grindcore - Brady.
Inner-Strength Check - Links:
For just $5AUD/month, as a Riff Nerd you’ll gain access to bonus exclusive podcast episodes, have a say in shaping future content, have opportunities to receive giveaways and prizes, gain access to Members-only articles and more!
Thanks to all who’ve helped support us to remain independent and ad-free, cover operational costs and continue supporting numerous creative industries, artists and their communities.
Peace, Love and Grindcore - Brady & The ISC Team.