[Gig Review, Part II]: Brutefest 2026 @ The Tote Hotel, Melbourne (AU), 25.04.
Somewhat perturbed about the prospect of missing more thrash metal on a bill headed by Warbringer, it’s vocalist/guitarist Riley Strong’s eponymous skullet and proverbial-eating grin that has me basically launching off my pew in the beer garden like a rocket. I murmur something about being back on the job/having work to do et cetera mid-conversation and basically play Frogger amidst a swarm of smoking punters to claw my way inside in time.
Seems my desperate lunge for a viable spot in The Tote Hotel’s main bar is more of a mission than anticipated - cause these dudes have the room packed before the first snare-hit. And rightfully so - it’s freaking Desecrator, dude! A special event to boot, with this being one of two shows they’ve dusted off their gear for another hurrah around a period otherwise on hiatus.
Now admittedly, by this point, I was starting to operate off of sheer willpower alone. That didn’t stave off one bit of the rush of more excitement than I’d anticipated for myself as these local legends return from elongated slumber a second and final time (for now, at least). The roar is raucous enough that you’d be forgiven for thinking it was Warbringer - same goes for the pit.
Riley Strong's low-slung, shit-eating AC/DC styled stomp—usually front-row bait—got lost in the manic swarm, that deadly two-step-ringed floor turning boozy physics into swaying pines and toppled punters, as more and more thrashers take a misstep upwards and bowl waves of crossed-arm standees over like outstretched hands at a soccer match.
Riley perches left, right-hand buzzing chainsaw perpetual, punk-lean on fill tilt with the strap seeming to double as a skyscraper scaffold. He snarls a mixture of gruff, hardcore-style barks alongside classically-metaaaal (latter word said with pinched-balls falsetto for emphasis) wails. He and Andrew Hudson bring out two legends’ worth of lead-Wikipedia across the set, carving razor leads: breakneck solos, squealing harmonics, gnarled bends, the full guitar-goblin playbook between machine-gun palm-mutes.
Sure, I could mention the setlist. We’ve got your classics in the mix via ‘Serpents’ Return’, the ‘Belly Of The Beast’ being given its’ typical snarky verbal introduction, ‘Brothers In Arms’, et al. But, like last Desecrator show (coincidentally also brought out of the woodwork thanks to Your Mate Bookings in support of UK thrash-vets Onslaught - sneaky Gig Review link for that one here), track titles become damn near meaningless after a point. These guys have fun, declare their love for the scene and give plenty of banter and oratory.. but they also push hard, fast and don’t give too much room for semantics.
Onwards they plow, the pit finally reaching it’s first furious beer-addled zenith of the night towards the end. Driven in no small part by the true maestros of butt-shaking, the real kings of crowd movement… the rhythm section. Gerard Biesboer looks as Metalocalypse now as he did in December before Onslaught; a whirring, stomping windmill machine, effortlessly grinding out both stoically-subservient roots, thirds and octaves but also plenty of tasty embellishments, runs and little solos - very nice use of thrash-metal bass right there. Equally as adherent and eclectic in the same breath, his compadre in temporality, we have ourselves another multiple-set-loving musician in the relentless and diversified talent of Jared Roberts once again. Chameleon-like, he seems able to foot the bill with any rhythm assignment, slotting as easily into fill-heavy, watertight thrashin’ and bashin’ as he is hanging loose (or fast) with Alarum and the like.
Riley gives an extended couple of speeches about the importance of the Melbourne scene, the present gig and organisers/venue, supporting the local scene to keep it afloat etc, as dual solo’s and clattering rhythms trail off an epic rockstar-chic outro to hearty aplomb. Knowing this was their last set for a while makes the ending somewhat bittersweet, and despite seeing them a number of times I’m hopeful as anyone else in the room that the hiatus ain’t permanent.
Wearily now, I drag my embattled feet up the stairs. The afternoon’s initial burst of trepidation-and-hangover-filled excitement/anxiety (excite-xiety? Anximent?) now steadily replacing itself with increasingly leaden boots, sodden in my gait. ‘Damnit’, I mutter to myself, somewhat worrisome about whether I’ve actually got the stones to see through this whole shebang.
That’s when the first of many, many resounding thwocks announcing an unyielding, unrelenting firestorm of blackened death metal brutality. Goosebumps pricking, breath hitching in my chest as Destruktor provides a gnarling, devious, hellish whirlwind of fury that few else on the bill could hope to match.
Now, I noticed during this set there were a fair few curious heads who eventually decided to turn tail. I’m not going to blame them on two levels - one, it’s a bloody long day and folks are likely weary and wanting to preserve their thrash-energy for the headliner. Two, these guys are NOT everyone’s cup of tea, for sure, perhaps particularly not for folks drawn to the dynamicism of the prior two acts’ songwriting.
That’s not to say Destruktor’s songwriting is inherently bad; shit, it’s blackened death metal, which already raises an automatic bar in my extreme-metal goblinoid brain-corner. But if you buy a ticket and you hop on this ride this late in the piece? Yeah, strap in or whine about it out in the ‘garden mate. We’re here to get face-torn. And we do.
Announcing multiple discography cuts such as the brilliant black-n-roll-meets-Absu-on-cocaine bender that is ‘Hail The Black Goat’ among others, Glenn Destruktor is all the smarm, sarcasm and see-if-I-give-a-shit oppositionally defiant energy you’d expect from one slinging out an unthinkable amount of strums, tremolo and riffing at speed, tangled webs of black death. Snarling and screeching but sat almost squat back, he feels more a figure of authority surveying his subjects than a frontman anxious to amp up engagement.
It helps set the tone, and contrasts nicely against the relentlessly swivelled heads of bassist Chris McEwin and the utterly relentless, stick-snapping machine-man power of perma-blaster Jahred on drums. Together, as a three-piece they sound decidedly heavier than a lot of black metal acts, the death-metal undertones providing a heft and grit oft missing from traditional BM outfits. Chris’ basslines are thick, soupy and syrupy, my eyeballs pounding in their sockets alongside the clack and double-kick.
It’s not your usual modern fare, either. No promises of a big swingy breakdown riff to tuck you in at night, no breathers other than the odd jagged, discordant, pummeling roll of either OSDM or black-n-roll swagger. Even the briefest of reposes feels like a gut-punch, and by the end of the set there’s more than a few commenting around me (positively and excitedly) how much that whole thing just felt like one big elongated blasting track.
Phwoar. Okay. Yep, righto Anth and Co. Got it. Those querying why a penultimate support is something so fierce probably hadn’t also stayed upstairs for the set. I felt refreshed after it, a cool blast-laden repulsion of both hangover and tiredness.
Alright.
Before I get into Warbringer’s set, I have to point out some post-gig truths about how wild and unruly it got in there. It’s been over a week since the gig, and I’ve still got a gaping hole in my toe from ??something/someone?? with half the flesh missing. I basically crawled out of that pit, the most broken glass I’ve ever seen on the floor of a Melbourne show literally the entire surface like a sea of jagged crystal. I walk back to the train half-limping, two twisted ankles and a bung shoulder from more crowd-surfing (and dropping) than I usually dare.
Heck - unfortunately, Youtube DMCA’ed a lot of the footage, but somewhere amongst the footage on our socials there’s a few moments where I lose my phone. At one time, you can actually see not just one person move past the ceiling-facing camera, they roll over it. I had a good chuckle to myself about it later, and a lot of that pit ferocity was driven urgently by one hell of an audience-participation-enjoyer, John Kevill (vocals).
A knot ties in my throat and feels ready to choke me out there and then. If I’d died just moments after the most perfectly placed openers in ‘Firepower Kills’, I’d have been laid to rest a happy man. I missed Warbringer’s last tour just as I was becoming feverishly fanatical of their discog up to that point (circa 2013). As mentioned in our interview on the podcast, Kevill and Co had a bit of a bung deal with some high-and-dry antics from those they toured here with last time.
So as that martial, trundling palm-muting wall meets on one guitar, subtle flecks across the fretboard on another, my heart feels ready to seize up entirely. Go on. Kill me. It’s Warbringer, it’s freaking worth it. Cheeks already hurting from the grin, I’m losing my usual ‘pardon me, squire/madam’ composure and bullishly squirming through the packed bodies to get right up front - just as our main-man appears onstage to deliver the first of many high-pitched wails aside his gruff screech-roar: '“FIYA-POWAH KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLS!”.
The room explodes. Utterly explodes. Knees from half-arsed crowdsurf jump attempts clamouring up my spine, hands grasping desperately onto shoulders, one probably from the floor on my shin. I slough off the drowning people and find my own purchase at the foldback just as the riff settles briefly into that thumping verse of triplets.
I’m raising my fists and screaming every word, bleating about the sardonically sarcastic promotion of lethality alongside half the crowd, breathless and about to puke. All of a sudden, John’s hands’ diving into the pit - he’s not offering, he’s telling. Alongside, around, twirling, always twirling towards victory, it’s Mario Salcedo (of Fueled By Fire/Skeletal Remains infamy). Probably not the worlds’ most unsafe wager to assume I’ve played along with a bunch of Warbringer basslines when needing some thrash to jam at home (Mum: ‘We have Warbringer at home’), and there’s actually a heck of a lot going on in that realm of sonic space. It’s not even his current band but it might as well, be such is the tightness with which he’s both peeling off high-speed picked attack and numerous thumb-stabs to percussively slap in between.
Covering less overall left-to-right real estate on a writhing, punter-filled stage, Adam Carroll isn’t exactly static and neither are any of his limbs. He’s writhing and whirring, chopping at the air and bent over like it’s Deliverance-time as he unleashes an artillery barrage of blistering riffs and blazing lead, from the conclusion of first track and the ever-so-requisite “Melbourne, how the fuck you dooooooooin? We are Warbringer from LA and we came here to cruuuuuuush!” from their frontman. Back he goes, gyrating and bobbing whilst effortlessly wrenching out songwriting that’d cramp half our hands up through the first track.
The unrelenting and flat expanse of ballistic thrash-metal of the former track gives way to the choppy, discordant strains of ‘Hunter-Seeker’, the bounciness of it all only serving to amplify the chaotic swirling mass behind me. About every ten, fifteen seconds or so I cop a shoe, an elbow, something to my head and back, so it’s almost with relief when Mister Rescue Helicopter about a foot away clasps my forearm as the Devil-horns go up, and all of a sudden I’m clambered onstage.
No one, and I mean no one is still enough or even paying attention to catch me, and I’ve gained at least a few kilos in food and beer. Shaking my head and trying to judge where’s going to cost the least amount of medical liability for the promoter when my ass bodies someone, Kevill plants a foot and arm in my back and launches me. The ceiling’s briefly all I know, horns raised as a few messed-up punters give an inattentive effort to surf back… into nothing but clashing bodies.
That whole time, John’s arm is outstretched, feeding punters up onto the stage like it’s a belt-fed LMG and the circle-pit is the painted target.
Amidst all the din, another recruited compatriot of modern US metal proves himself as adeptly learnt and skilled on the bands’ material as their other mercenaries-for-hire. Luke Man (of Exmortus and Leatherwolf) proves just how much the colours don’t fucking run on the flag of ol’ USA. Even if the contemporary version’s a unanimously-agreed shitshow, he isn’t, keeping up to speed with the widdly, histrionic antics required to peel through the second track and into the gut-thudding Abrams tank column that is ‘Crushed Beneath The Tracks’. Up I go again, and this time I seem to have fallen on something wet. I later learn this wet thing is actually my arse, my cheek sliced (not deeply, thankfully - and nowhere else, phew) by an errant half-smashed pint-glass.
I give it the business, really trying my best to throw down with the more powered-up latecomers and far drunker folks than I, but alas. Between vaping, depression and well, insert excuses here, I’ve probably got the fitness of someone who’s earnt their senior citizen’s discount. Holding back bile, I nonetheless cannot and will not sit completely still. Wedging myself in the left-hand corner, a tiny prism of free space, I survey the scene. Honestly? I can’t tell who’s moving more out of the crowd or the band, and both are near unrecognisable in their flurries of motion.
Blake Anderson has been out to Australia recently with technical-thrash giants Vektor (also of Heathen fame), and he’s looking something far beyond comfortable. Like Old Mate from Circle of Blood before him, Blake is sporting a shit-eating grin throughout the set when really, he should be cursing us all for having been forced into so, so many flat-stick d-beat thrash tunnels, spindly and arm-flailing fills, trilling cymbal rides and militaristic snare-bashes. He does so shirtless, hair whirling and with aplomb, a cheeky grin constantly sported.
The briefest of pauses for John to give thanks and announce the bands’ got a lot of material on offer tonight, and then it’s back into thrash metal mayhem for ‘Woe To The Vanquished’ - such an announcement is one of many that litter a fantastic setlist, and the crowd erupts. It’s almost funny, watching the push-pull surges of different folks as their preferred favourite eras come to the fore, finally, finally given live justice in Australia once more. On their dime, this is almost a rocky number, replete with grooves aplenty and some breathing-room to really get the shred-tastic show-offery on display. For a newly-starting thrash metal act, this is probably still their fastest number, with enough time-signature chops and changes to lose hope. Not Warbringer. This is one hell of a well-oiled machine, enough that in-ears are forgone for vibes.
And then… yep… Christ on a fucking Carousel. IT’S. THAT. SONG. Pretty much my favourite song in all of modern thrash metal, that second-to-fifth-fret dugga-dugga and little trill flourish stomping out the intro to ‘Living In A Whirlwind’. The relatively pulled-back intro has the pit on edge, all of us waiting for the verbal delivery of the line, that bouncing brief riff and then, yep, there we are! Onstage and off-stage again, half wondering how it happened. Now on the floor. Sideways. Oh. There’s two huge guys pinning me to the steps, some kind folks (thank you, mystery people!) I pat mutually on the back as I’m slurped out like sardines, screaming every word, already hoarse. Onstage, you’d think Kevill was a Commissar from the Imperial Guard in Warhammer: 40K: chopping, slicing, pointing, grinning, head-flicking, snarling, looking equal parts devilishly mirthful and regimented in his poise. The hand swishes and theatrical gesticulations are timed well, giving the appearance of a mad conductor in bullet-belt symphony. I go to scream my decades-long holler of appreciation but my voice has cacked it. Instead, I help up a couple of louts who are basically the colour my toe is right now - black and blue.
It’s fucking mayhem in here, the absolute craziest I’ve seen The Tote main stage. The moshing continues through more of John’s cheeky banter, announcing a hope that we enjoy receiving ‘Shellfire’! Umm, YASS?! God-damnit. Look. They could play anything off any album and confirmation bias, but oh my god this setlist is so about me right now. The riffs churn punchier than ever in this one, thick sleeting walls of palm-mute and bass chest-punching, flailing limbs awkwardly fisting the air as their owners disappear under the din, are pulled right back up by a very supportive (if insane) circle-pit mini-community. I don’t catch much of this one in earnest, other than what I hear - I’m just too busy either military-pressing someone’s back/arse/legs off my neck yet again, or I’m either slamming into or being slammed into by someone. And I’m not even in the nexus of all that chaos - this is off to the side we’re talking about here.
The punishments’ not over yet. John announces the ills of modern weapons technology, and the fact any minute we could receive a (shrieked in heavy metal wail for emphasis) ‘Strike From The Sky’! Oh, piss off. Really? Is this thrash-tarot?! I clamber aside the stage to get some footage in the wedge behind the PA - that cross-sectional view looks like a bunch of tap-dancers on methamphetamines. Not a straight leg in sight, every member is constantly in flux, writhing with a still-yet-unused powerhouse of potential energy stored from 13 years without us Aussie ratbags. I take a deep breath, venture back into the maelstrom and grab on hard to a foldback, trying feebly to match every snare hit with a headbang. I look up and both guitarists and bassist are doing just that, matching Black snare-thwack for head-swivel, never tiring. Good Lord. To quote Pig Destroyer - “This is beautiful. This is art.”
The second Kevill quips about the ails of modern technology, he doesn’t even get to finish his sentence before at least a few crowd members announce ‘Neuromancer’ for him. I love that book, this song, band and album, so yeah, no prizes for guessing much similar happens as before. Except it doesn’t, as there’s both strategic technicality and colourful subtlety across the bands’ discography, this track being no different. John wails his guts out, forearm strapping to yet more stage-divers and crowd-surfers, a juxtaposition when screeching about the horrors of digital corruption, imprisonment, enslavement. I feel privileged and honoured to be seeing these dudes so soon off the back of such a great recent LP in Wrath and Ruin, so my shattered voicebox gives a fairly middling, croaked attempt at matching the ear-piercing banshee wail of applause on conclusion.
Announcing “another old one”, the lactic acid, lethargy and now, growing pain from numerous injuries that’ll have me hobbled later. Duuuuuuuun-dudu-dunda-duuuuuuuuuuun goes the punky power-chord intro to that song. No. Really? ‘Jackal’ too?! Argh! This time I take a deep breath as though going free-diving, working my way past whipping heads as the complex, technical jagged track spindles out its’ stop-start ferocity. Hands gripping individual foldbacks, shrugging off shoulder and elbow blows, I’m wedged up the front as a human pincushion, shoulder-to-shoulder whipping my head as the off-kilter number bursts into the frantic soloing, a pirouette from there into a flat-stick second half that somehow, just bloody somehow, raises the pit-meter up a notch. I think we’re about to break physics in here, someone call the scientists cause we may have cause for conCERN.
At last, a bit of a breather. But only for the most cinematic of moments. John exits the stage and, giving his best semi-sarcastic spiel about the powers of heavy metal, brandishes an actual, real, hefty goddamned medieval sword to introduce, well, you guessed it - ‘The Sword and The Cross’. With an almost power-metal level of grandiose structure, John pointedly swaying the heavy blade one-armed out through the audience, it’s one of those peak metal moments you get only so many times in your life, irrespective of how many gigs you attend. Here’s a man who’s been gesticulating, snarling, pulling and shoving folks on and off-stage while his band-mates flow around him like pyroclastic ooze. And yet here, they stand attentive, proud and tall, honouring the metal Gods. That is until The Riff really hits, and this sparse reprieve seems enough to set the pit-dial back to ravenous. I drag out more than one concussed/delirious person just from the edge of the pit (never mind the bollocks, here’s Warbringer epicentre, yeah-nah tried that, I’m unfit, I’m good bro), copping a boot in the neck and ribs. It’s a sign of a much-loved thrash band (and a majority pretty sloshed-up pit of thrashers) that a more mid-tempo affair gets such a rowdy rabble going.
By this stage, I’m damn near pleading for them to play something shitty. Which would be nothing on their discography. I… I can’t take any more, but hot damn do I never want this to end. So what’s the karmic response to that internal monologue? Oh, I don’t know Brady, how about another absolutely ripper album-opener like ‘Living Weapon’? Yeah yeesh, alright. Now in the Gallery posts above, I actually only got two of four clips of the song up on Youtube. You can thank two things for that: DMCA law, and the fact my phone was kicked, punched and flung out of my hands (as it so shouldve been). “Now-i-have-become!” John gestures the mic to the audience, and the choral reply of “LI-VING WE-APON!” is just pure chroeography. This band garners some hardcore fans [self included], and it’s impressive how note-precise everyone’s callbacks are to so many invitations along the way to gang-chant, chorus and just plain scream.
Our frontman pleads and implores us, after giving healthy amounts of thanks, praise and credit to YMB, the bands, festival, venue and Australia for their too-long-awaited return, to ‘Remain Violent’ - call we chant hoarsely but hungrily. We’re like those dogs in Martin Seligman’s learnt-helplessness experiments - shocked, beaten and still her just straight up taking the glorious punishment. The incendiary, technical, modern thrash mayhem ensues onstage without abatement, each member a gyroscopic force of watertight performance. Only Warbringer can take one of their punkier numbers, play it like the worlds’ most keyed-up punk-rock band and deliver it with technical death metal accuracy whilst moving that much, this far into a set.
Coming out for an encore we all knew was happening (Blake’s unsubtle and cheeky salutation as he settles on the throne, not too long after a blasting, fill-heavy drum solo), and it could only be one. Damn. Song. Secretly, I was wracked with apprehension, but the second John does the face-to-crowd mic pass of “TOOOOTAL!” (John) “WAAAAAAAAGH!” (Us, not Orks, repeat this back/forth x a bunch) and then shreds his vocal cords to scream-announce the song that started it all? ‘Total War’ ensues both onstage in the pit. Collectively, we know this is it. Thirteen years and who knows how many pandemics, blocked Strait of Hormuz or whatever the shit else is between us, the most classically modern-thrash belter of an album-opener, and next time.
Naturally, complete and utter chaos ensues, the band locking into their no-frills, hyper-speed early heyday. It’s a blinding, relentless track and absolutely the best way to send out the ‘fest. Like the surge of a tsunami as it hits the coastal shelf to upend a swollen undertow, the surge to the front basically turns my ribs into an accordion. I spent a few glorious minutes pinned between person and stage, punching at the air and damn near risking asphyxiation like the rest of them in choosing to exhale screams of every line, the barked gang-chants giving a decidedly Oi-punk feel to this group cohesion.
Sadly (not for you poor beleaguered readers), all good things have come to an end. As the lights fade back on, a sea of absolute carnage is before me. Specks of blood, thousands of tiny square speckles of glass, some accoutrement that gets handed over stage and to the staff by various nice peeps, and the spectral lingering of one loud, caterwauling thrash banshee.
I/we/quite a lot of us actually who stuck around after were able to meet with the band and have chats, get things signed, fanboy about it all and have some banter. The fact they’ve all been onstage throwing the entirety of their qi, their thrash chakra, into such a frenetic set and yet are happy to sit and mingle amongst us afterwards? That’s proper thrash, mate. Thrash is imbued with the spirit of punk rock after all, and that was punk-rock as hell.
Anthony/YMB staff, John and Co, Tote staff, punters, Richie - thank you all for making an actual modern thrash metal dream of mine come true, and making it come true off the back of one jam-packed afternoon and night of metal chaos!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got body parts that are still cut up and sore, so it’s time to break out the Dettol and put on more Warbringer.
LINKS:
links:
desecrator:
destruktor:
warbringer:
your mate bookings:
Instagram