Thursday, July 4th - Lee's Palace, Toronto
Tomb Mold and Horrendous’ North American tour, entitled Enraptured By Fate’s Tangled Thread, kicked off on a steamy summer night at Lee’s Palace in Toronto. The evening began with a brief set of technical death metal from Toronto’s Gutvoid, featuring 2 former members of one of my favourite 00’s local bands, Adytum. They previewed the song “For We Are Many” from their upcoming EP Breathing Obelisk. But the standout was the progressive banger, “The One That Dwells Beyond Time,” from their 2022 full-length Durance of the Lightless Horizons, which provided a nice balance to the rest of their frenetic jazz-like songs.
Gutvoid
Philadelphia’s Horrendous were up next, playing songs from their latest Season of Mist album, 2023’s Ontological Mysterium. The band has been labelled as progressive death metal, and their live set certainly adds credence to that label. Each song is performed with a certain flair that slightly lengthens and sonically enhances them. Not in a jam band kind of way, but with a certain embellishment that brings the music to life in a way that is only possible in a live setting. The thrashy “Neon Leviathan” was particularly memorable, as well as the epic closer “The Death Knell Ringeth.”
Horrendous
For Tomb Mold, it would be hard to ask for a better start to a tour. A packed hometown show in one of Toronto’s most legendary venues. By the time they started their playthrough of their latest album, 2023’s The Enduring Spirit, the room had reached a near shoe-melting temperature. The vast majority of the crowd had been there since doors had opened, but the heat did not diminish their enthusiasm in the slightest.
Tomb Mold
The obvious standout of a Tomb Mold performance is drummer/vocalist Max Klebanoff. Watching Klebanoff seamlessly transition in and out of blastbeats while performing vocals is worthy of the ticket price alone. Guitarist Derrick Vella also stood out with his short-shorts, fretless guitar, and constant movement. Tomb Mold’s music could be considered technical death metal, with riffs that remind me of Quebec’s Martyr. But there is a more avant-garde aspect to the sound that evokes thoughts of 00s mathcore artists like Psyopus. It makes sense that they’ve got such a wide appeal among extreme metal fans. After the album playthrough they briefly exited the stage before returning for a 2-song encore. The hot and smelly crowd then promptly filed out of the building with visible grins on their faces. For death metalheads, it was an evening of pure bliss.
You can listen to both Tomb Mold’s The Enduring Spirt and Horrendous’ Ontological Mysterium below. Check out "For We Are Many" from Gutvoid’s upcoming EP, Breathing Obelisk, which comes out on August 30th.
Thank you to Season of Mist