Anniversary tours are becoming more prominent as the legends of death metal get further and further away from the landmarks they’ve built. The most recent and arguably one of the most important anniversaries is Cryptopsy’s None So Vile: a succinct and violent howl of blistering aggression and pure brutality. The All So Vile tour celebrates 30 years of genre defining insanity with Corpse Pile, Inferi and 200 Stab Wounds joining as support.

Corpse Pile was first and they were a solid yet simple start to a night of wild death metal. They’re a full blooded death metal band with a dash of core for flavour, the downtuned slamming breakdowns in between sweeping declarations of political unrest and demands of overhauling a broken system. Tracks like Fed to the Starved and For Flesh and All have that same blistering intensity and rage you’d expect from a Napalm Death track albeit with a bit more of a slam slant.

Even if you’re not a fan of their high energy slamminess then you could least get behind their political options which were… Woke!?!?!?. Slam is a stupid genre (complimentary) so it’s at least nice to have your opinions validated and learn that there are musicians out there that represent the people. Be sure to check out their new EP: In the Beginning, it’s a chunky bit of crushing heaviness.

Inferi was next and the mood changed a little bit as the level of technical proficiency on stage increased significantly. Inferi was the key to getting the tech death nerds in the building and they all showed up en masse to witness the blinding guitar work of Malcolm Pugh and Sanjar Kumar. Tracks like The Promethean Kings and Eyes of Boundless Black upped the tempo and unleashed wild and uncontrollable circle pits as Nathan Bigelow delivered an insanebarrage of blast beats!

The most interesting part of the whole set was the inclusion of tracks from their upcoming album, Heaven Wept. The title track in particular was absolutely gargantuan, the chugging guitar work along with the choral chants had all the impact and awe inspiring scale of a titan
descending from Mount Olympus. If you need a balance of instrumental wizardry and raw power then look no further than Inferi and brace yourself for their new album on April 10th.

Next up was 200 Stab Wounds, a massive draw for this bill. Their brand of Carcass inspired goregrind/death metal has been turning heads since the release of their blood splattered debut, Manual Manic  Procedures. If gore is your main reason for listening to extreme metal then 200 Stab Wounds is the band for you.

Their ability to create vivid images of surgical evisceration and harrowing acts of violence was matched only by their ability to harness all that sonic carnage and transfer it to the audience. Even the first few songs saw a mass of crowd surfers flooding the photo pit like a mass of corpses carelessly being thrown into a mass grave.

Tracks like Itty Bitty Pieces and She’s Already Dead were destructive works of borderline Grindcore encrusted with dried blood and viscera while tracks like Fatal Reality and Hand of Morbidity had a bit of a Gothenburg melodeath sound and invoked HM2 bands like Entombed and Dismember. You can clearly tell that 200 Stab Wounds are the best kind of death metal nerds and to see this kind of band draw a younger audience to shows like this is absolutely phenomenal.

Finally, Cryptopsy hit the stage and began their relentless assault with Slit Your Guts, one of the most famous tracks from their iconic trendsetting album, None So Vile. There are very few albums that maintain the same level of relentless hostility that None So Vile has, it’s an album that fills everyone within earshot with a vicious fury that just doesn’t stop until everything in its wake is destroyed.

There may be a smaller crowd for Cryptopsy’s set but everyone who stayed made up for that with blistering intensity. Even the new tracks from An Insatiable Violence lived up to its reputation with tracks like Until There’s Nothing Left and Dead Eyes Replete laid waste. Even the interlude of Moonlight Sonata during Phobophile added this menacing energy as babyfaced vocalist Matt McGachy unleashed some absolutely inhuman guttural noises

The set was largely made up of None so Vile, an album which contains most of Cryptopsy’s biggest tracks anyway. The monstrous bellowing of Crown of Horns followed by the iconic line from The Exorcist III: “I do that rather well, don’t you think?” had people ready for war as the vulgar grinding guitar work accompanied Matt’s vicious shrieking as the carpet bombing of blast beats filled out the assault.

It was hard to pick tracks apart but tracks like Orgaistic Disembowelment and Benedictine Convulsions stood above the rest with their wild and untamed nature continuing a wild frenzy throughout the audience. The show ended with the return of the menacing tones of Moonlight Sonata and the crowd left changed. The set was just shy of an hour but there was so much psychotic energy crammed into it that you would have to have unbelievably high expectations to be even remotely disappointed.

Cryptopsy remain titans of death metal and if this is an indication of things to come then their set headlining the Sophie Lancaster stage at Bloodstock is going to be an unmissable event.

Corpse Pile (C) Christopher James Ryan Photography

Inferi (C) Christopher James Ryan Photography

200 Stab Wounds (C) Christopher James Ryan Photography

Cryptopsy (C) Christopher James Ryan Photography