If you think the apocalypse will arrive with fire and brimstone, you're clearly not standing inside Brisbane's The Fortitude Music Hall with me tonight!
I'm here, awaiting the arrival of doom as Dethklok is set to annihilate local DethFans and curious punters (6 April).Before our leg of Awaken Australia devastation begins, we experience the live sounds of Freedom Of Fear out of Adelaide. After a long cinematic intro, Jade Monserrat (vocals) finally joins the band for 'Immortal', unleashing their dark, technical blend of extreme metal tracks.
After missing them supporting Carcass, it doesn't take me long to recognise how much more kick their live sound delivers. Punters are being torched with blistering guitar solos by Matt Walters and Corey Davis, and blast beats galore, all tightly bound by the invisible tentacles of Monserrat's ominous vocals and wonderfully mysterious stage presence. I don't know how she hasn't taken out an eye with those long claws. Maybe she has!
Freedom Of Fear - image © Clea-marie Thorne
We willingly get sucked into their melodic, virtuosic world of extreme metal and it doesn't take long for their energy to wrap around me like a gripping embrace.
Their music weaves elements of melodic death and traditional death metal, interspersed with swirling hints of symphonic and progressive sounds alongside delicate whispers of black metal. It's fresh and cohesive, a tapestry of sound that pulls you in deeper with each track.
Walters and Davis command their guitars like virtuosos, each painting a different landscape with riffs and solos. The intricate melodies dance off their strings, one cutting through the air with razor-sharp precision, while the other layers in a more measured, melodic approach. It feels like witnessing a duel of epic proportions – a harmonious clash of styles that set the stage ablaze.
Monserrat envelopes the crowd with her commanding presence dressed in a flowing black dress, channelling raw emotion through her voice. Her dark hair hides her face as if she's been summoned from the depths of a horror tale, conjuring imagery reminiscent of 'The Ring' or 'The Grudge'. Her death growls resonate like thunder, while her high shrieks echo with an otherworldly quality, sending shivers down my spine.
Freedom Of Fear - image © Clea-marie Thorne
As their performance unfolds, I am captivated by the sheer epicness of their compositions 'Nebula', 'Carpathia' and 'Entities'. Each track is an adventure filled with twists and turns, and their closing masterpieces, 'Zenith' and 'Purgatorium' leave me breathless, solidifying my admiration for this exceptional band.
I don't know how to describe my anticipatory joy right now. You see Dethlok's show isn't a regular gig – Dethfans gathering here are all in for a multi-sensory obliteration of the soul. Animation meets annihilation and the line between animation and cataclysm is gonna be blurred into a blood-drenched fever dream.
The speakers crackle to life with a recording of 'Is Dethklok Back?'. The return of Nathan Explosion, Skwisgaar Skwigelf, Toki Wartooth, William Murderface and Pickles arrives with all the dramatic flair of an ancient prophecy. The crowd is already losing it. The air is anticipation soup on the boil, bubbles releasing bursts of electricity charging the air around us.
'Deththeme' cracks the night open, and we're in for war. The digital backdrop roars to life, and we're thrilled to be here, witnessing the animated birth of mass hyper-violent lore – a gateway into Brendon Small's demented universe, scored live with punishing precision.
Onstage, the flesh-and-blood masters of metal emerge like dark heralds before their animated doppelgängers: Brendon Small (guitar, vocals, and the voice of countless characters) embodying Nathan Explosion, modelled on George 'Corpsegrinder' Fisher of Cannibal Corpse, and Gene Hoglan pounding the kit as Pickles the drummer, who some reckon looks a bit like Townsend on a bender.
Dethklok - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Pete Griffin is here to lay down the bass and Nili Brosh along for the shred. Not that you'd know, though, because unlike Sydney, from where I stand, Brisbane gets nothing but silhouettes. Look, that's not ideal when you've got the Dethklok mastermind and a band of absolute virtuosos right in front of you. Just saying.
The pit? It is immediately turning into carnage. An unholy baptism of limbs, sweat, and spilled beers tells me it will be crazy messy in the middle – I make my decision early to stay behind the sounddesk and watch it unfold during 'Briefcase Full Of Guts' which rips into the crowd like a sonic evisceration – security must be reconsidering their life choices right about now.
'Birthday Dethday' turns the venue into a birthday party for the unhinged, complete with the kind of scream-along chorus that makes Odin himself proud. However, 'Mutilation On A Saturday Night' shifts things to a new level; Hoglan's drumming thundering is so hard it feels like tectonic plates are shifting under my feet.
Dethklok - image © Clea-marie Thorne
As 'Bloodlines' ends, Facebones shows up with some essential words of wisdom: concert tips on hygiene. The screen shows grotesquely exaggerated animations along with his helpful hints leaving punters cackling. 'Awaken' sees the animation escalating into pure, batsh.t insanity – you know, regular Dethklok fare.
The sheer synchronisation of the musicianship is mindblowing. Brosh is shredding with the precision of a laser-guided missile, while Small's guttural growls are ripping straight from the abyss.
'The Gears' is revving-up a mechanical nightmare, the screen depicting endless grinding machinery of pain, while 'Castratikron' hammers like a barbarian war hymn – the crowd stomping and screaming like berserkers heading into battle. Even though this is as metal as gets, seeing crowd surfers appear in this unique setting is giving me the giggles.
Dethklok - image © Clea-marie Thorne
'Hatredcopter' has a rowdy and weird sing-along and 'Dethsupport' keeps the violence alive, but 'Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle' flips the place into caffeinated delirium. The entire venue is bellowing its allegiance to the holy bean as Griffin's bass rumbles like an espresso-fuelled earthquake.
Before 'Aortic Desecration', Facebones is back again; this time delivering a segment on drinking booze and smoking pot. Facebones confesses how he may have gotten a little too high before the show and his face is morphing out all trippy like. The message? Pace yourself, don't have more than you can handle, you absolute maniacs.
Then. . . 'Murmaider'. The one. The crowd surges like a drowning mass, devil horns raised, punching forward, but in this weird space of blurred reality, one could be forgiven if you were imagining that the sirens of the deep are calling fans to claw their way towards the stage screen.
Dethklok - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Another favourite of mine, 'Thunderhorse' is galloping in behind it, a stampede of relentless riffs and wild-eyed intensity and more adult themes (wink, wink).
BOOM! Darkness swallows the room whole as Explosion's voice comes growling through the void, thick and unmistakable dropping tales of his time here. He's raving about Mad Max, giving a nod to Freedom Of Fear and throwing banter about with his bandmates like beer cans at a house party, all the while switching between the voices of his cartoon characters faultlessly. Punters are hanging off every word, soaking it in.
Then the drone of Charles Offdensen kicks in – band manager voice, flat and uncaring, declaring it's all over in one breath. . . then doubling back in the next, giving them permission to wreak more havoc. The crowd detonates before the words are even out – BLAM!
Explosion growls the opening words of 'Fansong' and the chug tears through the air like a steam train hurtling toward the edge of a flat earther's world. It's a vicious nod to the maniacs down front – the lifers, the lunatics, the ones still swinging elbows and screaming every damn word.
The drum intro to 'SOS' barrels in straight after, backed up by a storm of double-kick carnage, ticking off the final, glorious box on my set list wish list; but it's 'Go Into The Water' that closes the curtain.
Dethklok - image © Clea-marie Thorne
As the stage glows, the crowd falls still, eyes fixed, breath held. The track rolls over us like a tidal pull – slow, ominous, dragging every soul into the depths of Dethklok's strange, brutal world. No one's walking away untouched.
As the last notes of dissolve into reverb and ruin, punters are left blinking, drenched, jaws slack. There's just smoke, static, and the sense that something unholy has just been summoned and dismissed. People stagger out like they've survived some ritual trial, shirts ripped, makeup smeared, beers long gone, ears obliterated and grins plastered sideways like they've forgotten what planet they're on.
The floor's a graveyard of cans and lost shoes and I swear someone's hobbling away with their merch like it's an unholy relic. My own re-entry to reality feels like I awakened from some Lovecraftian nightmare.
What Dethklok summoned within The Fortitude Music Hall wasn't just the best animated death metal show ever – it was a goddamn death ritual disguised as a concert.
I know that someone, somewhere is trying to explain the Dethklok show we all just witnessed and will be failing miserably. Put simply, if you were not here, you didn't just miss out. You're suffering a soul deficit (and perhaps we're missing ours?).
Dethklok reigns supreme. All hail the mighty Klok.
More photos from the concert.
