It’s a dark fall night in Los Angeles and I’m searching for parking in the dirty, litter strewn industrial part of East Los Angeles. I finally find a spot a block or so from the venue, park and lock my car and then make my way through the streets covered in garbage, tent cities and graffiti to the venue to catch the Ancient Unholy Uprising Tour.
1720 is an inconspicuously converted warehouse in the grimiest part of LA. It is an absolutely perfect venue for a death metal show. The surrounding area creates a sense of anxiety that lends itself well to music like this. Brute industrial force, chaos, hopelessness… just a few of the ways I would describe both the genre and the neighborhood this venue is located in. A whole lot of parallels.
Once inside the venue the atmosphere and my attitude completely change. A familiar scene, I am at home, these are my people. From long hair to shaved heads, leather jackets to hoodies, people in their 40’s and 50’s to kids too young to be of legal drinking age. There is even a toddler wearing a Pantera t-shirt with his dad, needless to say: a death metal crowd is a very diverse one. I missed the first opener but managed to get to the venue just in time to catch Skeletal Remains an LA death metal outfit that warmed up the crowd with a fantastic set of traditional death metal.
The floor had already opened up for a gigantic pit during Skeletal Remains’ set but now the audience was bustling and people were quickly filing into the venue for one of the headline acts the legendary extreme death metal outfit Suffocation.
For those who may not know, Suffocation is one of the OG’s of the death metal world. This band has been doing it BRUTAL since the 1980’s. Guitarist Terrence Hobbs joined in 1990 and is the closest thing left to being an “original” band member. Longtime vocalist Frank Mullen officially retired from the band in 2019 after doing one final tour and was replaced by current vocalist Ricky Myers.
Despite the lineup nothing else has really changed with Suffocation unless you count the natural evolution of their speed and brutality. The band proved this by playing a wide variety of tracks from their deep catalog. “Breeding the Spawn” for example is from the album “Pierced from Within” which was released almost 20 years ago in 1995.
The band is touring to promote their latest album “Hymns from the Apocrypha” which is a relentlessly brutal statement about lost or hidden chapters of the bible. One of my favorite tracks from the album is “Dim Veil of Obscurity” which I’m happy to report the band included in their set.
The pit really lit up during Suffocation’s set and no matter how brutal it got metalheads picked their peers up from the floor and no fist fights or anything truly ugly broke out. In fact some of the people going the hardest in the pit were the ladies. There were a lot of women at this show… something I did not expect but was pleasantly surprised by. Cheers to any women who attend death metal shows and go hard in the pit. Women who climb to this level of badass are insanely attractive to a person like myself and I commend it.
Suffocation played a long and brutal set and by the end the crowd was covered in sweat. I was experiencing my own bout with suffocation due to the funk trapped in the warehouse air. I would describe it as a combination of evaporating sweat, vape and pot smoke. I had to step outside to the patio and get a breath of fresh air before the next wave of brutality hit the stage in the form of Incantation.
Much like Suffocation, Incantation are an OG death metal band. The band originally formed just one year after Suffocation in 1989 and are part of the same NY death metal scene. Guitarist / vocalist John McEntee is the sole original member, although drummer Kyle Severn has appeared on every studio album since their third. The band opened with a single from their most recent album “Concordat (The Pact) Part I.”
Incantation continued to pummel the LA crowd with their brand of dark and mystical death metal and things stayed rowdy throughout the night. The level of energy that metalheads have is unmatched and was fueled by the incredible sound in 1720. I have to give props to the sound team at 1720. The kick drum pummeled me so hard it felt like a someone was running one of those electric massage guns across my chest for most of the night. Despite the grimy atmosphere of the club the sound system and team running it were top tier. Everything about this show was absolutely perfect from the venue to the precision sound.
If you’re a fan of real death metal and brutal music do not miss these bands when they come to your town.
The Ancient Unholy Uprising Tour featuring Incantation and Suffocation was THE most brutal show of 2023 in LA and you can quote me on that. There’s still a month left in the year… so it’s yet to be seen if anyone can top it… but that is highly unlikely.
