If there ever is going to be a Tampa Bay death metal encyclopedia under the term of “flown under the radar,” there should be a picture of Monstrosity, a group often overshadowed by the more commercially successful bands in the Tampa Bay death metal scene, deserving of more recognition and a fair handshake in their formative years, especially during the Jason Avery era.
With over 30 years of existence, the band has released seven albums and navigated numerous lineup changes, yet they remain overshadowed by the legacy of former vocalist George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, who went on to join Cannibal Corpse. Indeed, a lot of members who were in Monstrosity went later to join “bigger acts,” leaving them in the wider populace as the band George was in before joining Cannibal Corpse, like a trivia badge.
It’s fascinating to note that their line-up history reads like a who’s who of Tampa Bay’s death metal scene, featuring several musicians who have made significant impacts elsewhere. Despite this, Monstrosity has rarely received the recognition it deserves for its relentless energy and technical prowess, which are more or less consistent in their overall discography.
Excuse the long rant; we got a gig to cover and what this illiterate narrator and other 80+ people in the audience saw last night.
Quick disclaimer, I will try to be nice to the first two opening bands.
The venue of the latest sonic assault organized by the lovely people of Nasty Abyss is Vintage Industrial Bar, which is, in my opinion, one of the best places for this kind of gigs and alternative events in general. Great sound and space to fit 200 people without an issue.
But unfortunately, it was Tuesday, and I can feel it in the vibe. From the opening doors at 19:00 and with a small number of attendees, this is going to be a slow night.
The first opening band, Deadwood from Canada, started at 19:15 sharp, in front of eight people, including me and the photographer. Nevertheless, the timetable will be respected, as it is a strict tradition under the Nasty Abyss office.
The first sign that Deadwood will not be my cup of tea is that there is no bass guitarist, but yet again, you can’t complain that you don’t hear the bass if the band has no bass player (insert meme here).
Despite the quite impressive stage equipment, the sound of the band was too modern & muddled, and the riffs were too narrow. The thing that positively stood out was the drums, more precisely its sound. This must be one of the most effective drum sounds I heard live in recent memory; every part can be sonically distinguished: the toms, the snare, and even the cymbals. It caught my attention that the drum tech is female, which is an awesome piece of trivia in my opinion. I would love to hear her nerd talk about drums.
Despite its shortcomings, Deadwood played a tight set, especially the vocalist, who, again, sounded too modern for my taste. He performed its vocal track apparently with ease, and the vocals were pretty much all over the place in their songs.
At 19:50 their set ended, and the line check for the second pay-to-play is in process; this time Reject the Sickness from Belgium. The venue is gradually becoming more animated as people trickle in. The first positive note is the vocalist Guy’s—yes, that’s really his name—enthusiasm as soon as he steps on stage. After the band’s collective fist-pump, the show kicked off. Reject the Sickness is less a modern metal slug than Deadwood but only by a certain mile. The performance is much more energetic and, dare I say, playful in attitude, especially from the vocalist. His approach to the audience is still good, despite our less than stellar attendance. Nevertheless, it was a good set, although it was not that style of metal that the audience had come for.
50 minutes later we are free of pay-to-play bands, as Bio-Cancer was next for the stage. The venue, by numbers of human waste on two legs, had passed the embarrassing mark, and it started to look like a proper crowd. It has a good reason; despite being a band a bit on the younger side, these Greek thrashers have a strong following, giving us gut-punching thrash metal that is obviously meant to be performed live.
And they performed live very well; performance and presence-wise, they owned the stage. Despite Vintage not having the biggest stage on earth, the band used every centimeter to dominate.
Bio-Cancer is that style of thrash metal that shines mostly live, and maybe I would say that they stole the show from Monstrosity… if Donald Duck were not on the vocals. Yes, I said it.
If Bio-Cancer had any other type of vocals, and I fucking mean any type of vocals, I would be in the first mosh pits that occurred during the performance. Instead, half of their performance I was staring at angry Donald Duck GIFs. Anyone in the audience who has seen it had the same reaction: “Holy shit, it’s the same voice.”
Perhaps I would go over the fact that the vocalist is doing a faithful voiceover of an angry cartoon character; we all know that this genre has a shitload of crazy vocalists. The other problem is that the vocals are opaque and monotonous as hell.
It did not kill the full impression of the band; like I mentioned, their performance was awesome and really fully animated the “It’s Tuesday and I just came from work” crowd, but I’m still dreading the scenario if Dave Mustaine and Bio-Cancer do a collaboration.
Time for the headliner, finally. I said my opinion on Monstrosity in the beginning of the report, so I will cut to the chase; it was a good, professional performance but not the headliner quality. I might say that it was at times awkward, as the band did not really want to be there.
Lee Harrison (the last original member, drummer, and hell of a cheesecake maker, according to Jason Avery) is a hell of a presence, but it was sometimes too hard to see him upfront in the first rows from Ed Webb, who is their newest vocalist. Unfortunately, Ed is a few kilograms away from having a heart attack or appearing in the new Godzilla movie. By god, Ed, eat a salad.
The setlist, at least on paper, was awesome; it had a solid balance of the excellent new album Screams from Beneath the Surface, three tracks from the In Dark Purity record, and bits from the first two albums. By simply looking at the setlist, you are sure as hell that you are in for a killer show, at least on paper.
I have their setlist from last night on my desk, and this is not the songs nor the order they played them. It looks like this list was more like a suggestion piece for what to play next than anything else. The fact that it did not help is that Ed barely had any communication with the audience and rushed one song after another like they were in a hurry for a bathroom break. Especially after some 40 minutes when they started to look at each other like, “Should we do one more? ”. Luckily, there was an encore where they played Angel’s Venom, which is personally one of my favorite songs.
You will really think, if you are going to perform Total Destruction of Bathory, you will hype it or maybe just tell the audience.
Nope, they popped out the song, and who did not notice? Oh well.
The only guy who showed some enthusiasm was ironically their session guitarist Sam Molina, who was in Monstrosity from 2001 to 2006 as a full member and later joined Terrorizer.
I really wanted this report to be a nice tribute to Monstrosity and give them high praise, but that is not the case unfortunately. This gig was half-measured and by the numbers. Well performed but lacked the enthusiasm that would make me run home and put on the In Dark Purity CD I bought last night on my stereo and wake up the neighbors.
Tuesdays still suck.
