Cannibal Corpse, Behemoth House of Blues January 29, 2015
More than 25 years into their surprisingly rigor-resistant career, death-metal archetypes Cannibal Corpse still relish their status as outsiders. Thanks to their gore-soaked and gleefully offensive album covers and lyrics, the group has battled a long legacy of censorship around the globe, with bans on their work in Germany and Australia lifting only recently.
Even today, when Cannibal enjoys status as elder statesmen of a global death-metal scene that's as strong as ever, they're still rankling powerful gatekeepers. Just last year, the band had the plug pulled on them by the authorities at a gig in Russia and once again found their artwork and lyrics outlawed.
If that all seems like kind of a big fuss over a band that comes up with bonkers song titles like "I Cum Blood," you probably haven't seen the band live. The potency of the band's music and the sheer dexterity of their performances makes them easy to take seriously. As purveyors of death-metal spectacle go, they're pretty hard to top, and not just anybody is capable of sharing a stage with them.
On Thursday night, Poland's Behemoth did their very best to wrestle the stage at House of Blues away from Cannibal Corpse entirely. No strangers to controversy themselves, the long-running black/death-metal troupe were themselves unceremoniously tossed from Russia last year. Calling their trek "The Russian Satanist Tour" must have raised a few eyebrows.
The band arrived in Houston with their many devilish trappings intact, including flickering candles, ghoulish facepaint and a sartorial style that brought to mind a Mad Max dystopia based around guitar amplifiers and ritual sacrifice. Lit blindingly by lightning strobes, Behemoth certainly offered up a metallic feast for the eyes up there.
They sounded pretty great, too, especially the nimble drumming of, er, Inferno, who snuck some really slick ride-cymbal patterns into his constant cannonade. Guitarist Seth let loose with a large number of big, evil, meathead riffs that had heads banging from the photo pit to the back bar as front man Nergal vomited forth a steady stream of darkness. Between songs, sacramental mockeries were performed over pagan folk interludes. It was all very bizarre and theatrical.
At its heart, though, Behemoth's music is only rock and roll. Over and over, Nergal bid us to pump our fists, to clap, to yell "hey." They even pulled off a planned encore, even though Cannibal Corpse was the ostensible headliner. As hundreds of cameraphones shot up to capture the group's final, devil-horned incantation, it was difficult not to conclude that Satanists nearly always make for some great rock stars.
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