Between Clutch, KK’s Priest, and Powerwolf over the past month, we’ve been spoiled full of Halloween season tours lately. That felt chilling, but we needed to kick the level of eeriness in our lives up a little more. We fully caught Gatecreeper’s dismembering set, which got laid up by two other just as harrowing and menacing bands. Frozen Soul and Worm brought the heaviness right back with a moongeist attitude at the Brooklyn Monarch on a murky September night in Williamsburg, and we certainly did not complain about that. Retroactively slamming black and death metal is a huge part of the sinister evolution of modern extreme music, so getting to see this bill was a treat.
I got ready for a hell-raising evening by dining at the well-reviewed Anthony & Son Panini Shoppe on Graham Ave, a bit of a walk from the venue. If you love hearty metals like me and are willing to deduce from your bar tab, I highly suggest going for the triple-decker panini and the grilled chicken salad if your palate can handle arugula. The panini is worth every cent. With no time to kill before doors opened at 6:30 PM, I arrived at the venue with thankfully a little time to relax as others pre-gamed with some spirits before the spectral hallucinations of Worm began the blood-curdling ritual of the night.
A mist swirled around the Brooklyn Monarch as the darkly covenant known as Worm presented four nocturnal delights of ambitious and dense blackened doom metal. No long-winded stage wraps, yet they still rocked, and the entranced audience loved every gloomy moment of the doomy seance. The duo of Phantom Slaughter and Wroth Septentrion and three other ominous wraiths of the riff went deep into the nightside of the fog-dwelling eclipse for a half hour to crumble the heart of Williamsburg into a good amount of dirt and dust before the haunting grim and frost-bitten ceremony would continue with Frozen Soul. Worm is a must-hear and must-see if you’re a a fan of Katatonia or Slimelord.
After what felt like a psychedelic soul extraction from Worm, it was time for the atmosphere to dispel the deep fog, only for Frozen Soul to encase a warmed-up audience in an arctic stranglehold for forty-five minutes of freeze-flame Fort Worth-branded death metal. The moment when vocalist Chad Green shot an arctic blast of fake snow onto the crowd for Frozen Soul to cold snap into Encased in Ice is when the deathly chaos from Tejas began. I last saw them opening up for Power Trip in August. Their cold-blooded approach to this crucible form of music got heads banging and bodies slam-dancing at impartially ramming speeds. They played a similar set the first time I saw them, but that didn’t stop Chad from channeling the spirit of Paul Baloff to command the moshketeers to create one icy avalanche mosh pit after the other. Frozen Soul takes pride in sparking their influences like Bolt Thrower, but they sound distinct enough not to sound like death metal by the numbers. They buffeted Brooklyn with a solid amount of golf ball-sized hail of riffs for this fanatical night to conclude with Gatecreeper left to puncture our shiver-burnt corpses!
Armed to the teeth with grinding riffs from Eric Wagner and Israel Garza and heavily armed with a kick-ass rhythm section of Alex Brown and Metal Matt with Chase H. Mason looking too cool for school with his Johnny Cage sunglasses, the invincible force from the land of the flaming death birth of Phoenix, Arizona named Gatecreeper assaulted an unexpecting and loaded audience now thawed out for an hour of gunky music influenced by the New World of Swedish Death Metal made famous by groups like At the Gates and In Flames. Exactly what I expected after two previous demonstrations of nightmarish music, it was a non-stop cavalcade of chaotic crowd-surfing, moshing, and stage-diving. Gatecreeper is one of the most intense headliners I’ve seen throughout 2024. The band was energized with the crowd to make this set an off-the-chains eldritch night to remember. The quintet mesmerized us with tracks like A Chilling Aura, From the Ashes, and The Black Curtain, delivering an intense, nonstop soul-burning experience from the Gatecreeper discography!
If Gatecreeper were to be summarized with one word, great would be that word. Although firmly rooted in death metal – there is some of that crushing weight of the better bands of the eighties rock like W.A.S.P, but Gatecreeper will manage to wreck your neck. They bring it live. I will see them whenever they’re supporting or headlining. They’re one of the most brutal bands I’ve seen to date. And so, with Gatecreeper rifling the night away with Flamethrower, Brooklyn’s finest waited in line for merch or hung around outside. As for yours truly, I got to see a three-way Diablo touring package that is perfect for this sPOoOOooOooOOOOOoOoky time of the year. Three bands, three unique approaches to the extreme side of the metal spectrum. From the vampiric presence of Worm to the chilling stronghold of Frozen Soul to the foul darkness of Gatecreeper, these different shifts in melody ultimately pay off throughout two hours plus of sonorous music, and I highly – HIGHLY- suggest seeing this concert. It will be one of the finest heavy metal tours you’ll see as 2024 is winding down. All killer, no filler metal madness!
