Photos/Review: Cavalera Conspiracy pummeled San Diego

Max Cavalera is without a doubt the God of Heavy Music . . . Sepultura, Soulfly, Killer Be Killed, Go Ahead and Die, Nailbomb and Cavalera Conspiracy – Max’s music seems to get more extreme as the years go by and the fans seem to embrace that approach with open arms. Using the name Cavalera, Max and Igor re-recorded the first three Sepultura albums – Morbid Visions, Bestial Devastation and Schizophrenia to update the production and showcase the sonic boom of these early Sepultura songs. To celebrate these new recordings, Cavalera hit the road with the Third World Trilogy US Tour and made a stop at the House of Blues in San Diego on Thursday night February 20 with Dead Heat and Necrot.

After a local opener whipped the early crowd into a frenzy, California’s own Dead Heat took the stage and unleashed 30 minutes of heavy crossover thrash. These guys have been busy on various tours and kicked ass supporting some metal legends playing in SoCal in 2024 such as Evil Dead, Body Count and Exodus. Vocalist Chris Ramos is a total fireball as he prances back and forth across the stage. With two full length LP’s and a couple EP’s these heavy hitters throw a lot of material at you live and they signed on with Metal Blade records in 2024 so new music is on the horizon. Dead Heat kicked San Diego’s ass and left the crowd begging for more.

Dead Heat

Photo Credit: Chris Loomis

Northern CA is in the house . . . after a brief set change, Necrot took the stage for a 45-minute onslaught of their flavor of intense Death Metal. Out supporting their April 2024 release Lifeless Birth, the Oakland three-piece, Luca Indrio on vocals/bass with Chad Gailey on drums and Sonny Reinhardt wailing on guitars kicked off their time onstage with “Cut the Cord” and “Lifeless Birth” from the new album and the San Diego crowd was in a circle pit frenzy every minute of Necrot’s time onstage.

Indrio did very little talking in between songs and the band let the music do the talking. The band’s music is the perfect blend of technical sophistication, progressive gracefulness, galloping thrash equaling nothing short of total brutality. The setlist was a perfect mix of songs off Lifeless Birth and 2017’s Blood Offering, ending the night with the skull-crushing “Sinister Will” as Indrio encouraged the fans to crowd surf over the barrier, for which they gladly obliged. Max Cavalera is known to be a huge Necrot fan and he made a wonderful decision to have them open this tour.

Necrot

Photo Credit: Chris Loomis

Cavalera took the stage and began the set with three songs from the re-recorded Schizophrenia, “From the Past Comes the Storms”, “To the Wall” and “Escape to the Void” and the insanity in the crowd was wild and unruly. Max with a black ESP flying V with purple “Eddie Van Halen Stripes” sounded incredible and was ready for a full-on thrash attack wearing a black leather jacket with a bullet belt across his chest. Now the intent of this Third World Trilogy Tour is to play songs from each of the re-recorded records, Schizophrenia, Bestial Devastation and Morbid Visions, with this being the first and last time they will ever do that – and that exactly what they did. After Schizophrenia, they honored Bestial Devastation then Morbid Visions.

Iggor Cavalera on drums is quite a spectacle, as the hard-hitting brother of Max Cavalera is a beast on every song. It is quite special to see the brothers out destroying venues and honoring their roots with this set. The rhythm section was all Cavalera blood as Igor Amadeus Cavalera (Max’s son and bandmate in Go Ahead and Die) is on bass, making the Iggor/Igor combination a thundering wall of sound. Rounding out the band on guitar is Travis Stone from Pig Destroyer who also has a history with the Cavalera family as he plays in Lody Kong with Zyon Cavalera.

Stone was the perfect choice to shred the lead guitar parts on this tour, and he fits the band flawlessly. This tour showcases Cavalera in the most brutal form, with these old songs featuring blazing-fast riffs and just totally pummeling basslines and drumming. Kudos to Max for bringing these three albums back to life and letting the fans re-live the insanity.

Of course, there was some truly classic Sepultura thrown in to raise the bar even higher with “Refuse/Resist” and “Territory,” which obviously had the circle pit going faster and more violent; you could feel the energy from the crowd fueled by the heavy metal adrenaline. The Sepultura rager “Troops of Doom” followed and kept the momentum going and the last song of the night was a medley that included parts of “Dead Embryonic Cells” and “Biotech is Godzilla” along with other song parts. If you attended this show, you know you witnessed something unique as some of these songs will never be played live again.

Max Cavalera continues to re-invent himself and remains the God of Heavy Music and the Third World Trilogy tour is one not to be missed. The tour heads east then back across the country ending in Phoenix on March 30. All tour dates and anything Cavalera be found at: https://www.cavaleraconspiracy.net.