Whitechapel and Dying Fetus

(Originally Published on South Florida Insider)

Whitechapel and Dying Fetus Bring Death Metal to Ft Lauderdale in an Epic Co-Headlining Tour – Review of the Chaos and Carnage Tour at The Revolution in Ft Lauderdale, Florida.

Photos and Story by: Gleb Barabanov

Florida has long been known as a breeding ground for fantastic Death Metal acts like Obituary, Death, and Morbid Angel, and it was the perfect place the Chaos and Carnage tour to make one of their final stops on their cross-country trek. Featuring Death Metal legends Dying Fetus sharing the headlining spot with Deathcore crushers Whitechapel, the tour also had a very impressive lineup of openers, with Death Thrash masters Revocation and Tech Death outfit Fallujah starting off the show.

Fallujah was the first group that I was able to catch on the lineup. The band recently debuted a new vocalist and released their new album, and this show was my first chance to see the new material in action. Antonio Palermo, their new singer, absolutely kills it live, and their new material is an awesome return to their earlier, heavier Tech Death Metal sound. The band played Glass House and Hollow from their newest album Undying Light, and broke out some older, more progressive songs like The Void Alone.

Revocation was the next band to take the stage, and Dave Davidson and his gang of Death Thrash maestros kicked off their time on stage with That Which Consumes All Things off of their newest album The Outer Ones. After a couple of older songs, Existence is Futile and Madness Opus, Dave brought out more songs from their latest album, which the crowd really seemed to enjoy. I’m a big fan of that old school Death Thrash sound, and Revocation is one of those bands that really put on a headliner-worthy show. I really hope that they get their own headlining tour down here in South Florida soon as I would love to hear them play more than 6 songs.

After Dave finished his last song and the techs broke set up their gear, old school legends Dying Fetus took to the stage. It was good to see a band from the older generation on the bill, and especially one that was part of the inspiration to many of the groups that they were playing with, including Whitechapel. John Gallagher first started the band in 1991 (before some of the people playing that night were even born), and they have been consistently putting out awesome albums since then. The Death Metal trio kicked off the night with In The Trenches before moving on to some songs from their latest album Wrong One to F*ck With. Fetus has never put out a bad album in my opinion, and this latest one is no different, with the crowd seeming to agree with me as the floor had a giant circle pit going the entire time during their set. Dying Fetus finished their time with the self-titled track off their new album and departed the stage, and long wait for the last band to start began.

As the techs finished setting up their gear and fog filled the stage, the lights dimmed and Whitechapel finally took to the stage. Phil Bozeman jumped onto the stage like a wild animal and began his first song, When a Demon Defiles a Witch. The band sounded as tight as ever, and their unique three-guitarist setup provided plenty of crushing riffs for the crowd to pit to. Their newest album The Valley is actually my favorite one that they have made so far, and the first four songs they played were all from that album. It was good to hear that they sound just as good live as they did on the album. After debuting the newer material, they jumped back into some of their older stuff like Mark of the Blade, Let it Bleed and Our Endless War, and then came back out to play their most famous song for the encore, The Saw is The Law. Whitechapel put on an amazing show as always, and I hope that they will be back to South Florida sometime soon!