Ingested, w/ Fallujah, and Melancolia – LIVE
Ingested, w/ Fallujah, and Melancolia
Rebellion, Manchester
20/04/24
Live Review by Oli Gonzalez
Photography by Rob Lindesay (@rock.the.lens)
“I’ve just arrived at Rebellion. Jaysus the queue’s creeping round the door!”.
I sent a message to my photographer colleague, Rob, acting as more of a warning than friendly advice. It was going to be a busy one for sure. This was the homecoming show for Ingested, Manchester’s own deathcore deities and home grown slam kings. They’ve cut their teeth with the likes of The Black Dahlia Murder, Lorna Shore, Cryptopsy, and many other genre heavyweights, and played almost every festival worth playing globally. This was going to be a much more intimate show by comparison. A show to promote the hotly awaited release “The Tide Of Death and Fractured Dreams”, in which Melancolia and Fallujah had been enlisted as support for this special evening (commiserations to Vulvodynia who were denied the chance to perform due to visa issues).
Upon arriving in the venue, my fears are confirmed and already fans were camping out at the front of the stage in order to secure the best possible viewing spot. Others (like me) took refuge in the safety of the fringes and edges of the venue. It’s a young crowd and I’m amongst the oldest in attendance, being one of few who have experienced the peril of discovering a grey hair, as well as one of the few who’s excited about the freshly introduced earlier 10pm curfew! The crowd continues to file in and Rebellion is now packed out. Packed out just in time for opening act Melancolia.
The Australians oozed charisma and flamboyance far beyond what their opening band status would suggest. Nuclear Blast do not sign duds to their prestigious label after all. The crowd are feeling their energy and basking in this intensity. The pits are already open only a few songs in! This is promising, a positively respectable introduction to the band for me and the vast majority of others in attendance.
“We’re having some technical difficulties,” the band’s frontman informed us. Have any words more haunting and frightening ever been uttered by a musician? A broken kick pedal is the source of disruption and reinforcements are urgently requested. Alex quickly improvises and begins to tell a story, anything to buy some time and ensure the crowd is still engaged. He does remarkably well. Business is resumed, and the music restarts. The challenge is to regather that early momentum. Though like dragging a piano up a flight of stairs, this challenge is too great. A promising set and introduction to the band unfortunately marred by unwanted intervention from the technical gods. There’s still enough here to warrant an investigation into the band’s back catalogue though, plans I shall follow up with after the show.
https://www.facebook.com/melancolia.aus
From Australia to the USA, it’s a fully international affair and time for the technical death metallers Fallujah to take to the stage. Another band with an impressive global touring pedigree, the band have put in the hard yards and cut their teeth. This shows in the quality of their set! Refined and technically proficient, many seemingly prefer to stand back and appreciate the artist’s craft. Though with the mass of bodies that have congregated in the venue now, there’s very few other options. If someone had somehow smuggled a cat into the venue, there’d certainly be no room to swing it! Still, we see the first crowd surfers of the evening. The absence of stage barriers means that those bodies flying through the air have no choice but to take temporary refuge directly on Rebellion’s stage before diving straight back into the crowd! Chaos is brewing.
It was difficult to get a decent view of the band and relocating to a more desirable spot was nigh impossible too. Though the stunning visual and light display is almost impossible to ignore no matter where you’re standing, which added to the overall spectacle. A spectacle that cannot be adequately captured nor experienced via streaming platforms. The sound is polished, with a mix smooth like butter and aesthetically pleasing. I got a vibe similar to that of Ne Obliviscaris or Beyond Creation… and it’s wonderful! I wish I had done more of a dive into the band’s discography prior to arriving. I will certainly rectify this in the future. I’d been won over.
https://www.facebook.com/fallujahofficial
Ingested
The lights go down. The air is filled with a low ominous drone.
“Slamchester! Slamchester! Slamchester!”.
The crowd roar in a collective show of pride for their hometown, urging the hometown heroes to take to the stage. It’s coming any second now. Then it begas. The first note hit. A signal for all hell to unleash. There’s absolutely no space for melody or aesthetics. Each note that succeeds that very first is as devastating and heavy as the last, smashing down on your senses like repeated blows from a sledgehammer. This continued for the remainder of the evening. As did the crowd’s unrelenting energy. Bodies crashed into each other like crash test dummies, jumping up and down in an attempt to defy gravity.
A few songs in, the music stops. A moment of respite. The ‘Slamchester’ chants return. Vocalist Jason expressed his appreciation before ordering a circle pit. This is formed and fully in motion once the music resumes. It’s an impressive sight, though Jason abruptly forces a stop. Is somebody hurt? Has somebody fallen in the pit and needs rescuing? No. Jason wasn’t satisfied with the number of bodies in the pit. He ordered more to offer themselves as a sacrifice and join. Simply suggesting that the crowd in London for the previous leg of the tour was better sends the Mancunian crowd into a frenzy. When the music returned, so did the circle pit which is now a maelstrom threatening to swallow the venue and all innocent bystanders whole!
Bodies begin to take a similar aerial route towards the stage that they did during Fallujah’s set. One, two, three… I quickly quit counting. The stage might as well have bee an extension of the crowd before long such is the quantity of crowd surfers being sent that way.
Ingested announce that this will be their final song of the evening. Not before Jason also announces that this is ‘sold the f*ck out’ and ‘the most successful home town show ever’.
“I want to see the largest wall of death this venue has ever seen”.
I’ve been to a lot of gigs and seen many walls of death here. I genuinely do believe this is the largest I’ve ever witnessed here! Then the final note rings out and the set is over. Or so we think.
In order to satiate the desires of their adoring fan base, the band are forced to play not one but two more encore songs! Is there a higher compliment for an artist? Apparently not, as Jason expressed his heartfelt gratitude for this. No cliches or pre-rehearsed speech. This comes straight from the heart and his sincerity was as genuine as the sheer unrelenting intensity his band displayed this evening!
I’m struggling to find adequate superlatives to describe what I have witnessed so I’ll simply finish with this. What a set!
https://www.facebook.com/ingesteduk
9:30pm. A surprisingly early finish. The anxiety of missing the last train, bus, or other mode of public transport is vastly subsided, freeing up more mental space to process the events and scenes of this evening. This was definitely straying from my usual comfort zone of Doom, Black, and Post-Metal, having been stood in almost the exact same spot almost exactly a week earlier watching Bell Witch. Though this serves up an important lesson; to be more open to other genres in the future, especially Deathcore and Slam. Because if the standard of bands within this subgenre are of a similar calibre to Ingested or another of the bands this evening, then this will be a worthwhile exploration.
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Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Oli Gonzalez and Ever Metal. Photography the property of Rob Lindesay @rock.the.lens. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
