Gallery, ReviewDitch This MagazineFebruary 26, 2020gallery, live, melbourne, Odin Imaging, Nathan Goldsworthy, Review, Max Watts, Cattle Decapitation, Revocation

Cattle Decapitation + Revocation @ Max Watts 19-02-20

Gallery, ReviewDitch This MagazineFebruary 26, 2020gallery, live, melbourne, Odin Imaging, Nathan Goldsworthy, Review, Max Watts, Cattle Decapitation, Revocation

words: Jennifer Rouse
photos: Nathan Goldsworthy @odin.imaging

Cat Decap - Max Watts 19-02-20 (12).JPG — Review

*“From the first note, it’s was a welcomed annihilation.”*

Midway through their Death Altas - Australian and New Zealand tour, Cattle Decapitation ( and heavy hitting bedfellows - Revocation ) brought some serious wrath to Melbourne this Feb. If the storm that rolled in earlier that day was any indication to go by it was that the apocalypse starts now and you better believe it has a soundtrack.

With a sold out show in the heavy metal haven that is Max Watts, the room easily filled out early on with a thicket of band tee clad diehard fans. Amongst them were meet-and-greeters from which the upgraded ticket revenue went towards supporting the Cobargo Wildlife Sanctuary following the bushfires that set alight the continent this summer. The bleak themes of the Death Atlas album being an all too familiar sentiment given these events and also an opportunity to take pause..

Support act, Revocation, cleared the cobwebs from the pit with their technical trash metal styling which featured songs from their 2018 album ‘The Outer Ones.’

As the stage was set, an already dense crowd thickened. Then the eerie recordings from ‘Anthropogenic: End Transmission’ filled the room. Bodies shifting with excited energy and jeering as Dave McGraw stepped up to the kit and the band proceeded to take their place. It wasn’t until front man, Travis Ryan, took the stage that the crowd really arched up. Like howling wolves worshiping a full moon producing a sky backlit in 4K resolution.

From the first note, it’s was a welcomed annihilation. The pit took on a pulsating life of its own as the band tolled through tracks from ‘Death Atlas’ (2019), ‘Monolith of Inhumanity’ (2012), and ‘The Anthropocene Extinction’ (2015). However brutal the performance was it was also well balanced and professionally effortless. As to be expected from such a long standing genre defining band.