Napalm Death & The Black Dahlia Murder
November 4, 2016
Regent Theater- Los Angeles, CA
Napalm Death and The Black Dahlia Murder announced a co-headlining tour across the USA. It was very odd having these two bands tour together since they’re completely different styles of metal with two different fan-bases. At the same time, it can be a good thing to bring two different styles of metal together to give metal-heads a chance to listen to other genres of metal or bands that they normally don’t listen to. The Regent Theater had a nice turnout of metal fanatics on this Friday night as fans from both bands could be seen in the crowd. After seeing opening acts Abnormality and Misery Index, it was time to bring out the main bands of the night.
The Black Dahlia Murder are a melodic death metal band from Michigan. In 2015, they released their seventh studio album, Abysmal. Plenty of fans could be seen sporting their merch and were mainly at the show for them. The Black Dahlia Murder came out and started the show with What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse from their Nocturnal (2001) album. As soon as the song started, fans went wild with moshing and shoving. Even during the first song, crowd surfers and even stage divers were making lots of appearances proving that this was going to be a very crazy night. The show was still getting warmed up with Statutory Ape and then a new song, Abysmal. Frontman Trevor Strnad was impressed with how Los Angeles responded. With that, he wanted the crowd to get even more crazy. Nocturnal was the next song played and the fans were relentless as the energy throughout the venue could be felt. Without the use of a barricade, the venue for the stage, fans near the front had easy access to get up on stage to stage dive and the same people could be seen diving off with little to no regards for themselves. TBDM played brutal song after brutal song and it’s hard not to head-bang or join in on the fun with moshing when they play songs like Vlad, Son of the Dragon, Contagion, Everything Went Black, and Deathmask Divine. Now that it was time for TBDM to take their leave, they played the track I Will Return and the fans never stopped showing their love for 
the band as they were still moshing and stage diving. TBDM took their leave as fans cheered. Sadly, a large portion of fans could be seen leaving the building not willing to stay for headliners Napalm Death as they were here only for TBDM.
British grindcore legends Napalm Death are considered to be the pioneers of the grindcore genre. For those unfamiliar, grindcore combines elements of crust punk and death metal. Instrument use includes heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdrive bass, high speed tempo, blast beats, and vocals which consist of incomprehensible growls or high-pitched shrieks. More importantly, the genre is known for it’s short songs that usually last under three minutes and lyrics that are sociopolitical. On January 2015, Napalm Death released their fifteenth studio album titled Apex Predator – Easy Meat. A large portion of metal-heads were still in attendance to see the godfathers of grindcore which was good to see that the venue wasn’t completely empty. Napalm Death came out and started the show with the first track from the new album, Apex Predator – Easy Meat. A rather calm intro for the show, but that quickly changed as the band jumped into the next track The Wolf I Feed from their previous Utilitarian (2012) album. It contains more of their traditional sound of fast and distorted guitars and of course Mark “Barney” Greenway’s infamous vocals where you have an extremely difficult time trying to understand what he’s saying due to his deep guttural growls. Regardless, fans couldn’t help themselves but to continue moshing and stage diving. To help promote their new album, Napalm Death next played Smash a Single Digit and fans kept moshing to show that they still weren’t tired. Since their songs are known to be short, it’s no surprise to see that the band had a 25-song setlist ranging from the band’s career. One of the highlight songs of the night was when the band played their most famous song Scum from their 1987 debut album of the same name.
Greenway is very entertaining to see live as he would thrash his arms around, shake his head, and run around the stage like madman only to pause to let out his infamous growls. You Suffer is their most interesting song played live because it’s currently in the Guinness Book of World Records as the shortest song in the world at only 1.316 seconds long. It’s short, sweet, and fans cheer whenever it’s played as a kind of joke that makes people laugh due to its length. Napalm Death continued their onslaught of tracks like The Kill, Suffer the Children, and From Enslavement to Obliteration. Close to the end of the show, Napalm Death played a few covers which included Face Down in the Dirt (Offenders), Hate, Fear, and Power (Hirax, joined by Hirax singer Katon W. DePena), and Nazi Punks Fuck Off (Dead Kennedys). To end the show, Napalm Death played two songs back to back which were Persona Non Grata and Smear Campaign. The band finished up and thanked the audience for coming out and left the stage. A good way to end a Friday night.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
Napalm Death
The Black Dahlia Murder
