Brutality on Broadway: Wormhole, Kataklysm and Six Feet Under At the Black Cat
words and pics by Scott Roos
There are some shows where the floor shakes a little. Then there are shows where it seems like the entire venue itself might actually be moving.
Thursday night at the Black Cat Tavern in Saskatoon was one of those nights.
With Baltimore technical death metal monsters Wormhole opening the evening, followed by Canadian death metal veterans Kataklysm and finally Tampa legends Six Feet Under, the bill promised blast beats, brutal riffs and plenty of low-end rumble. It delivered all of that and then some.
Wormhole
Holy shit, what a way to start a show. Baltimore's Wormhole came out swinging with a combination of brutal death metal, technical wizardry, blast beats, breakdowns and guitars that sounded like they had been fed a steady diet of rocket fuel. It was heavy as fuck.
And yet there was something remarkably infectious about it. The riffs were complicated enough to make the brain work overtime, but Wormhole never disappeared completely into the technical weeds. There was still groove, movement and plenty to grab onto.
Heads were bobbing the second Wormhole ripped into their set. Their vocalist Anthony Michelli was particularly impressive. Given the Black Cat's famously cozy dimensions, there isn't exactly a ton of room to roam, but that didn't stop him. He bounced around the stage with seemingly unlimited energy and, on several occasions, took the show directly into the pit. That connection with the crowd added another level of energy to an already intense performance.
Wormhole's set was all too short, but they certainly made an impression. The lineup featured Sanjay Kumar and Noni on guitars and Adam Skinner on bass, with Tyson Blaste filling in on drums and the already mentioned Michelli handling vocals.
They were a hell of an opening act.
Kataklysm
If Wormhole kicked the door open, Kataklysm walked through it.
The Montreal death metal institution has been pummeling eardrums for more than three decades, and there was no indication Thursday night that they were interested in slowing down now. The performance was tight. Really tight.
Jean-François Dagenais was on point throughout the set, firing off those classic Kataklysm riffs with precision. Stephane Barbe kept everything locked into place on bass, providing the low-end rumble that made the Black Cat's floor feel like it had developed a pulse of its own.
And then there was James Payne behind the drums. Payne absolutely pummeled the kit, but somehow made it look effortless.
Vocalist Maurizio Iacono was equally impressive, engaging with the crowd and feeding off the energy in the room. The pit was moving, the heads were banging and Kataklysm was clearly having a good time with it.
There is always a danger with extreme metal that audience interaction becomes little more than commands to mosh, jump or make noise. Iacono brought more personality to it than that, helping turn the Black Cat into one big, sweaty organism.
At any rate, Kataklysm may have been the middle act on paper, but there was nothing middle-of-the-road about the performance. It was a full-on Canadian death metal assault.
Six Feet Under
And finally it was time for Six Feet Under.
Seeing Chris Barnes and Jack Owen together was one of those moments longtime metal fans don't take for granted. Both men have been responsible for an awful lot of musical carnage over the years, and having them sharing a stage made the performance feel like a little piece of death metal history unfolding in real time.
Six Feet Under wasted absolutely no time getting down to business. The band simply started pummeling. And pummeling. And pummeling some more. The guitars were thick, the drums relentless and Barnes' unmistakable growl sat right in the middle of it all.
The set moved through the band's considerable catalogue without giving the audience much opportunity to catch its collective breath. It was heavy, straightforward and unapologetic.
Barnes' stage banter was another highlight. For all the brutality of the music, there was a looseness to his interaction with the crowd that kept things from becoming one long exercise in grim-faced death metal seriousness. And Jack Owen? Well, it's Jack Owen.
Watching him rip through the material alongside Barnes was worth the price of admission by itself. Six Feet Under came to play death metal, and they played a hell of a lot of it.
The Verdict
Thursday's Black Cat show was a three-course meal for people who like their music served aggressively and without mercy. Wormhole brought the technical brutality and youthful energy. Kataklysm showed why they’ve been doing this for more than 30 years, and Six Feet Under finished the job with sheer brute force. the exclamation point on the evening.
It was also a reminder of why small venues like the Black Cat matter. There is something different about watching a death metal band from a few feet away while the vocalist jumps into the pit and the entire room starts moving. No giant production. No comfortable distance. Just amplifiers, drums, sweat and a room full of people there to hear some seriously heavy music. For fans of death metal, it was a hell of a Thursday night.
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