LIVE: Max and Igor Cavalera – Fremantle, 18 March, 2019

LIVE: Max and Igor Cavalera – Fremantle, 18 March, 2019
With Depravity – Metropolis Fremantle
Reviewed by Kevin Curran
Photography by Damien Crocker

The Cavalera Brothers returned to our shores, this time to revisit the Beneath The Remains and Arise albums of their back catalogue. It wasn’t that long ago the brothers were in town playing the Roots album from start to finish, and despite not much distance between the two tours it didn’t affect the turn out as Metropolis was very busy. Metal fans came back in droves to support this play-a-whole-album concept – fans know what they are getting, and there were many tonight who showed love for these two records with people going bat shit crazy.

Local support came in the form of Depravity, who had a good sized crowd early on to play to. Lots of riffs and double kick gave those in the pit early a reason to warm up the neck muscles during this tight 45 min set.

The intro to Beneath The Remains came over the speakers, hyping the arrival of the band, who came out with a bang and erupted into pure thrash goodness. Joining the brothers was long time guitarist-of-everything-Cavalera Marc Rizzo, an absolute shred-master, and bass player Mike Leon. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember him on bass on the Roots tour, but he is a really great player – he has the ‘it’ factor with skill, look and energy, and has the ability to get people to go crazy with his stage antics. He’s a great addition to the band.

Max Cavalera is a awesome frontman. Without even trying, he constantly has a smirk on his face like he really enjoying himself up there and with a hand gesture or crowd banter he has the ability to make you want to get behind him, essentially holding the crowd in the palm of his hand at all times.

It wasn’t a complete coverage of the Beneath The Remains record, but they played a good six songs from it before smashing out the epic Arise from the record of the same name. A choice selection of Dead Embryonic Cells , Desperate Cry , Altered State and the crowd participation of Infected Voice turned things up a notch with circle pits and pure craziness a regular for those closer to the action.

Motorhead’s Orgasmatron, which appears on the Arise record, and the well-covered Ace Of Spades finished off the regular set. It was encore time with a rarity in Troops Of Doom from the Morbid Visions album into Chaos AD’s Refuse Resist and Roots Bloody Roots.

Like last time they were in town, the brothers made the strange decision to end the night by playing songs previously played in the night, and ran through a medley of Beneath The Remains , Arise and Dead Embryonic Cells.

This was a really enjoyable show to attend, just a great vibe of energy from the crowd and the band, and so much credit must go to Iggor Cavalera, who keeps things super tight and powerful. When it comes to thrash he is an absolute machine behind the drumkit.

You have to wonder when the brothers are going to revisit the Chaos AD record of their career and play arguably their landmark album in its entirety, Next tour perhaps? I know I will definitely be back to witness this and I’m pretty all of those in attendance will be as well.

Category: Live Reviews, Photo Galleries