The Summer Slaughter Tour, featuring Arch Enemy, Rams Head Live, Baltimore, Maryland, August 13, 2015

North America’s Summer Slaughter tour was billed as ”The Most Extreme Tour of the Year!”… and with six traveling death metal bands… as well as several local death metal bands at each venue… their slogan didn’t lie! Now, for those of you that know my taste in music… you may be wondering what I was doing at a death metal festival. Because death metal isn’t really my “thing”. I don’t have a problem with the genre, mind you. In fact I do listen to death metal from time to time. But in general, I prefer metal bands that sing clean lyrics… with some death metal growls thrown in for variety and emphasis. Bands whose vocals consist entirely of growls and screams… although I do listen to them… its usually only a few songs at a time. Be that as it may be… there are a few death metal bands on the melodic side of the genre that I have developed an extreme fondness for… and the band at the top of that list … is Arch Enemy! And since they were the headliners of “Summer Slaughter”… well, I just had to go!!!

I last saw Arch Enemy last fall during their North America tour in support of their new album, “War Eternal”. It was Alissa White-Gluz’s first North American tour since taking over the lead vocalist spot, and she totally owned it! It was a phenomenal show (see last year’s review in AfterNoiz archives)! I couldn’t wait to see the band again! Since last year, guitarist Nick Cordle was replaced with Jeff Loomis (of Nevermore)… and I couldn’t wait to see him perform with this band as well!

The Baltimore show was at Rams Head Live… one of the best club type concert venues in the city. Due to the show starting very early (about 3 o’clock in the afternoon), I unfortunately missed the three local bands on the bill. I did, however, make in time to see all of the traveling support bands. The five support bands were (in order of appearance), Beyond Creation, Cattle Decapitation, The Acacia Strain, Veil of Maya, and Born of Osiris.  All of the bands put on a heavy show and the audience was loud and animated with lots of moshing and crowd surfing. Beyond Creation was a very melodic band and I really enjoyed their set. I was really fascinated with Cattle Decapitation’s songs, however, as the band’s main creative theme is protesting the mistreatment and consumption of animals, the abuse of the environment and putting humans in the adverse situations to which animals are often subjected.

The Acacia Strain was just kind of there for me. They were hard, heavy, and animated, so no complaints on the stage performance… but they were just a little too harsh from my perspective. Plus, the lead singer kept spitting water on my camera. The audience, however, really seemed to love them… so I’ll give them their due. Both Veil of Maya and Born of Osiris seemed to have the best stage presence, but this was in part due to the fact they were able to use a larger portion of the stage and had more props than the previous bands. I was unfamiliar with both of them prior to that show… but I enjoyed their sets enough to start listening to their music since that night.

The final band of the night was Arch Enemy. The band I really came to see!! Their set started with “Yesterday is Dead and Gone” and the band hit the stage with a vengeance. I have always enjoyed Alissa’s stage presence and, as expected, she took complete command from the moment she hit the stage. She was very energetic, as always, with lots of leaps and ferocious head banging. The lyrics were loud and raw! The dueling lead guitars of Michael and Jeff were sweet and melodic, yet frantic and heavy. Sharlee’s bass and the brutal cadence of Daniel’s drumming completed the sound.   They played a 13 song set, which was way too short for my liking… but with 9 bands playing… the shorter set wasn’t unexpected. There were many old favorites such as “Ravenous”, “Dead Bury Their Dead”, “We Will Rise”, “My Apocalypse”, “Dead Eyes See No Future”, and “Blood Stained Cross”. Songs from the new album included “War Eternal”, “Stolen Life”, “As The Pages Burn”, “Never, Forgive, Never Forget”, and “Avalanche”. “Nemesis” was the final song of the evening. It was a great (but short) set!.

The big disappointment for me was the audience. Although they were very loud and active for all the opening bands, they became much more subdued when Arch Enemy took the stage. In fact, a large percentage of the audience left before Arch Enemy started their set! The moshing and the crowd surfing ended. This was very different from Arch Enemy’s last North American tour! I think that this is in large part due to the fact that the majority of the audience at this show was made up of hardcore death metal fans… and admittedly… Arch Enemy was the least heavy band that played. But I guess I come from a generation that believes you should show support for all the bands playing… so I viewed this as fairly disrespectful to the headliner. But those fans that remained got a great show… and it allowed me to worm my way back to the front after I left the photo pit!

Arch Enemy globalnoiz The Summer Slaughter Tour USA