Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Even the sternest downpour on any given day in Birmingham would find it demanding, a grim and tiresome challenge, to attempt to quell the fire in the hearts of Florida’s Obituary and their fans; a monsoon of emotions erupting as the first toll of the metal bell was heard, the swathe of the audience that had made sure of their places for the first act of four to grace the Birmingham Arena, a notice given, the tributes written possibly in advance, retirement for the main event of the evening. For Obituary, the rain that had fallen, the deluge that had swept over the city streets, was soon forgotten, this was a return to the Birmingham public and one that was greeted with heated passion.

It is arguably fair to suggest that Obituary might not have been the uppermost reason for fans to make their way to the Arena, the spell of Slayer’s final punishing sojourn into the realm of torrential speed a must for fans of the genre to attend. Yet as Obituary’s set progressed, memories of audiences taken to the edge of ecstasy and then crossed over into a realm of small venue stupor where the sound vibrated hard against their ribcages; this night inside the vastness of the Birmingham Arena was for all those who saw the illumination that surrounded the band in their early and dynamic form, and which was never truly captured by the often myopic British press, as they fawned over the giants of the day.

If the night was about Slayer saying farewell, then in Obituary’s set it was more of a re-introduction, a generous performance which framed the absolute steam and fury that they performed in the days of their pioneering death-metal sound, when the album Cause of Death was just as symbolic, just as important as anything released by frenzied adulation attained by other groups within the Metal form.

Whilst surprisingly, and with disappointment, not touching upon that period of high-octane beauty and drive, the tracks performed, Redneck Stomp, Sentence Day, A Lesson In Vengeance, Visions In My Head, Turned To Stone, Don’t Care, I’m In Pain and Slowly We Rot, served as reminder that whilst the crowd were there to pay homage to Slayer, in Obituary there is more than life, there is existence, there is animated continuation. This was no article of pronounced eulogies, this was raw and insanely talented power at its most gregarious.

A night when words of praise will no doubt be issued for the band leaving the stage, to those that remain should always be paid tribute.

Ian D. Hall