The Tokyo Concert Experience

The coronavirus is real. There’s no question about it. This pandemic is a world health crisis and serious measures need to be taken to control the spread. The media plays a crucial role when it comes to alerting and keeping the population informed. Having said that, there’s one phrase that keeps popping in my mind whenever I watch the news. It’s the title of one of my favorite movies. Fear eats the soul. “Kowai” in Japanese means ‘scary’ and it’s one adjective, like ‘delicious’ or ‘cute’, that is used a lot in Japanese. Not just for truly scary stuff but literally it could be for anything. Honestly speaking, the overuse of that word is something that I find rather off-putting. You can imagine how that sentiment is being exploited by the news shows. In the last couple of days music venues and live shows in general have been the main focus. In Osaka a few music venues have been confirmed as transmission sites, as several cases have been reported to spread from those places. Concer...

I’m not sure if ironic is the right word to describe what it was to listen to someone on stage singing “bring back the plague, to rid of everyone tomorrow, end of days” in the midst of the current coronavirus crisis. Seeing most of the audience with their face masks on rocking out to this nihilist sentiment could also be interpreted as an act of defiance and it encapsulates what Cattle Decapitation is all about. I mentioned nihilism, another word that comes to mind is misanthropy. It’s true that most bands in the realm of extreme metal embrace these ideals, but only a few express them in such a hard hitting way. Cattle Decap doesn’t rely on spirituality or fantasy, their views are 100% grounded on problems that our species is facing today. I’ve red comments on sites like rateyourmusic.com in which even the most seasoned death metal fans will candidly recount  their disturbed reaction to what Travis Ryan says in his lyrics. Musically they are also an extremely ambi...