Cattle Decapitation’s “No Fear For Tomorrow” Tour Bleeds Chicago Dry at House of Blues
By Christopher David
Nothing says the holidays like a night of relentless death metal at House of Blues, and Cattle Decapitation’s No Fear For Tomorrow tour delivered on all fronts.
Texas quintet Tribal Gaze kicked things off with a solid set, followed by another Texas quintet that really set the pit circling: Frozen Soul. Frontman Chad Green is a force of nature, commanding waves of crowd surfers to the front of the stage, and his vocal style reflected the band’s moniker, with a sharp, brittle tone that cut through the thunderous arrangements as the band stomped through “Crypt of Ice” and new tune “Chaos Will Reign.”
Belgian deathcore quartet Aborted took things to another level with a nearly hour-long set featuring some gems from 2024’s Vault of Horrors like “Death Cult” and “Insect Politics.” Frontman Sven de Caluwé was in jovial spirits, his dark humor on full display as he paced the stage. “Let’s split the crowd right down the middle for a wall of death,” he said at one point, “pretend you have healthcare.” Caluwé’s vocal style bordered on genuinely frightening.
Treating the audience to a full-album play-through of 2019’s critically-lauded Death Atlas, San Diego’s Cattle Decapitation proved why they remain one of the most entertaining and creative extreme metal bands out there, and frontman Travis Ryan guided the crowd like a giant wave through the band’s shifting dynamic range during tunes like “Bring Back the Plague” and the crushing, nearly ten-minute title track, shifting to 2023’s Terrasite (“We Eat Our Young” and “Scourge of the Offspring”) before calling it a night on one of the most memorable death metal shows in Chicago this year.
