Mon 2/10 @ 7PM
A small army of diverse death metal bands will march on the Agora from points east and west this week. (And while it may all sound the same to some, yes, death metal is a very diverse genre.)
Headliners Dark Tranquillity out of Gothenburg, Sweden, have seniority. The melodic death metal band — which sounds contradictory but really isn’t — formed in 1989, making them part of the genre’s first wave of practitioners.
Over the course of ten albums — the most recent being last year’s Construct — the band has explored many permutations of its sound, incorporating more keyboards and then foregrounding guitar again, moving from the familiar growling vocals to clean vocals and back again, and utilizing a guest female vocalist among other things. And unlike so many other extreme metal bands with similar longevity, Dark Tranquillity has 3/5th of its original lineup.
The group’s frequent tourmates, Finland’s Omnium Gatherum, joined the death metal fray a little later — in the mid ’90s. But they didn’t release their debut album until 2003. The six-piece group adds some progressive rock influences to its version of melodic death metal.
The show is rounded out by California’s Exmortus, who use death metal — seeded with other strains of metal — as a platform to display impressive technical musical skills.
Tickets are $16 in advance, $19 day of show. VIP, which includes early entry, a meet-and-greet, and an autographed poster, is $50.