AT THE GATES SLAUGHTERS THE FONDA THEATRE IN LOS ANGELES
The Swedish metal lords in At The Gates stormed through Los Angeles last week celebrating the 27th anniversary of their iconic album, Slaughter of The Soul. The band’s initial plan, to play their melodic death metal masterpiece in full across North America coinciding with the album’s 25th anniversary back in 2020, got derailed by that global pandemic society is still reeling from. Thankfully, the world has stopped imploding enough for At The Gates to hit the road once again…and they brought the thrash metal fanatics in Municipal Waste along with them!
At The Gates and Municipal Waste touring together once again [Municipal Waste opened for them on their massive 2008 reunion tour] brought out all of LA’s metal fiends, even on a weeknight. The hometown heroes in Thrown Into Exile were whipping the Fonda into a frenzy as we arrived.
Municipal Waste wasted no time capitalizing on the crowd’s hyped-up state and opened with “Breathe Grease” off 2017’s Slime and Punishment. For the uninformed, Municipal Waste’s brand of 1980’s crossover thrash worship is usually fast, heavy, and insanely catchy. The exact kind of ingredients you’d need to entice large groups of people to let loose and go nuts in a circle pit. As the band ripped through tracks like “You’re Cut Off” and “Beer Pressure” there were typical levels of audience hi-jinks on display, but when they reached “Wave of Death” around the halfway point of their set, frontman Tony Foresta told the audience to crowd surf like they’d never crowd surf before and the fans inside the Fonda responded in kind. There was a literal tsunami of human bodies flying over the barricade and it was one of the wildest moments of the night!
MUNICIPAL WASTE
At The Gates took the stage to an eager crowd. It’s always a treat when one of the most influential metal bands in history strolls through your neck of the woods, but tonight with them playing their seminal album, 1995’s Slaughter of The Soul in its entirety; the anticipation levels inside the venue were off the charts. The band kicked things off with “Spectre of Extinction” the opening track off their newest record, 2021’s The Nightmare of Being. The first half of their set consisted primarily of newer jams from the band’s post-reunion output. We’re talking killer tunes from their new album as well as 2018’s To Drink From The Night Itself and 2014’s At War With Reality, although they did throw in the old school “Raped By The Light of Christ” from 1993’s With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness. Then, close to the midnight hour, they launched into the intro of “Blinded By Fear” and the crowd erupted. The Slaughter of The Soul variety hour had officially begun. Tomas Lindberg has one of the most distinctive howls in metal and as much as the underground community appreciates his talents, the audience inside the Fonda had no problem completely shouting/singing over him on Slaughter of The Soul’s self-titled track, “Under A Serpent’s Sun” and “Suicide Nation.”
Hopefully, At The Gates and Municipal Waste decide to tour together more often [dare we say annually?!] because these two paired together is always a blast!
