Death to All and Destruction join forces and start a massacre at Teatro Flores!

After a 10-year wait between the first and second Death to All shows in Buenos Aires, it felt unusual to see that they were returning in less than two years, bringing the mighty Thrash band Destruction, which started the South American tour here in Argentina. Destruction tends to return in 2 or 3 years; they never leave us outside any of their tours. This time, bringing new songs to the set, from their latest record “Birth of Malice”.
Death to All obviously were coming to keep Chuck Schuldiner’s legacy alive, but even without a new record, this tour celebrated the 35 years of “Spiritual Healing” and the 30 years of “Symbolic” (their most epic record). So fans were hyped as hell.

As I said, the tour started here. The chosen date was January 15th at Teatro Flores, with supporting local acts from Manifiesto and Lázaro.
Manifiesto was the first band to hit the stage at 18.20. Their set was a really good one; lots of people showed up early. Even Jorge, the singer, said he thought that they expected to play for less than half the people they actually played for. Mosh pits and chants kept on getting more common as their set proceeded. Showing discontent with the current government, every song had the perfect aggression to begin an evening full of rawness.

Next band was Lázaro, at 19 o’clock, the new Jorge Moreno’s project that came to life after Serpentor’s breakup, and it’s easy to hear some similarities between the two bands, the unique style of Jorge’s playing can be recognized in every song he composed.
They played songs from their first record, “Morir y Resucitar,” but kept two surprises for the end, the first one was “Privación Ilegítima de la Libertad”, a classic Serpentor song, and the grand finale came with “Raining Blood” by Slayer.

At 20 in the afternoon, the lights went off, leaving an audio tape playing in the background. Then we see the curtains open, with drummer Randy Black ready to start, and the string players appearing one by one. All of them are wearing the same vest with a Destruction shirt under.
The set started with “Curse of the Gods”, followed by “Invincible Force” and “Nailed to the Cross”. The ground was shaken, a big mosh pit was open in the middle of the venue, and it remained that way till the end of the set.
“Scumbag Human Race” introduced us to the new record. Martín didn’t stop smiling the whole show; he was so happy to be playing again in his homeland. Also, it was funny when Schmier grabbed the microphone to say something in English, and then Martín answered in total Argentine Spanish.
The set continued with “Mad Butcher”, “Life Without Sense”, “Diabolical” and “Total Desaster”. Schmier’s high screams didn’t age a single year; he still has that young 80’s voice.
“No Kings, No Masters” and “A.N.G.S.T.” followed the set, bringing more new stuff. I honestly loved Guilherme’s playing (who was replacing Damir on this tour), his solos were really tasty, and it was kinda cute when he and Martin played side by side, smiling at each other.
Next songs were “The Butcher Strikes Back”, “Antichrist”, “Eternal Ban”, and “Destruction”, a song from the latest record too. I found it hilarious that people screamed for “Destrucción” by V8 (an Argentine legendary Metal band) to be played when this song was introduced by Schmier, and Martín laughed because maybe he was the only one in the band who got the joke.
The set ended with “Bestial Invasion” and the hymn “Thrash ‘Til Death”. An absolute killer setlist, leaving the people wanting more, ready for what’s to come…

At 22, Death to All appeared onstage, starting their set with “Infernal Death” and then 2 songs from “Spiritual Healing” (one of the celebrated albums on this tour): “Living Monstrosity” and “Defensive Personalities”.
“Lack of Comprehension” was played with the intro totally chanted by the whole crowd, and “Spiritual…” came back with “Altering the Future”. 
Talking about chanted intros, “Zombie Ritual” was one of the loudest ones, and before playing “The Philosopher”, Gene stopped the hi-hat counting to hear the crowd singing “Olé Olé”, followed by “Spiritual Healing”.

Steve picked up the microphone and said a few words in honour of Chuck’s legacy, remembering that the reason they were there was to keep it alive. And then introduced us to the next set, where the album “Symbolic” was meant to be played in its entirety. Unfortunately, 2 songs were cut off from that set. But it still had a lot of songs that were rarely played, even in the old Death days.
The set was respectful with the order of the songs compared to the album. It started with “Symbolic”, “Zero Tolerance”, “Empty Words”, then skipped “Sacred Serenity” and played “1000 Eyes”. It was amazing to watch Bobby and Gene perform the album that they recorded. Bobby played all his solos perfectly, and Max made the effort of changing pitch in his growls. He started the set with a song from the debut Death album, when Chuck used to scream a little lower, and then changed to a higher pitch to match the “Symbolic” vocal tone.
With “Without Judgement”, “Crystal Mountain” and (skipping “Misanthrope”) “Perennial Quest”, the band left the stage, leaving the tape for the outro of “Perennial…” playing background, the same way “Symbolic” ends.
They didn’t take long to come back to the stage, and the encore brought the last 2 songs: “Spirit Crusher” and the all-time classic “Pull the Plug.

Photos by Eliana Fernandez

Review by Agustin Lopez

Produced by Icarus Music & Anubis Music Shows

Press Marcela Scorca