Samantha Acevedo
Staff Writer
Metal fans gathered Oct. 4 at The Glass House in Pomona for Carnifex’s Necromanteum tour, with bands including Heavy//Hitter, Organectomy, Mental Cruelty and Cryptopsy.
Carnifex is a San Diego quintet categorized as deathcore for its extreme spin on metalcore, a genre known for distorted sound, blast beats and grim lyrics.
The band, which has been together since 2005, has performed at venues across the U.S. and Canada.
Throughout the night, concert goers participated in circle pits, some even hardcore dancing complete with spin kicks and windmills during certain parts of each song.
The concert highlighted Carnifex’s most recent work “Necromanteum,” characterized by its usage of black metal and guttural vocals.
The band dedicated its tribute track “Crowned In Everblack” to the late Trevor Strnad, the lead vocalist and founding member of death metal band the Black Dahlia Murder.
Despite the crowd being mainly die-hard metal fans, quite a few audience members had brought their friends with the intention of enjoying the concert experience.
Malakai Dominguez, a longtime Californian Carnifex fan, was accompanied by his friend who had yet to experience his first concert ever.
“I wanted my homies in the pit, I wanted to see the reaction and have a good time,” Dominguez said. “Metal is very inspirational to me. It’s very important, and I feel like it helps build connections.”
Dominguez said that having grown up with death metal his whole life shaped him into the person he is today, and that music is an integral part of his life.
The other four bands that performed varied from deathcore to blackened deathcore to deathcore with beatdown hardcore elements.
Lukas Nicolai, vocalist of the blackened deathcore band Mental Cruelty from Germany expressed his gratitude for the American crowd.
“In America, everybody is a little bit more outgoing with their emotions,” Nicolai said. “Afterward…they tell us, ‘you had a great show!’”
“It’s a lot of work being a touring band,” Nicolai added. “But when you are at the show and have so much fun engaging with the people you just feel happy, and that’s all worth it.”
The members of opening deathcore band Heavy//Hitter additionally also commented on tour life and various audiences they encounter.
“In Florida, there’s more of a scene on a local level,” Heavy//Hitter bassist Christian Perez, said. “And then with California it’s a mix of both. You can have crazy shows in a huge room and in a small room.”
“Music makes me feel free,” Joshua Archeval, Heavy//Hitter drummer, said.“It’s therapeutic and relieves anger, especially in a scene where we all listen to angry music.”
Samantha Acevedo can be reached at samantha.acevedo@laverne.edu.
Samantha Acevedo is a junior journalism major and a staff writer for the Campus Times.
Mia Byington is a senior photography major with a minor in marketing. She is a staff photographer for the Campus Times and La Verne Magazine.
