Suffocation, AngelMaker, Fuming Mouth, Carcosa and Melancolia – Asylum Birmingham; 5TH MARCH 2025.

Embarking on this evening’s journey was a bit of an adventure itself travelling over to Birmingham to catch this show was a new thing for me and something I’ve set myself to do more of in terms of attending shows and visiting different venues around the UK. In regards to Birmingham, let’s say that’ll not be an experience I’ll be forgetting soon – I witnessed a few weird and wonderful things whilst making my way to the venue inclusive of having a guy with a bag for life try and attempt to sell me stolen grated cheese from the local Tesco. I mean… who doesn’t want to buy some grated cheese off a stranger in the street, right?

The venue for tonight was at The Asylum, Birmingham and is located at 38-42 Hampton Street. The venue was fairly easy to find with a short tram ride from the centre of Birmingham and a 3 minute walk from the tram stop however I did feel it felt it was like stepping back in time with the venue location. The venue itself was actually a nice venue, it had good lighting, good sound and had a very nostalgic feel to a throw back of older venues that I’ve visited for shows. I would love to check out more shows here in the future.

Commencing the evening’s events the show kicked off with Australian hailing band, Mélancolia taking to the stage. I do feel for these guys I do feel it went against them with there not being many people in the venue to start with and unfortunately they had the short straw of playing to a smaller audience and I felt they didn’t get much interaction from the crowd as much as they tried. Musically, I adored their set and felt it was over way to quick. I would have loved to have seen more from these guys and would love to check them out again however my only negative was that at the end of the set was a passing comment made from the vocalist to the crowd which drew attention to a possible frustration of crowd participation.I felt this was a little immature and lacked a bit of professionalism especially as they had just completed a beast of a set, this slightly let it down for me however as above I could understand and relate to why this may have happened.

The next performance is one that I’ve honestly been waiting a while for and one of the primary reasons for my travelling for this show due to not being able to make the Manchester date, I couldn’t miss out on the first UK appearance from Carcosa.I feel I’ve been waiting years for this to happen and it finally happened. Musically, absolute sound for any lover of deathcore this is a band that you should be listening too. Highlight of the set was the closing track ‘Vemin‘ for me of which is one of my favourite songs from this band and I was very happy to hear live. What an ending to a outstanding performance. I’d like to comment though like Mélancolia’s set I did feel this set was over and done so quickly, it would have been nice to have had a slightly longer set from these supports as by the time you were getting into it, it felt they were waving farewell and exiting stage which was a shame.

Proceeding this performance were Fuming Mouth. Unfortunately for me I can’t really rate this band and that may just be due to my preference in music or just not enjoying the set. I felt it lacked anything substantial for me to really get behind what was being dished out. With a fusion of death metal, thrash and an old school punk vibe it just didn’t hit the right notes for me. I found myself feeling a bit bored by the 3rd song if I’m honest but from a display of minor movement from the crowd it was obvious that this sort of music did appeal to people who had attended tonight.

Appearing next in the lineup were AngelMaker. Angelmaker are a band that have always fascinated me and always leave me asking the question “Why three guitarists?” although there are a few bands of which run three guitarists it’s always something that has baffled me, not in a negative way by any means but just the simple curiosity of ‘Why?’. I have to say their performance tonight was possibly the highlight of this show tonight (Sorry Carcosa… I’m such disheartened to say). Their set this evening was immersive to watch, I’ll be honest even when I was in the photopit, I found myself in complete awe of the stage presence and interaction between the members on stage. Musically I found them to be brutal and consisted of the right level of everything you need in some stella deathcore in your life. Absolutely outstanding.

Carrying on the momentum from this set and closing the evening were Suffocation. Suffocation took to the stage and the crowd erupted with a flurry of cheers and applause, it was clear who the majority of the crowd were here to see. Opening their set with ‘Thrones of Blood’ the crowd were showing energy from the get go. Playing some fan favourites such as ‘Entrails Of You‘, ‘Funeral Inception’ and ‘Perpetual Deception’  the band also delivered from their recent release “Hymns from the Apocrypha,” released in November 2023. Although the band formed in 1988 and have had numeral member changes throughout the years the band have been going from strength to strength and powering through the death metal world showing why they are titans of metal.

Overall the concert was a huge hit with the audience and displayed some amazing bands which I felt honored to have been able to seen and more than happy to have traveled to catch on this Embrace The Suffering tour. Although I could have caught them in Manchester due to my personal schedule not lining up the travelling was required and I do not regret this one bit, infact… notable to say due to the fact AngelMaker blew it out of the water for me. I’d happily go travel to see them again anytime, they were 100% my favourite and highlight from this evening.

 

FOR EVERYTHING MELANCOLIA CLICK >> HERE <<

FOR EVERYTHING CARCOSA CLICK >> HERE <<

FOR EVERYTHING FUMING MOUTH CLICK >> HERE <<

FOR EVERYTHING ANGELMAKER CLICK >> HERE <<

FOR EVERYTHING SUFFOCATION CLICK >> HERE <<

For more photography from the evening visit my INSTAGRAM >> HERE <<