Carcass’ reputation precedes them - the masters of both grind and melodic death metal, their revolutionizing of death metal back in the early 90s cemented them as a household name, and they’ve never left the limelight since. The Liverpoolian’s support on the Torn Arteries tour came in the form of a death and thrash metal sandwich, with support from Creeping Death, Sacred Reich and Municipal Waste, keeping the tempos high and the music very brutal.

Texans Creeping Death started out the night - a bit early in fact - and set the scene for the carnage that would follow! By a considerable margin the band with the shortest tenure, this old-school influenced death metal squad came out the gates flying with extremely tight musicianship that formed a pit in the crowd with ease. Both guitarists’ skulls pretty much never stop rotating, Trey Pemberton in particular, whose dreads were windmilling at least 99% of the entire time they played.

Veterans Sacred Reich followed - their old school thrash metal approach to being loud a crushing contrast to the death-oriented approach of the music preceding them. This Phoenix quartet come across as fresh as ever, a reminder that the sound that brought it down and started it all remains lethally powerful, especially presented live. As Phil Rind screams like a madman over classic grooves and newer addition Joey Radziwill sends his endless hair careening around the stage, it becomes impossible to not want to smash something nearby and headbang as hard as you can.

Municipal Waste rounded out the support for the night, and what a way to set up the crowd for the main act. The Virginians have been around the block and then a bit more too, and seeing them live you really understand why they’ve seen such success. Theatrical and unhinged would best describe the interplay amongst all the band members onstage, a mad party that’s been unleashed on the world. The circle pit forming in the crowd was almost instant and pretty much never let up as groove after groove shook First Avenue’s ancient walls.

The lights settled, the screen rose, and Carcass took the stage. An old friend of mine described their set as “the best show he saw in 2022”, and it’s not even one song in before it becomes apparent why that is. It seems almost unfair that the band - having released classics in two separate genres and single-handedly changing how people viewed whether loud, intense music could also be melodic and catchy - would also be some of the finest live performers around, but they have that in their bag too. Carcass’ sound translates live beautifully, and this is made all the better by their phenomenal musicianship and stage presence. Bassist/vocalist Jeff Walker in particular is an absolute madman, spending more time raising his bass into the sky than keeping it level. It’s a band where I had to chuckle to myself at simply how absurdly good they were several songs into their set, coming off a rendition of "Buried Dreams" from their landmark album Heartwork. Carcass carried their massacre through all of their albums, playing songs off the aforementioned Heartwork, Surgical Steel, Torn Arteries, and a couple tracks of Necroticism…, and even an oncore track off of Symphonies of Sickness.

Minnesota metalheads have been feasting the past week - with Enslaved’s tour hitting the varsity last week and now with the legendary Carcass rolling through First Avenue with a stacked lineup, who could really ask for anything better from the shows available?