Words and Photos: Elliott Gordon
With support from Weedeater and (supposedly) Shane Embury’s Dark Sky Burial, the Masquerade in Atlanta, Georgia, welcomed co-headliners the Melvins and Napalm Death to town on Sunday night for the latest stop on their Savage Imperial Death March II Tour. Established in 1989, the Masquerade provides a unique concert venue experience, offering up four different indoor rooms which can handle a wide variety of capacities, individually named Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and Alter. The largest space, Heaven, played host to the night’s event, with general admission fans lining up early in the afternoon before the doors were even scheduled to be opened.
Heaven’s evening opened up at 7:30pm with a gentleman not named Shane Embury (who is normally Napalm Death’s bassist) positioned off and seated along the side stage. Performing solo in front of a box contraption that generated industrial synth metal with a corresponding light show, this gentleman established a trippy venue ambience I would describe as an evil soundtrack to an afternoon planetarium field trip visit. This went on for nearly 30 minutes, ending with a rude (and likely drunk) fan screaming “what the fuck was that?” If anything, the displayed creativity was arguably a sneaky approach to elevate pent up crowd energy, which exploded shortly thereafter when three-piece sludge metal band Weedeater took to the stage.
Hailing from Wilmington, North Carolina, bassist Dave “Dixie” Collins jokingly told the crowd “we suck, so go get your money back” before kicking off their unique blend of heavy metal with songs like “Hammerhandle” and “Mancoon.” Weedeater performed a chest-pounding set of grinding sludge under a fittingly sea of green lights, with the spunky Collins sharing the stage with drummer Keith “Keko” Kirkum and guitarist Dave “Shep” Shepherd. From thudding deep tuning to screeching power chords, Weedeater was just the kind of opening act needed to get the mosh pit going.
Following an equipment turn, the iconic Washington-based alternative metal band Melvins stormed to the stage and launched into “Working the Ditch” off the band’s 27th studio album, Tarantula Heart (2024). Donning a eye-featured muumuu, 61-year-old lead vocalist and guitarist Buzz Osborne was supported by bassist Steven Shane McDonald (of Redd Kross fame), and for the first time in close to a decade, dual drummers in Dale Clover and Coady Willis.
Some highlights for me, beyond Osborne’s hair, included their emphatic performances of “It’s Shoved,” “Your Blessened,” and of course the recognizable 1993 single “Honey Bucket.” The Melvins then capped off their frenetic evening with “Night Goat” off their fifth studio album, Houdini (1993), immediately followed by an instrumental drum-off between Clover and Willis as a mic drop (stick drop?) to punctuate the band’s night.
Last up as the clock approached 10:15pm was pioneering grindcore (death metal) band Napalm Death. Out on the road in celebration of their newly released collaboration album with the Melvins, aptly named Savage Imperial Death March Part II (as the bands previously collaborated back in 2016 for the album of the same name), lead vocalist Mark “Barney” Greenway lead the band into the explosive “Multinational Corporations, Part II” to stir up the sweaty Atlanta crowd. With Greenway behind the mic, Napalm Death was rounded out by John Cooke (guitars) and Danny Herrera (drums), with an unexpectedly absent Shane Embury (bass) replaced by a bassist named Mats.
However, with nearly four decades of catalog material, Napalm Death’s expansive, nearly hour-long set spanned its entire 16 studio albums, from their debut release Scum (1987) to 2020’s Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism. With crowd surfing and moshing in full effect, Greenway violently pranced across every foot of stage real estate, only pausing to deliver his guttural vocal growls while the rest of the band hammered away at rapid pace. Napalm Death’s set also thankfully featured “You Suffer,” a little metal ditty that holds the Guinness World record for the shortest song ever recorded at a mere 1.316 seconds long.
By the end of Napalm Death’s set, if you weren’t sufficiently spent from the energetically exhausting evening, you did something wrong. The Savage Imperial Death March II Tour continues on into early June, wrapping up on Saturday, June 7th, in Berkeley, California, at the Cornerstone Berkeley.
Melvins Setlist
1.) Working the Ditch
2.) The Bloated Pope (Melvins & Lustmord cover)
3.) Never Say You’re Sorry
4.) Evil New War God
5.) It’s Shoved
6.) Billy Fish
7.) A History of Bad Men
8.) Blood Witch
9.) Honey Bucket
10.) Revolve
11.) Your Blessened
12.) Night Goat
Savage Imperial Death March II w/ Napalm Death
w/ Weedeater
April 4, 2025 – San Diego, CA – Music Box
April 5, 2025 – Santa Ana, CA – The Observatory
April 7, 2025 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
April 8, 2025 – San Jose, CA – The Ritz
April 10, 2025 – Los Angeles, CA – The Belasco
April 12, 2025 – Las Vegas, NV – Swan Dive
April 13, 2025 – Phoenix, AZ – The Van Buren
April 14, 2025 – Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre
April 15, 2025 – El Paso, TX – Lowbrow Palace
April 17, 2025 – Dallas, TX – The Echo Lounge & Music Hall
April 18, 2025 – Austin, TX – Emo’s
April 19, 2025 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall – Downstairs
April 20, 2025 – Baton Rouge, LA – Chelsea’s Live
April 21, 2025 – New Orleans, LA – House of Blues New Orleans
April 23, 2025 – Tampa, FL – The Orpheum
April 24, 2025 – Ft. Lauderdale, FL – Culture Room
April 25, 2025 – Orlando, FL – The Beacham
April 26, 2025 – Savannah, GA – District Live
April 27, 2025 – Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade – Heaven Stage
April 28, 2025 – Birmingham, AL – Saturn
April 29, 2025 – Athens, GA – 40 Watt Club
May 1, 2025 – Charlotte, NC – The Underground – Charlotte
May 2, 2025 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
May 3, 2025 – Virginia Beach, VA – Elevation 27
May 4, 2025 – Baltimore, MD – Baltimore Soundstage
May 5, 2025 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
w/ Titan To Tachyons
May 6, 2025 – Allentown, PA – Archer Music Hall
May 7, 2025 – Brooklyn, NY – Warsaw
May 8, 2025 – Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club
May 10, 2025 – Pittsburgh, PA – Mr .Small’s
May 11, 2025 – Cleveland, OH – Globe Iron
May 12, 2025 – Detroit, MI – Saint Andrew’s Hall
May 13, 2025 – Grand Rapids, MI – The Intersection
May 15, 2025 – Cincinnati, OH – Bogart’s
May 16, 2025 – Louisville, KY – Mercury Ballroom
May 17, 2025 – Nashville, TN – Brooklyn Bowl Nashville
May 18, 2025 – St. Louis, MO – Red Flag
May 19, 2025 – Chicago, IL – Metro
May 20, 2025 – Milwaukee, WI – The Rave II
w/ The Hard-ons(w/ Jerry A from Poison Idea)
May 22, 2025 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
May 23, 2025 – Des Moines, IA – Wooly’s
May 24, 2025 – Kansas City, MO – Madrid Theatre
May 25, 2025 – Omaha, NE – The Waiting Room
May 27, 2025 – Denver, CO – Summit
May 29, 2025 – Salt Lake City, UT – Metro Music Hall
May 31, 2025 – Bozeman, MT – The ELM
June 1, 2025 – Spokane, WA – Knitting Factory Spokane
June 2, 2025 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox
June 3, 2025 – Portland, OR – Revolution Hall
June 4, 2025 – Eugene, OR – McDonald Theatre
June 6, 2025 – Reno, NV – Virginia Street Brewhouse
June 7, 2025 – Berkeley, CA – Cornerstone Berkeley
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