The word supergroup gets bandied around a lot these days, but few are true to the label. That being said, today we witness one of the greatest musical ideas finally make its way on stage. Killer Be Killed are one part beard, one part dreadlocks and altogether fucking heavy with their riffy, screamy musical uppercuts and on Stage 4 of Soundwave they’re playing their first ever show to a sun-drenched mass of metalheads.
It truly is a sight to behold that Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plan), Max Cavalera (Soulfly), Troy Sanders (Mastodon) and Ben Koller (Converge) are unloading all seven stages of hell onto Melbourne – The Mars Volta’s Dave Elitch unfortunately couldn’t make it. That unique Sepultura-esque stomp drives the machine forward as Greg does his best to destroy every last shred of his vocal cords – but he’s not alone as he shares vocal duties with the iconic Max and Troy for nothing short of a bludgeoning on the thousands of ears present.
While fatigue is beginning to set in on the crowd, thanks to the blistering sun sending the thermometer rocketing toward 30ºC, it’s a rush of adrenaline and ecstasy on stage as Greg throws himself around the stage in his inimitable style – crowdsurfing into the middle of the pit for Melting Of My Marrow and climbing anything that’ll hold him.
Despite only releasing one record (last year’s self-titled effort), Killer Be Killed fill the hour-long set with ease and little by the way of banter outside of the great appreciation they pour on their first ever audience. And the feeling is mutual. As they rattle through the heavy load of Twelve Labours, and the anthemic Fire To Your Flag, it’s a feeling of acknowledgement and gratitude from the Aussie crowd who are now officially a part of heavy metal history. It’ll happen again at the other Soundwave dates but future plans are unknown, but Australia are very lucky (and deaf) buggers indeed.
