Dethklok - Gig Review & Photo Gallery 4th April @ Forum, Melb VIC

Dethklok
Forum, Melbourne VIC
April 4, 2025
Support: Freedom Of Fear

The joint’s packed, sold out, spurring a second unplanned show this coming Wednesday, and of course it is! This is the mighty Dethklok’s first visit to Australia since its hyperbolically hilarious and violent inception 20 years ago. Plus they’re the biggest band in the known universe, main players in an ancient apocalyptic prophecy, and have a higher GDP than Belgium. And they’re a cartoon. Just like Gorillaz, but way more fun, exciting, talented, listenable, fun, entertaining, metal, fun and fun. Being a series of painstakingly drawn pictures sequentially shot at our brains too fast to recognise they’re not actually moving hasn’t stopped these powerhouses of metal touring the world of flesh, blood, trees, and clowns that do cocaine. 

Swedish lead guitarist Skwisgaar Skwigelf is indeed taller than a tree, and currently embodied in this fleshy realm by show creator Brendon Small. Backing guitarist Toki Wartooth is both not a bumble bee, and presently musically represented by universally acclaimed metal session guitarist Nili Brosh. Bassist William Murderface x 3 is Bryan Beller whom - much later in the show - will reach perfect sonic resonance with the very fabric of The Forum’s structure and thrust an eye-rattling thrum to the very core of all in attendance and the building itself. Pickles the drummer who goes real fast like “doodily do ding-dong doodily doodily do” for all us douche bags is played by former noted lighting engineer for Slayer / “The Atomic Clock”/ “The human drum machine” / GREATEST FUCKING DRUMMER ON THE FUCKING PLANET Gene Hoglan, and… Nathan Explosion, the obsidian-ballast-throated frontman is also played by Brendon Small in a truly awe-inspiring and dizzying display of someone being simultaneously brilliant at about half a dozen things at once. 

He and his enduring crew burst back to life in 2023 with a new Metalocalypse film, and that’s as good an excuse as any for a world tour a few years later. This was a show unlike anything your inveterate reviewer has seen over the last quarter century of covering gigs, and left a profound impression as a result.

But first, kick ass Adelaidean supports Freedom of Fear succeeded in getting the metaphysical viscous, black, cursed juices flowing for the headliners. Touring drummer Liam Weedall has got them Meshuggah feet and hands of hypnotic omnidirectional blurriness. The man is incredible. Shirtless, effortless, and heaving with pro wrestling muscles, he was a force with which to be reckoned and flawed while delivering prog-length, time signature swivelling thunderousness under the band’s equally fantastic efforts. 

Lead singer Jade Monserrat truly erupting terrifying vocals from the bowels of hell without needing an oxygen mask and a vat of chamomile tea conveys that we’re probably all cursed with some ancient spirit of the old Earthen spirits now. Timeless and blackened like the terrifying Lovecraftian infinite from which they are conjured, are her vocal cords not made of materials akin to hearths of molten refuse and apron leather of a demonic blacksmith in their withstanding of such rupturous energy?

I don’t listen to as much death metal as one should because - as a drummer far less skilled than the genre’s more venerated occupants - it’s a largely intimidating and shame-inducing introspection to the cold heart of my own mediocre limitations. The quality of skill and dedication to their craft is just about incomprehensible. Freedom of Fear’s axe wielders send electromagnetic signals to their fret-wielding fingertips with such flawlessness, it’d be reasonable for a visiting intergalactic species to presume they’re both a higher species from all us fumbling common flesh bags, and in charge of the whole planet. 

Unfamiliar with song names, but there was a breakdown at ten minutes to 9pm that made my nipples hard and eyes water, and the slack jaws, gerning faces, and subtle but locked-in head nodding going hard across the throng of punters assured me I wasn’t alone. Eleven hilariously mutilated corpses out of ten, we’re in the mood to watch some Dethklok now. More than Murderface wants to kill himself, or Toki wants to not watch his parents drown beneath an abyssal frozen lake, even. Go forth, Freedom of Fear. You’re ten years in and another ten will surely find you one of the most popular black metal bands in the world. All songs traversed influences from multiple metal genres, and there was even a bit of a thrash punk d-beat finish with deft aplomb, just to really show off the band’s musical perspicacity. 

Speaking of the rare chance to use the word “perspicacity” in successive sentences, the truly ingenious and multi-disciplinary metal champion Brendon Small and co. were about to take stage and embody his lasting and formidable legacy as nearly every voice and idea in a satirical sci-fi / fantasy / comedy musical multimedia show about heavy metal. The crowd was so fucking pumped that a photo sensitivity warning on which the big screen the band’s animated characters play for the duration of the gig got cheered maniacally before anything had even really happened. People were as keen as Mustard Tits “The Murder Master” Brown for this gig (that’s a deep cut from the show. There might be a few more. Happy googling for the uninitiated). The greatest band in the world did not disappoint, and unlike the cartoon – mercifully - the whole audience didn’t die horribly during the concert.

A realisation that this gig is a live death metal show, cartoon, comic book convention, and comedy act all in one dropped early, like large spiky metal box with a band about to play a coffee jingle in it. When it did, the true Renaissance-man breadth of Brendon’s talent and skill perpetually grew throughout the show. This bloke is the epitome of cherished, very niche, and entirely original artist who has persevered with a brilliant concept that’s been bolstered by diehard fans who deserve as much thanks for this world tour as the creators themselves. 

An idiosyncratic conjurer of a world and characters that have successfully traversed comic books, television, musical, music, and the delivery of a peerless, powerful live performance that embraces all of these things simultaneously for decades has cemented Mr. Small to the entertainment industry as one of the smartest and hard-working artists in modern history. 

They sensibly opened with ‘Deththeme’, Metalocalypse’s opening title song, and really never stopped for second following it. A slew of classics from their fictional Dethwater album (recorded in a submarine in the Mariana’s trench and specifically made for an audience of fish, obviously) were strewn about the setlist. Pulsating classic ‘Murmaider’ being the obvious favourite. OG season one classics ‘Thunderhorse’ and the ‘Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle’ sent the utterly engaged throng in to fever pitch, as did the intervals for hilarious and helpful concert tips from the jovial and bodiless skeleton visage Facebones. His descent in to a drug-induced stupor of kaleidoscopic and reality-flaying visuals to round out a final visit about safe drug taking was hilarious and nerve-wracking in equal measure. Brutal.

The human forms of this roaring, visually-sweeping (and deftly in-time) animated band stayed unlit the entire show, and never once spoke out of character until after the encore. We were there to see Dethklok, and that’s exactly who we saw. The fact that these guys might be the best in the world at what each does, and then humbly becoming almost invisible so the fans could easily suspend disbelief and watch the actual animated band they love is a brilliant choice. Sure, they’re on stage and we know that they’re there, but the strength of the storytelling, animation, and characters made it easy to only glimpse the players by choice, but largely forget their presence. Just like how professional wrestling is obviously a big pantomime of fighting, but countless millions are swept up in the larger-than-life spectacle to acknowledge its corporeal fictitiousness. 

After a blacked out few minutes where Brandon did every voice from the band (and their manager Charles Offdensen) to hilariously engage with the audience live, and encore of ‘Fansong’ (a catchy number which insults fans and decrees the band’s hate for them while animated versions of us are casually murdered and dismembered on stage), underrated ‘SOS’ from Dethalbum IV, and the soaring epic of ‘Go in to The Water’, the show was over all too fast. Sure, they played for over an hour and seamlessly synchronised with chaotic, blood-drenched, eclectic, amazing, and fan-servicing animated visuals, but we wanted them to never leave. We all want to foolishly and deeply manifest for the animated guys to be real. Alas, twenty years of a lasting legacy that sonically matches the hyperbolic success and power of the fictional band they embody sidled with one of the greatest live spectacles this reviewer has ever seen will have to do. 

All hail The Church of The Black Klok. Go Forth and Die (and see them again Wednesday in Melbourne). 

Review by Todd Gingell @gingerly_done

Photo Gallery by Clinton Hatfield. Insta: @ampd.agency. Please credit Wall of Sound and Clinton Hatfield if you repost photos.

DETHKLOK - Australian Tour 2025
with Freedom Of Fear

April 6th – Brisbane, Fortitude Music Hall – Venue Upgrade
April 8th – Adelaide, Hindley Street Music Hall
April 9th – Melbourne, The Forum – New Show

‍Tickets Here