Gig

Within Destruction – Gig Review 3rd April @ Stay Gold, Melbourne/Naarm, VIC

Rod Whitfield

/10

Apr 4, 2025

7 min read

Within Destruction
Stay Gold, Melbourne/Naarm, VIC
April 32025
‍Supports: Distant, Gravemind, Deadskin

A fifty-four year old man being asked for his ID by security at the door is always an interesting way to start a night, but here we are. Apparently I “look good” for fifty-four, so that’s something.

Also interesting is the start of Deadskin’s set. Their official set start time is 7:15pm. At 7:14, the venue is close to empty. The band start their performance punctually (in fact, the entire four-band bill runs dead on time), and by 7:17, the floor is packed, in the blink of an eye. It’s almost shocking, but good to see people showing out for a local early opener.

And this streamlined four-piece treats us to a blistering set of gnarly, groove-based metalcore. There’s not a great deal of intricacy or nuance to their sound and presentation, the charm and the appeal come from the unbridled exuberance and balls-out aggression inherent in their delivery. This enthusiasm and aggression is embodied in frontman Mitchell Rawlings, who stalks the stage and screams, howls and performs like he is drawing his last breath.

Their last song is an absolute monster.

Deadskin’s set, like their individual songs, is a short, sharp punch to the face, the crowd has grown even more, and we are now ready for another Aussie metal storm.

Gravemind have been around for a while, have garnered national and international attention in more recent times with the release of their last two records, and occupy a musical space that’s all their own. They certainly appeal to afficionados of brutish metalcore, but at the same time, they have their own thing going on that’s kinda indefinable but present all the same.

Their lineup is two guitars, drums and a frontman, no bass, and tonight it rolls out onto the stage like a death machine, slickly devouring all in its path. The instrumentalists lock in tight around relatively new frontman Bailey Schembri, who has an almighty scream on him and handles the occasional cleans with similar aplomb. Their songs have more twists and turns than the opener, are slightly darker in tone and the aggression with which they are delivered is just a smidgeon more subtle.

We get their best cut ‘Volgin’ third song in, but again, the set whizzes by too quickly and leaves us wanting more.

It’s a truly international bill, and now it’s time for the Dutch portion of tonight’s heavy festivities (although this band has a nice international lineup themselves). I was stoked to see Distant’s name on this run. I’ve been listening to them for several years now, and they count among my absolute favourite extreme bands on the planet. And tonight, in a live setting, they do not disappoint.

Distant veritably explode onto the stage. On record, it sounds like there are more than four people in this band, but that’s their lineup – guitar, bass, drums, frontman. But their live sound lacks nothing for this. Their live sound is an extension of the sheer, gut-punching heaviness of their recorded works.

This band is considered ‘downtempo’ deathcore which, on the surface, might mean they are kinda doomy and sludgy. It might mean their tempos are slow and draggy. But it’s not the case. The ‘downtempo’ nature of their sound only makes their sound more skull-crushingly heavy, their breakdowns more brutal, and their live presentation more of a violent assault on the senses.

This fifty-four year old has been attending heavy shows since 1986, and Distant are legitimately one of the heaviest live bands I’ve ever seen.

Just a minor whinge at this point: the local opening acts only getting thirty-minute sets is bad enough, but bands coming all the way from the other side of the world to play for thirty minutes in each venue is pretty disappointing. Hopefully we’ll get a full headline tour, and hour-plus sets, from this bludgeoning behemoth of a band in the not too distant future.

But enough of that.

Wow, what a whirlwind Within Destruction are. They hail from the tiny Central European nation of Slovenia, and if Gravemind give a whiff of belonging to a genre of their own, WD take that ball and run a hundred miles with it. They are unabashedly unique, doing their own thing, and obviously loving every minute of it.

First up, purely on a surface/visual level. Their lineup is quirky: a frontman, one guitarist and a drummer, and a very disparate-looking trio they are too.

Then, their sound. It’s truly something to behold. It’s heavy, no question, in fact it’s still the underlying vibe of their presentation. Their set is an unrelenting wall of stylish sound at times. But at the same time, it’s wild, heading off on all manner of different stylistic tangents: pop, ambient, electronic, instrumental and more. They even give us their version of a ‘ballad’ around fourty minutes into their set.

And, as stated previously, all three members appear to be having an absolute ball onstage, and the fun they are having slamming out their dynamic music flows out from their stage and into the very solid crowd that has shown up tonight.

The term ‘genre-bending’ gets bandied around with abandon these days, but some bands do it with great authenticity, some bands live it. And one of those bands is Within Destruction.

Not only does tonight feature strong international representation, it’s also nice and varied, musically, from heavy Aussie metalcore to bestial downtempo deathcore to . . . whatever TF Within Destruction are.

Tonight is another highly satisfying evening’s heavy entertainment in a great little venue and a crowd that, while not quite packed to the back, is a very strong turnout for a Thursday night.

Review by Rod Whitfield

The tour continues into Sydney and Brisbane this weekend...