LIVE REVIEW: Ingested @ Rebellion, Manchester

Hometown shows are always high pressure moments for artists, wanting them to live up to the expectations of being one of the best shows of the tour, there is an added passion and heat to the flame of the evening. Returning to their home anointed as ‘Slamchester’, northern bruisers INGESTED return to the hotbed of northern metal in Rebellion, fresh off the release of latest record The Tide Of Death And Fractured Dreams for a hotly anticipated sold out night of pummelling metal.

Opening the night are Australian dramatic deathcore outfit MÉLANCOLIA, a blasting dark four piece with heaps of attitude and shredding riffs tearing at your ears like a wolf attack. Vocalist Alex Hill has a horror driven persona, with black metal inspired high vocal fry’s and girthy low screams, he holds the crowd in the palm of his saliva coated hands, as he drips spittle onto the stage demented looking. “Stop looking at me and fucking move” begs Hill as they launch into Dread Will Follow, a fast-blasting onslaught that quickly opens up the room and gets weight being thrown around left and right. Following the halting of proceedings for technical issues with a broken kick drum pedal, they admirably power on and pummel through the rest of their set. MÉLANCOLIA arrived as somewhat of an unknown to the crowd, but despite the stunted nature of their set, they will be an act that’s hard to forget soon.

Rating: 7/10

In the absence of South African crushers VULVODYNIA who have had to pull out of the UK leg of the tour due to visa delays, we move on to FALLUJAH, who waste no time erupting into technicality, blasting into their high paced destructive thrashing modern metal. The five piece are an outfit with no weak links, each one a force of nature through their marauding malicious thrashings. Guitarist Scott Carstairs plays luscious flowing melodies that sit atop a tempest of intense riffing, that could easily be sung themselves. Late on during their set we are treated to an unreleased track The Obsidian Architect off their recently completed album, featuring progressive angular grooves atop the rapid fire onslaught we have come to expect this far in the set. FALLUJAH have set the bar to be very high for the standard expected to come with a monumental showing.

Rating: 9/10

The buzz in the room is palpable with the lower floor heaving and the upper section queued up to get a spot to see the stage, the hometown return of INGESTED is finally upon us. The northern crushers arrive to a chant of “Slamchester” as they walk on the stage. They open with Paragon Of Purity, with shifting chugging riffs throughout the room immediately opens up into chaos with bodies lifted up and limbs thrown haphazardly, the filthy ending breakdown leaving many faces in the room gurning as they headbang and mosh. “We are your homegrown slam kings INGESTED from Slamchester, the greatest city on earth” announces vocalist Jason Evans in his deep Mancunian twang. He dutifully spends his time lugging crowd surfers safely onto the stage throughout the set, all the while maintaining his throaty hateful screams and looking enamoured with the undulating chaos before him.

During Shadows In Time, Evans challenges the room to create the biggest circle pit Rebellion has ever witnessed with the classic northern incentive of one-upping London from the night before. After restarting the song to grow it further, the frenzied running begins spanning nearly the width of the stage. The whole set is the soundtrack to a bareknuckle fist fight, sonic violence that never seems to tire in its behemothic beating, never pulling a punch at the eagerly accepting room. The barrage of chugging riffs from guitarist Sean Hynes and crushing drums of Lyn Jeffs relentless in their pursuit of energy resulting in hysteria on the crowd floor.

Returning for an encore of The Divine Right Of Kings followed by Skinned And Fucked, the room expel all the energy they can muster, launching themselves off the stage and into one another, the whole time in a blender of limbs and bodies in places they weren’t before. INGESTED have created bedlam in the room tonight with pooling sweat dripping on the stage and the crowd floor, whatever their expectations of a sold out hometown show was, this will have surpassed them all.

Rating: 10/10

Check out our photo gallery of the night’s action in Manchester from Jess Robinson here: 

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