The Danforth Music Hall was packed on September 23 as Dying Fetus and Sanguisugabogg brought their co-headlining tour to Toronto. It was a pretty stacked night from start to finish, with Montreal death metal band Scorching Tomb, Atlanta deathcore band Left To Suffer, and New Orleans sludge veterans Crowbar all getting the crowd warmed up before the two headliners took over. The 32 stop North American stint that started in Philly less than a week before this Toronto stop sees its end in Cleveland on October 25th and so you could say this show sees the downtown crowd at a sweet spot on the tour. Either way, Toronto was in for a particularly brutal Wednesday night with a bill that’s 5 bands deep, each with a reputation to get bodies flying in the pit.
Scorching Tomb got things started with a straightforward old-school death metal attack using grinding guitar riffs, heavy bass, and punishing drums. The Montreal band didn’t waste much time getting into it, with Stalagmite Impalement, Diminished To Ashes and Bloodlust Sacrifice getting the first pits of the night going. Skullcrush really did a number on crowd with Sanguisugabogg’s Devin Swank lending his voice and energy to the song and giving a crowd a taste of what’s to come later in the evening. It was a short set, but they did exactly what they needed to do and got the room moving early. Scorching Tomb also takes over Minnesota deathgrind band Deterioration as the opening act for the two Canadian dates of the tour so the crowd made sure to show some love.
Left To Suffer took things in a more modern deathcore direction, bringing plenty of breakdowns and heavy, slower riffs to the stage. The Atlanta band opened with two unreleased songs before getting into their live hitters like Gun In The Duffel Bag, Crash Out, Set The World On Fire and Loathe, one of their oldest tracks. It was another short set, but vocalist Taylor Barber’s huge presence on stage kept the energy high and had the crowd moving throughout. Left To Suffer took the momentum and made it run around in circles with their polished sound.
Crowbar were next, and the change in sound was pretty noticeable. Instead of the speed and breakdowns from the first two bands, the New Orleans veterans settled into their slower, heavier sludge sound. It was the kind of sonic power you could really feel reverberating in your chest but not enough to stop what looked like infinite crowd surfers giving security a run for their money. It was songs like Planets Collide, To Build A Mountain and Repulsive In Its Splendid Beauty that brought some of the biggest moments, while The Cemetery Angels closed things out with a heavier, more aggressive finish. It’s been 36 years of Crowbar as frontman Kirk Windstein said to the loud Toronto crowd, and so they definitely had to make sure to choose the hard-hitters for this shorter opening set from their decades-spanning catalogue. The crowd response was huge to what felt like a bonus headlining set, and it was pretty clear that a lot of people had been waiting all night to see Crowbar.
Sanguisugabogg then took the stage and immediately made the room feel even heavier, somehow than it already was after 3 servings of riffs and breakdowns. Commanding the downtown crowd to keep the pit moving from the jump, the band kicks things off with Face Ripped Off and Feening For Bloodshed before the moving through Skin Cushion and A Lesson In Savagery to really dig further into the morbid subject matter this brand of metal gets into. This stretch was also a good showcase of some hitters from 2023’s Homicidal Ectasy where guitarists Cody Davidson and Drew Arnold really showed their presence with Devin cutting through the noise. Right before Savagery, Devin made sure to also point out the Shrek-costumed fan in the crowd after shouting out the bands on the bill before belting out into a mini-acapella cover of All-Star with the Toronto audience – a different vibe than the track up ahead for sure. And if a quick Smash Mouth session didn’t already get everyone amped, Devin tosses a football into the crowd for a good ol fashion “murderball” game. A Sanguisugabogg show tradition, whichever fan has the football at the end of the song can trade it for some free merch at their table. Nothing like a tour shirt to make the bruises worth it especially in this economy. This was just one of the little moments that made this set more than just one long wall of riffs.
“The Bogg” then ripped through some of their newest work from Hideous Aftermath with tracks like Rotted Entanglement and Repulsive Demise. The latter being dubbed “a song you can shake your ass to”, it was definitely a song that stood out amongst the rest especially with the drums sounding very industrial like Trent Reznor sprinkled some magic dust over the kit. Either way, their mix of death metal and slam is about as filthy and groove-heavy as it gets, but especially on this new album, they know how to keep things interesting and Toronto was completely into it. Conversations after the set even had people that came to see Crowbar declaring themselves new fans, talking about how good the boys sounded. This new five-piece lineup sounded huge, especially when the drums and newly dedicated bass guitar kicked in on top of Devin Swank’s voice that also spent most of the set pushing the sea of people to go harder while setting the example. Anything to get the bodies really flying and when it comes to working a crowd, his vocals were no joke. He’s definitely solidifying his status in the genre as a top tier weapon with a mic in hand. New bassist and birthday celebrant Dustin Hamm is definitely a welcome addition and does add a deeper layer to their sound as well. Devin made sure to tell the crowd that “he’ll take his presents in liquid form so piss in a cup and give it to him and tell him it’s a beer”. That’s just true brotherhood right there.
Mid-set, Devin also makes sure to show the band’s appreciation because Toronto was the first sold-out date of the tour which got one of the biggest reactions of the night from the proud downtown crowd. Those who were able to catch their show earlier in March with Lamb of God at the Great Canadian should be familiar with the menacing bass tone they deliver nightly that sounds like growls straight from the depths of hell – a good reason among many to catch their show again here at the Danforth and probably why the tickets flew off the shelves. It goes to show the work Sanguisugabogg has been putting in over the last couple of years showing growth not only in the scene but also in their sound. With that said though, the band finished with some of their classics from 2021 with Dragged By A Truck and Dead As Shit, ending with a massive wall of death that took up almost the entire floor.
Dying Fetus closed out the night with a completely different kind of intensity. After a little eerie intro and a “we are Dying f*cking Fetus” from guitarist, vocalist, and last original member John Gallagher, One Shot, One Kill all the way from 2003 travelled forward in time to take Toronto by the head and spin it round and round. Transparently encouraging broken necks, the band moved into From Womb To Waste and Unbridled Fury showing off decade-spanning tracks. From there, it was clear that the set just wanted to jump all over their catalogue, with R*ped On The Altar, Intentional Manslaughter, In The Trenches, Your Treachery Will Die With You and Wrong One To F*ck With all making appearances. With bassist and vocalist Sean Beasley as well as drummer Trey Williams playing incredibly tight throughout, the three-piece was just larger than life and had no issues filling the Danforth with sound like a much bigger band. It’s a feat that they achieve consistently enough that it’s become an expectation at this point. Simply put, fans understand the quality they pay for whenever this trio rolls into town.
What really stood out about Dying Fetus was how easily they moved between ridiculous speed and those huge, catchy grooves that give their songs the gravity and power to shake up venues like this one. It was like Toronto was watching this trio take full control of a savage hurricane being a force of nature themselves. The final stretch of Wrong One To F*ck With, Grotesque Impalement, and Justifiable Homicide was just especially strong, with the crowd surfing and headbanging through the entire thing. It really leaned into the sweet spots within earlier and later stages during their time as a band. With the searing grooves mixed with the gruesomeness of this final trio of songs, there wasn’t much need for anything flashy onstage because the playing itself was the spectacle. They were razor-sharp, air-tight and completely relentless, and after more than three decades as a band, Dying Fetus still sounded like they had something to prove even when everyone knows how much respect they’ve rightfully earned thus far. Absolute professionals that deliver everytime, armed with a catalogue deeper and gross-er than John and Sean’s vocals during their jam-packed set.
Overall, this was one of those lineups where every band just brought something different to the night. Scorching Tomb got things started with old-school death metal, Left To Suffer brought the deathcore, Crowbar slowed everything down with some massive sludge riffs, and then Sanguisugabogg and Dying Fetus closed things out with two very different takes on brutal death. With bands like these, the sold-out Danforth crowd clearly wasn’t going anywhere early and by the end of the night, both co-headliners had given everyone all the reasons they needed to stick around for 5 vicious sets in a row.
Keep up with the latest: Dying Fetus: Website | Instagram // Sanguisugabogg: Website | Instagram