Words by: Belinda Quick
Photos by: Shaun Wilkinson
Special thank you to Destroy All Lines
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering” — Friedrich Nietzsche
As the idiom goes, ‘there’s two sides to every argument’. Reconceptualised for infinite contexts, no doubt you’ve heard at least one of the proverbial iterations and have applied for yourself the applications to personal contexts.
Embarking upon their debut headline Australian tour, in part a celebration of the release last Halloween of their magnum opus, NEW WORLD KILLER, SPITE embodies its depth of meaning. Deathly brutal, the Californian’s music is unabashedly confrontational, irreverent in its suffering; yet, steeped in purpose, in performance, they command an affect of warmth, humanity and hope.
Adelaide’s Lion Arts Factory burning red, SIGNALS emerge from a darkened Crawl Space. A calm entrance contrasting tonight’s Hellscape, Calem Pepper-Freeman’s snarls eviscerate the atmosphere. Guitarist Travis Gardiner synchronises with co-axeman, Tyler Di Palo; the latter’s brother and drummer, Dylan, coordinates with bassist, Eli Reardon, punctuating the Poetry of Spite. Tyler’s guitar a wailing beast of Burden, an8162 ally’s brief cameo is short-lived; Pepper shooting finger guns, coyly alluding with minor Exit Wounds, the attitude and ethos is latent: better to burn and leave a beautiful Effigy than Waste Away.
DIESECT‘s Jordy Bennet winks suggestively at the crowd. Reciting a spoken word sample before retreating to HIDE FROM THE LIGHT, frontman Damian Bigara initiates a SECOND DEATH. In SHURA and determined to leave no LOOSE ENDS, Bigara announces “our last performance of the tour, let’s make it one to remember”, and calls for a WoD. A DIFFERENT KIND OF ALONE is witnessed, with those who SUFFER IN THE DARK circlepit, a wheelchaired warrior wilds in the furore. Drummer Jake Camilleri’s machinegun fire ricocheting off the venue’s FOUR WALLS, “let’s get fucking crazy,” and leave NO HOME LEFT TO FIND.
Sharing the spotlight of sophomore Australian performances with the headliners, fellow countrymen, Philly’s VARIALS, continue to espouse the contrasts which thematically bond the four performances tonight: despite darkness springs WHERE THE LIGHT LEAVES there exists meaning in the suffering upon which Your Soul Feeds. Releasing their phenomenal LP in February, the first with vocalist Skyler Condo, an ignited crowd reacts violently; taking casualties in The Hurt Locker, sequentially look for Anything to Numb the pain sustained in the opening stages.
Matching the furious energy, Condo cheekily requests: “anyone wearing a black tshirt, get up, I wanna see you move!” Mere moments ago a pit on the brink of Conscious Collapse rallies, soldiers ready to raze this Empire of Dirt. Diesect’s Bigara appears, a second commander-in-chief, clenched fists are white knuckled and raised, an occasional open-handed devilhorn disguising Stigmata, both reach to Find the Dark saturating the suddenly empty stage.
Solid strobes bisect the stage while flashing red alarms bounce off the excessively cymballed kit manned by SPITE’s superhuman drummer, Cody Fuentes. The quartet announcing their anticipated arrival via Darius Tehrani’s hellish, half-bent scream proceed to unleash bloody murder, exploding with 2025’s titular track. Fuentes ferociously dropping the GAVEL, his dais inadvertently becomes hydraulic, Tehrani grooving to the bounce of NEW WORLD KILLER‘s second serving.
“We are SPITE and, for anyone that knows our band, you know this is our theme song”; IED explodes with a synonymously incendiary force of the bomb with which it shares its name. To this moment, stoic sentries, bassist Stephen Mallory and guitarist Alex Tehrani uniformly body slam, while brother Darius spin cycles his luscious locks. The stage threatening to Snap at any moment from the weight, the Psychopath demands, “burn this place to the fucking ground.”
An audible ovation rises above the relentless aggression in support of the frontman’s next supercharged statement: “This song is about killing a bunch of paedophiles, this is Made to Please.” In a world full of suffering, incitement of violent ends to justify means can be conflicting, but, it is agreed: some deserve the heavy Hand of the Reaper exacting due punishment more than most. Wearing masks of men, the real monsters that hide in plain sight; Shedding Skin to reveal their true self, hidden by a poisonous shroud of night.
Adjusting the tone, Darius offers his Pledge of allegiance to “new friends, DIESECT”, while Alex holds an affirmational fist in the air. Welcoming the Australians into the fold as new members of the Kingdom of Guts, everything and Nothing is Beautiful for Varials’ moment of gratitude; orange lighting bathing all the light touches, the Hangman pig squeals in delight before SPITE begins the final Dedication of Flesh.
More animated than ever in encore, the black-and-white contrasts which symbolise it all become hypercoloured; Nietzsche’s philosophies are put into perspective practice. Cave In or “climb up”, Kill or Be Killed, ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light’ and, above all, know that while life is suffering we can ensure it is lived with purpose.
GALLERY
SPITE
VARIALS
DIESECT
SIGNALS
VARIALS
