Thy Art Is Murder (w/ Fallujah, Ghost Bath) @ Brighton Music Hall (Boston, MA) on September 19, 2017 [Photos & Show Review]

Thy Art Is Murder is currently making the best of a bad situation on what is now a TAIM headlining run. The band had been slated to be co-headlining with Polish death metal act Decapitated, but have found themselves becoming the sole headliner as Decapitated faces kidnapping charges stemming from an incident after their show in Spokane, WA on September 1st. Supporting act Fallujah and opener Ghost Bath are also along for the run. We caught up with the tour as it stopped in Boston on September 19th for an intimate show at the Brighton Music Hall.

Ghost Bath started things up with a set of their shoegaze-meets-black metal sound. Despite being the lowest on the bill, they had a lot of folks in the crowd headbanging along and getting into it.

Fallujah was up next. The band took to the stage and the lights dimmed such that you could really only see their silhouettes, giving a really eerie/mysterious vibe to their performance. They were accompanied by fill-in vocalist Monte Barnard as their original frontman Alex Hofmann quit the band shortly before this tour. They still put on a killer set, Barnard absolutely crushed the band’s material, his low, roaring voice sounding out as the group’s guitar melodies soared above. It was really awesome to finally get to witness these guys live, truly some of the finest death metal out there right now.

Aussie technical deathcore act Thy Art Is Murder was up last, in their biggest US tour since the return of their former vocalist CJ McMahon, who is also featured on their latest release Dear Desolation. McMahon didn’t miss a beat, be it older or newer material, and was in humorous form on this night, giving the audience his best impression of a Boston accent in between songs and asking fans if they had any lobster rolls, to toss them on stage. Their set featured several newer tracks, including “Slaves Beyond Death,” “Dear Desolation,” and “Puppet Master,” just to name a few. They also played fan-favorites “The Purest Strain of Hate,” “Absolute Genocide,” and “Reign of Darkness.” These guys are incredible live, you can catch them on tour in the US until September 24th.