Spite Brings the Heat to St. Louis
Spite brings Vatican and Boundaries through St. Louis on a warm summer night in support of their upcoming album, Dedication to Flesh , set to release on 7/22. The 5 piece from Southern California is a mix of hardcore/deathcore/beatdown with insane riffs and crazy energy. However you want to describe them, they have grown in popularity since the release of their last two albums, The Root of All Evil from 2019 and Nothing is Beautiful from 2017.
With the temperature and humidity in the upper 90s, everyone in line was eager for doors to open and get their spot on the barrier. First on the bill was Vatican from Savannah, Georgia, supporting their new album Ultra which was released earlier this year. There are plenty of sub-genres in metal nowadays, but, if I had to choose, I would categorize Vatican as hardcore with a side of djenty-metalcore. These guys came out and set the tone regardless of how you label them. They reminded me a bit of the mid- 2000s to early 2010s metalcore with an endless supply of breakdowns, with plenty of pre-breakdown callouts.
Up next was Boundaries from Connecticut. They have a similar style, musically, to Vatican and that is definitely a good thing. Boundaries recently finished their 2nd full-length record which is set to be released soon. Literally seconds after getting their equipment and sound check done it was a full-on 30-minute assault on the crowd with not many breaks to chat with the crowd, except to keep the circle pit going. They really set the stage for Spite
I have never seen Spite live and I looked up a few of their live videos in preparation but I was not prepared for what was about to happen. Most bands when they first come on stage are full of energy but I haven’t seen a band keep that same energy up for an entire set. For an hour straight, nobody was standing still. There was not a ton of crowd interaction with the exception of vocalist Darius Tehrani, telling everyone to keep the energy up. It was a bit of a challenge trying to photograph this show as they used every inch of the stage. They played the 2 singles off their upcoming album Dedication to Flesh and as with the last 2 albums, their sound is evolving and expanding.
There are plenty of dates left on this tour and I would absolutely suggest checking it out as all 3 of these bands have new music and if tonight was any indication, they’re all going to be great.
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