Live Review: Decapitated at The Gramercy Theater (2025/02/10)

"Nihility Across North America" Tour 2025

Event Details:

Ticket Price: $38.00

Legendary Polish death metal band Decapitated visited NYC on Monday night to perform their 2002 album Nihility in full, plus some additional hits for the encore. They are widely considered one of the most influential bands of technical death metal, founded in 1996 by lead guitarist Waclaw “Vogg” Kieltyka, the sole original member remaining, when he was just 15 years old. I knew I was in for a treat but I don’t think I knew what was fully in store.

Between headbanging and an occasional glance to make sure I wasn’t going to get kicked in the head by someone crowdsurfing I couldn’t take my eyes off Vogg’s playing. I never got to see my all-time favorite guitarist, Dimebag Darrell, but I imagine Vogg is the death metal version of him. On the surface it might sound simple, just really fast, but there are so many details that elevate his playing to another level. The rhythms are groovy as hell, the leads are tasty and he plays it with pure swagger and ease.

The band was super tight for the whole set, even when Vogg started having technical issues with his wireless connection midway through and ended up grabbing a cable to plug directly to his pedal board. Even as he was mentally trying to determine what the issue was he was still jamming along from pure muscle memory. He don’t miss. His tone was killer as well, packing a real punch with that chunky sound.

Following a tragic accident in 2008 involving the other three band members at the time, the cast has been ever rotating, with the current vocalist having just joined the band in the last year and the other members have only been playing together for a few years now but they sounded great.

For a cold Monday night in February, the crowd showed up with plenty of energy to spare. The inflection point of the evening was undoubtedly when the opening riff of “Spheres of Madness” started playing, sending a shockwave of adrenaline through the crowd. The band didn’t waste much time between songs and the set seemed to fly by. Thankfully, they played an encore which featured my two favorite songs “Kill The Cult” and “Cancer Culture”.

Easily one of the best death metal shows I have ever been to.

Cheers and keep rocking!