Artists: Illyria, Escarion, Plague Dweller, Requite
Venue: The Bendigo Hotel, Melbourne, Australia (Naarm, Woiwurrung country)
Date: 11th July 2025
Review by: Faye Pettinella
Photos by: Dave Collopy
A celebration of prog, death and black metal at The Bendigo Hotel on a dreary winter evening.
Requite
No strangers to HR&B, Melbourne based Requite kicked off the evening with a set full of shredding post black metal. With a recent line up change on bass and guitar, Requite took to the stage with a ferocious new live presence as they tore into a set filled with passion and brutality. Crushing riffs, blast beats, plundering bass, powerful emotive vocals – seamlessly shifting from post to black metal stylings. They delivered a high energy set to an engaged audience, with the bassist and vocalist respectively jumping down onto the floor at the Bendi during different songs. Requite sure as hell started the night off strong.
Plague Dweller
All the way from Newcastle, NSW, Plague Dweller took to the Bendi stage for their first ever show in Melbourne. The five piece delivered a set of pummeling melodic technical death metal, with song structures that flowed effortlessly from delicate yet intricate melodies to crushing walls of brutality. From face melting solos to insane blast beats, pulverising bass lines and shredding riffs, topped with a charismatic frontman donning corpsepaint that mimicked the white rimmed sunnies he appeared onstage with, who stalked the stage and unleashed furious harsh vocals. Plague Dweller had the crowd in a headbanging frenzy throughout their set and certainly made some new fans.
Escarion
Next up for the evening were the Melbourne based melodic progressive atmospheric black metal band Escarion, the four piece (meant to be five but had to improvise) fired into their genre shifting set. Cacophonies of melodic guitar work, fluttering piano keys, moody synthesizers, bass grooves, contrasting harsh vocals from the lead guitarist and ethereal clean vocals from the keyboardist and a deluge of complex drums patterns. All of these elements worked together to create a unique experience which the crowd enjoyed as heads banged, which increased as Escarion flew into a cover of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid with assistance from a friend on bass, in honor of the recent historic End of the Beginning celebrations.
Illyria
Another first for the evening, WA based Illyria closed out the night of their first ever Melbourne show with their progressive post black metal stylings. The crowd was immediately entranced by immense walls of overwhelmingly heavy riffs, teamed with devastatingly beautiful interludes full of emotion and depth. The four piece were one hell of a force onstage, with absolutely unreal blast beats that rattled the entire venue, riffs that went seamlessly from gritty fast black metal to walls of massive post metal, earth shattering basslines and vocals that suited the tunes so well, going from harsh, seething growls to sombre sounding clean deliveries. Illyria made one hell of a first impression at the Bendi tonight, and I’m sure I’m not the only one already waiting for them to return.
Gig Gallery:
