Artists: Mammon’s Throne, Black Jesus, Circle of Blood, Virulent Invocation
Venue: The Bergy Bandroom, Melbourne, Australia (Woiwurrung country)
Date: 3rd July 2026
Review by: Ziggy Thunders & Dave Collopy
Photos by: Ben Eldström
A belated Winter Solstice celebration in the form of an absolute shredfest of misery and woe, so heavy it took two of us to write about it. The best way to spend a gloomy Friday evening.
Virulent Invocation
It’s a cold, loud night at the Bergy. Virulent Invocation introduces themselves with their own style of blackened death metal, bringing insane double kicks, blast beats, insane guttural vocals, and absolutely insanely crushing fast riffs.
Godkill is their second track beginning with some blasting and riffing at insane speeds. The drummer’s double kicks ability has me absolutely floored. The energy and brutality of the riffs ooze out of this band. The vocalist’s voice just cuts like a knife through butter in the mix which is insanely impressive for someone with such low vocals.
The mix of everyone when they move onto their slower, more headbanging riffs is absolutely crushing, like an oppressive fog hanging over the crowd, slowly infecting everyone present with more and more energy as their set went on.
Virulent Invocation has the crowd warmed up insanely early for a night of what was a dream night for the headbangers at the Bergy.
Circle of Blood
Menacing, brooding synths filled the room as Circle of Blood took to the stage with a very direct acknowledgement of country before throwing the packed Bergy Bandroom into the depths of intense face melting death metal.
This was exactly what I needed on a dreary Friday evening – riffs that ventured between sinister shredfests to somehow delicate lulls when needed, bass that went so hard it rumbled the foundations of the venue, drums that were so intense in their speed and technicality that it floored me combined with snarling, shrieking vocals perfectly cutting through the wall of heaviness.
Faces in the crowd all shared the same ‘fuck yeah’ expression as they ripped through their set featuring tracks off their latest release In Praise Of Darkness, which I highly recommend checking it out – it is so fucking good. The structure of their compositions had me hooked, every change of pace just hits at the exact right time to give you that infectious high. Do not sleep on Circle Of Blood, the recorded and live experience are both something to behold, they’ve left me wanting more.
I’ll leave you with some words of wisdom from the frontman – don’t tip your bar staff with Magic The Gathering cards. Or at least if you do, give me some with a high resale value. Support your local beer slingers.
Black Jesus
Before they even begin, the guitar tones in Black Jesus are absolutely huge! Much more crunchy and defined than the previous two bands. The drummer hits insanely hard and clean, the bass tone is super crunchy and mids heavy, cutting through the rest of the noise. The lead guitar work from Dan is incredibly technical and proficient.
Black Jesus music is short, fast, hits hard as fuck and most importantly, insanely fun.
Fusing an excellent combination of Death Metal, Thrash and Punk music, they have a unique sound that really shines through in super heavy lineups.
It’s great to see local Melbourne live photography legend Dan McKay on stage absolutely tearing the roof off the venue with his insane lead guitar skills.
The Bergy is perfectly fitted for this style of metal. Being such a perfectly shaped and soundproofed room where the music can just take hold of a crowd and squeeze them with such intensity for the duration of the set.
/se
Mandatory Tome
Now it’s time to descend into misery with the mighty Mammon’s Throne, the stage is adorned with flickering candles bathed in an ominous green light, a thick haze creeps throughout the totally packed bandroom as the excited chatter is silenced by a haunting piano and a lead guitar solo that is guaranteed to give you goosebumps from the instrumental track At The Threshold Of Eternity off their latest release My Body To The Worms.
They take to the stage to applause, a wave of horns fly up into the air and from here on it’s a wild ride of doom and gloom. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen Mammon’s Throne. I’ve had a lot of time to get acquainted with My Body To The Worms after the album launch in March and getting to experience these songs again live was just so fucking god damned good.
Senseless Death sent the crowd into a wave of headbanging frenzy as they delivered the face melting, doom drenched riffs, Every Day More Sickened brought a relatable cathartic release for everyone in the room and crowd favourite Elixir saw vocalist Matt Miller wielding a weapon right out of Bloodborne onstage to great theatrical effect. A cover of Bolt Thrower’s For Victory saw Miller and guitarist Johnny switch places which was well received, with one crowd surfer even kicking the disco ball during the chaos.
Ending on the epic Return Us To The Stars capped off their set and provided one last chance for the audience to let loose, with two eager fans letting it out on the tops of shoulders of others while Mammon’s Throne tore up the stage to the brutal end.
Gig Gallery:
