Malignant Aura, Carcinoid, Tzun, Tzu, Lumen Ad Mortem @ The Ed Castle, Adelaide 2/4/2026
With new album in tow, a five-date national tour prepped, Malignant Aura arrived in town as the weather turned dark, the birds stopped singing for this is the start of Where All Of Worth Comes To Wither.
The five-piece death metal outfits new album is harrowing journey of the horrors of life, yet the band are extremely chirpy fellows, a balance that makes their show of the same tracks brutal yet compulsive viewing. Like picking a scab, it bleeds but feels remarkably good.
Opening the evening’s black mass are Adelaide’s Lumen Ad Mortem, currently in the final stages of a gestation period with a new album, and a new record label to birth it, they are sinister chaos in a combination of blue and red hue. The blue masking what the red reveals, journeys into desolation, fear and purgatory. The band sound great at The Ed, the atmospherics garnishing the bands groove and riffs that people can miss in death metal behind the theatre of performance.
Similarly, Tzun Tzu does not hide the aggressive nature of their work, sounding like a monster banging at your front door, yet through those uplifting swings of melody, the four-piece flex power, noise and the arsenal to take on the impending zombie apocalypse. Imagine your darkest nightmares as a soundtrack protecting your home. Listen, watch, and enjoy, but don’t get too close as they may bite.
Carcinoid cross the Victorian border and think they can just get up and riff and roll through their set and we would be fine with it. Well, they are right. The time changes between heavy groove and then slow doom are hair raising. Vocalist Tim contorts like an early version of Barney Greenway while the band lock in as the world’s heaviest blues band, down-tuned, distorted and doom. Are they death, are they doom? I don’t know but they certainly kicked my arse.
Headliners Malignant Aura are more than just a band. They are a sensation, a performance that meshes theatre, poetry, and death together as one. Opening with vocalist Tim Smith smashing a gong on stage, the band start their epic set with a stranglehold that does stop.
The songs are a journey through the depths of emotions, the chaos and roller coaster of life. Provocative, furious, and angry, the epic songs hit like waves throughout, the heavy following more serene moments of clarity.
Tim gets into the crowd when the band take off into rock riff barrages, head twirling, manic and immersing the audience within, like a madman on the prowl for victims.
The musical subtlety of death metal can sometimes get lost in the screams and frantic beats per minute, however Malignant Aura’s musical storytelling forces you to see underneath that they are a really good rock band that like to shred, groove and headbang like everyone else.
The next four shows feature more of Australia’s extreme metal family and led by Malignant Aura, they all promise to be nights of technical mastery, metal catharsis, and a damn good time.
Live Review By Iain McCallum