Praise The Beast tour featuring:
Belphegor/Incantation/Hate/Narcotic Wasteland
Lee's Palace, Toronto February 22nd.
I love Sunday night metal shows in Toronto whereby metal and mayhem ensue. This tour in particular features a stacked line-up of death metal acts to curl the hairs on the back of your neck. Dubbed "Praise The Beast" is spiralling through 17 dates across Canada and the United States. The only two Canadian stops are in Montreal and Toronto, so for those lucky enough to catch these 4 titans of death metal live, let me tell you are in for a real treat.
Narcotic Wasteland opened the proceedings with seven songs culled together from their 2014 and 2017 releases, plus two recent singles from 2022 and 2024. The crowd was jazzed to hear Dallas Toler-Wade lead his group first into battle to deliver a solid set of songs. Dallas was a part of Nile from 1997-2017 and contributed greatly to the band's early success, but eventually made the move to fronting Narcotic full time.
The audience was treated to some great death metal with songs like "Morality and the Wasp", "Faces of Meth", "Barbarian", "Delirium Tremens", "Keeping Up with the Jones", "We Agnostics" and closing with "Introspective Nightmares".
Verdict: Great night for strong musicianship and songwriting, in addition to brutal, yet melodically extreme death metal.
Hate was up next to deliver seven songs of blackened death metal from this long standing Polish act. Many of the songs bleed easily into each other, but it was done with a vicious gusto. The band stuck to performing more recent tracks from Rugia (2021) and Bellum Regiss (2025), but threw in a gem like Erebus (2010).
Verdict: Crushing set of songs with no weak points or filler. The mixture of black and death blend into a war-like storm of machine gun drumming and rapid fire fire.
Incantation: It's always a great time when I get to see Incantation in a live setting. John McEntee and company never fail to deliver OG American Death Metal which began with 1992's Onward to Golgotha. Tonight they played eight songs starting with a mini-set from 1994's Mortal Throne of Nazarene. We started off with "Demonic Incarnate", "Emaciated Holy Figure", "Iconoclasm Of Catholicism", Essence Ablaze", "Nocturnal Dominium" and "Ibex Moon". Then they tore into "Blissful Bloodshower" and "Abolishment of Immaculate Serenity" from 1995's Upon the Throne of Apocalypse.
Verdict: A solid set of songs from two very important mid-90's death metal albums. Both are personal favourites of mine and it's always a treat to hear these classics live.
Belphegor closed the show with these black/death juggernauts hailing from Austria. This band has been slaying audiences since the early 90's, carving out an impressive career in the process. Although, admittedly not being a fan I can say they can captivate the audience for those who enjoy their brand of music.
They played 12 songs from a long list of albums dating back to the early 90's. The songs began with "The Procession", "Baphomet", "The Devil's Son", "Sanctus Diaboli Confidimus", "The Devils", "Stigma Diabolicum", "Pactum in Aeternum", "Lucifer Incestus", "Virtus Asinaria", "Scarlet Beast", "Totentanz-Dance Macabre", and "Hell's Ambassador" for the encore.
Verdict: A cauldron of vile sounds and sometimes brooding melodic guitar harmonies.
Kenneth Gallant, HMS
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