PHOTOS + REVIEW — Carnifex 2025 ⋆ Shows I Go To | 🎤 Florida Concerts, Festivals, & Giveaways

PHOTOS + REVIEW — Carnifex 2025

Carnifex • July 1, 2025 • Jannus Live – St. Petersburg, FL • Photos by Randy Cook —
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CARNIFEX LIVE REVIEW

Carnifex | July 1, 2025 | Jannus Live, St. Petersburg, FL

Review by Randy Cook

A night of glorious brutally heavy metal was the perfect prescription after a long, frustrating day at work I had playing catch up after being out for a week. Less than twenty four hours after returning from my trip and an eleven hour work day I headed towards downtown St. Petersburg with my camera ready to go. With two decades of musical history, Carnifex are considered one of the pillars of the deathcore genre and their ‘Hell Chose Me 15 Year Anniversary Tour’ had the perfect mix of supporting acts for a night that really helped me relax.

With Carnifex performing their influential third album ‘Hell Chose Me’ in its entirety honoring the album’s fifteen year legacy, this tour is a major event for extreme metal fans. Joining the brute force of deathcore, with death and doom legends it was a solid lineup consisting of five bands. As with all of the Shows I Go To, I am interested in the demographics of the crowd and as expected this show skewed mostly to the younger generation and mostly male. With most everyone adorned in black, several in the crowd had goth like makeup and there was a younger guy in a horse head who was consistently in the mosh pit. Metal shows in general are people watching goldmines for me and this show was no different.

With such an early start time, doors were at four thirty and the show started at five thirty on the dot, there was already a solid crowd on hand for the opening band BodyBox. They hit the stage and immediately the mosh pit started in the crowd behind me. This band was a mix of death metal, grindcore, crazy heavy breakdowns, and their hardcore energy delivered a relentlessly intense and hard-hitting sonic assault on my ears. Once I had exited the photo pit and was in the crowd listening I could not help but to head nod to their tunes. They for sure have a new fan and the night was already off to a great start.

Next up was the band Distant. They were the only band in the lineup this evening that I had previously seen live. Their music is characterized by slow, heavy breakdowns, meant to slam hard and slow down the heaviness. Their breakdowns are both punishing and crushing continuing the heavy theme of the evening. After I was out of the photo pit and in the crowd I noticed their guitar player take off up the stairs that are at the back side of the stage. He crossed over the walkway to the green room and VIP suite area jamming away the whole time, stopping here and there to jam with the headbanging fans that were upstairs. In all my years of attending shows at this venue (since the late 80s), I had never seen this and wish I could have gotten a better photo of him up there.

Up next was Devourment. This band is revered as the one of the pioneers of brutal death metal who helped shape the slam subgenre with their raw and savage sound that incorporates crushing breakdowns, deep growl vocals, and absolute relentless sonic brutality. With decades of influence, landmark albums, and enduring impact, they stand as a foundational force in extreme metal. Their ablum and song titles are not for the squeamish and I noticed the guy in the pit with the horsehead on was proudly sporting this band’s ‘Baby Killer’ shirt. The trend of each band this evening getting progressively heavier was still in full effect.

After the show I read two different quotes basically saying the same thing that the combination of Devourment then Suffocation was about the most brutal transition and let me tell you I witnessed this firsthand with how crazy the mosh pits were for these two bands. “Suffo(cation) right after Devourment is gonna get people killed” and “Devourment into Suffocation is gonna get someone killed lmao” was definitely a foreshadowing of how heavy this show was. One of my fellow photographers was most excited that Suffocation would be on stage during the day’s golden hour of photography, allowing the band to be front lit with natural sunlight. I witnessed bodies crashing into each other, metalheads helping fallen brothers in the pit back to their feet, necks that were going to be very sore in the morning and the camaraderie of everyone there for a common reason – the love of heavy metal. I had heard Suffocation a few times on SirusXM prior to the show, but after seeing them live they are already in my playlist. Wow did they kick ass! Their complex, aggressive, and highly technical song construction helped define the brutal death metal genre. They are very tight live and I found myself wishing they had a longer set.

It was not even 9PM yet on a Tuesday and already we had been pummeled by four great bands with the grand finale still to come. As the lights went dark for Carnifex, I could feel an air of anticipated excitement of those just behind me along the front barrier of the crowd. Those first few notes of ‘Hell Chose Me’ hit and with the roar of the crowd combined with the crushing raw aggression of the music it was a full body sensory assault. As always, the first three songs are over in what feels like the blink of an eye and I find myself on the fringes of the biggest pit of the night. Lead vocalist Scott Lewis commands the stage literally growling between songs while rallying the crowd and engaging individuals in the mosh pit directly. Their music is intense and you can feel the blast beats in your bones, when the tempo drops into breakdowns the entire crowd head nods in unison.

It was a fantastic night of some much needed metal. Seeing so many happy faces and catching up with friends magnifies my love of a live music experience. For as tired as I was at the end of the workday heading to the show I was re-energized and ready to take on the world afterwards. Sadly, I no longer participate in the mosh pits. As part of the AARP club, my feet and back hurt from my recent trip, I no longer drink, I wear glasses and value my camera equipment, so I am happy to observe from the sides and enjoy the music. The ‘Hell Chose Me 15 Year Anniversary Tour’ continues until the end of July – see additional dates here.

Carnifex setlist for July1, 2025, Jannus Live:

Hell Chose Me
Dead Archetype
Entombed Monarch
Names Mean Nothing
Heartless
Sorrowspell
Genocide Initiative
Dark Heart Ceremony
Drown Me in Blood
Torn in Two
Lie to My Face
Slit Wrist Savior
Angel of Death (Slayer cover)