Carnival of Death 2025: Vader and Kataklysm Lead the Ultimate Extreme Metal Onslaught
The Carnival of Death Tour 2025 arrives this October as one of the most uncompromising death metal packages of the season, a cross-continental run that pairs established titans with a new generation of extreme acts. Headliners Vader and Kataklysm lead a stacked bill that includes Malevolent Creation, Skeletal Remains, and Bannerlord, and the routing now covers 26 dates across the United States and Canada, with a recent update confirming the Montreal show at Fairmount Theatre and the addition of a Toronto stop at Lee’s Palace.
For fans who follow the contours of the scene, the pairing is telling. Vader remain one of death metal’s most enduring forces, their sound forged in the Polish underground since the 1980s, sharp, relentless, and honed for live annihilation. Kataklysm bring a different but equally ferocious pedigree, the Montreal four piece known for a brand of high velocity, groove-charged death metal they have refined across a long career of records and tours.
Malevolent Creation connect the bill to the formative Florida/New York death metal tradition, a band whose early work helped define the brutality and production values that shaped late 1980s and early 1990s American death metal. Skeletal Remains represent the younger but no less serious side of the bill, a Los Angeles origin band built on technical ferocity and an appetite for gore-tinged, classicist riffing, while Bannerlord supply fresh, punchy material that fits the tour’s emphasis on pummeling, direct performance.
The routing moves deliberately through club rooms and mid size theaters that are central to the scene’s live ecosystem, venues where sound and proximity matter, where playing tight for a restless, knowledgeable audience is the point. Dates range from Bensalem and Greensboro to a run through Texas and the Southwest, a West Coast swing that touches Brick By Brick in San Diego and Whisky-A-Go-Go in West Hollywood, and a return east that finishes in Brooklyn. The promoters and bands are clearly courting the core crowd, the fans who value velocity and brutality over spectacle. (Brick by Brick)
Ticketing information and routing updates are being handled through the tour promoter’s central link, secure tickets and local details are available at the promoter’s ticket portal, https://linktr.ee/continentaltouring. Given the density of dates and the compact nature of most of the venues, early purchase is advisable, and fans should check age restrictions and venue policies for each city.
Carnival of Death 2025 is not a nostalgia package. It is a live statement, a chance to measure how veterans and successor acts translate recorded ferocity into a live context where tempo, tone, and visceral connection decide the night. For anyone invested in death metal’s present condition, this tour offers a concentrated, continent-wide snapshot of the genre’s health, its intergenerational lines, and its continued appetite for blunt force and technical craft, on stages that reward intensity and commitment.
Full itinerary and tickets can be consulted via the promoter, https://linktr.ee/continentaltouring, and fans should note the Montreal venue change to Fairmount Theatre and the newly added Toronto date at Lee’s Palace, both recent confirmations that broaden the tour’s reach in Canada. (Come and Take It Productions)
