Photos: GATECREEPER, ETERNAL, DYING REMAINS, SEVERED BOY @ Ralph’s Rock Diner (Worcester, MA) – 2026/04/29

Death metal at the infamous Ralph’s Rock Diner in Worcester, MA just hits differently, especially when the lineup is utterly gross and stacked up. SEVERED BOY would open the night for touring package consisting of DYING REMAINS, ETERNAL, and GATECREEPER. The amount of stickers that cover any available surface and all the weird props, decorations, and various other items scattered about, one of the more unique venues around – not to mention cheap beer – making it a haven for the underground music scenes.  

Photographs by @bananamasher.

Boston’s blackened-doom deathsqaud SEVERED BOY, born out of COVID-19 quarantine, create that sort of death metal that derives from sickness. Songs drenched in despair, saturated in tone and solemnity, slow and heavy yet fast and abrasive. Caligari Records would release their first collection of songs, the Tragic Encounters EP, in 2021. The band will release their debut full-length, The Memorial, in 2027. 

SEVERED BOY:
Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

The Calgary, Alberta trio DYING REMAINS specializes in stompy two-step death metal which attracted Maggot Stomp to release their debut 2023 EP Entombed in Putrefaction and the follow up 2025 LP Merciless Suffering. The album is a nonstop onslaught of 90s-tinged old-school death metal with brutal caveman-style groove. 

DYING REMAINS:
Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Forming in 2021 in Phoenix, Arizona, the Obituary and Cannibal Corpse worship four-piece ETERNAL are carrying the death metal torch with ripsaw-like riffs, deep chugs, wailing squeals, horrific vocals, pummeling drums, and gnarly bass. After two EPs and a series of singles, Carbonized Records would release the band’s first full-length, Cryptic Lust in 2024. The band is certainly keeping the “death” in death metal.

ETERNAL:
Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

GATECREEPER in such an intimate space was utterly insane. They would perform songs spanning their discography; “Force Fed” off their debut self titled 2014 EP, “Starved” and “Sick of Being Sober” from the An Unexpected Reality 2021 EP, a few from Deserted including “Ruthless” and “Barbaric Pleasures” and a few from Sonoran Depravation including “Patriarchal Grip” and closing with “Flamethrower” with the chunk of the set being 75% of their recent album Dark Superstition released in 2024. The band was in the studio just before leaving for tour, new music is expected soon.

GATECREEPER:
Website | Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram