Death Metal | DCHeavyMetal.com

Nile ticket give away

Nile at Empire

South Carolina’s masters of death metal, Nile, are playing on Wednesday, March 6th, 2013 at Empire in Springfield, Virginia. On this tour Nile will be playing two full sets of songs spanning the band’s entire history to celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band. This show is not to be missed so DCHeavyMetal.com is going to give away a pair of tickets to one of you lucky readers. To enter, just leave a comment on this post telling me which song from Nile’s entire discography (see it here) you want them to play the most! What will you pick? Maybe Lashed To The Slave Stick or Black Seeds Of Vengeance or Unas Slayer Of The Gods? That song with the really long title that starts with the word Papyrus? Nile has so many classic songs to choose from! On Friday, March 1st at 5pm EST I’ll pick one lucky winner from all valid entries at random (using Random.org) to win the pair of tickets. Please don’t enter if you cannot attend, I want to make sure the winner gets to see this killer show. Be sure to enter with a valid email address you check regularly so I can contact you if you do win. Don’t worry, I won’t add you to any email lists or anything like that, I hate spam too. If I haven’t heard back from the winner in 24 hours another winner will be chosen. If you enter more than once then all of your entries will be disqualified. If the contest is over when you read this or you simply can’t wait to find out if you won the tickets you can buy tickets from Amped & Alive for $17 here.

Nile has bee playing their technical style of death metal, led by guitar virtuoso Karl Sanders, for 20 years now. In that time neither the band’s aggressiveness nor obsession with ancient Egypt have waned. You may remember Amon Amarth similarly performed two sets like this in 2011, however, they spent one of their sets playing their newest album straight through. Nile will not be doing that and instead will be playing a double set retrospective of their career. Nile has also made it clear that they want to support local musicians on this tour so they will have local bands playing each of these shows that will be different in each city. For the show at Empire we get Cannabis Corpse, a Richmond based death metal band with weed themed songs that parody famous death metal songs by bands like Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Deicide. The band features Land-Phil Hall of Municipal Waste fame on bass and vocals. There will also be sets by locals Mikhail and Acid Deth Kvlt (you can give them a listen by clicking on their names). Well check out these recent videos by Nile and Cannabis Corpse below and leave a comment with what song you want to hear Nile play the most in their retrospective set!

February 25, 2013
Categories: Contests, Death Metal, Empire . Tags: Acid Deth Kvlt, Cannabis Corpse, Contest, Contests, Empire, Free, Free TIckets, Mikhail, Nile . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 31 Comments

Meshuggah ticket give away

Meshuggah at the Fillmore Silver Spring

Sweden’s technical metal masters Meshuggah are returning to the Fillmore Silver Spring for a second time this Saturday, February 16th, 2013. DCHeavyMetal.com has a pair of tickets to this show to give to one of you lucky readers. To enter just leave a comment on this post telling me why you want to come to this show. Maybe you saw them last year when they played the Fillmore and you want to see another killer Meshuggah show, or maybe you missed them last time or maybe you’re still waiting for your tax return from Uncle Sam and can use a night of free metal. On Friday, February 15th at 5pm EST I’ll pick one lucky winner from all valid entries at random (using Random.org) to win the pair of tickets. Please don’t enter if you cannot attend! The contest ends the day before the show so there isn’t time for me to contact additional winners if you win but can’t go. Be sure to enter with a valid email address you check regularly so I can contact you if you do win. Don’t worry, I won’t add you to any email lists or anything like that, I hate spam too. If you enter more than once then all of your entries will be disqualified. If the contest is over when you read this or you simply can’t wait to find out if you win the contest you can buy tickets from Live Nation for $26 here.

Meshuggah is on the second leg of their Ophidian Trek tour supporting their newest album, Koloss. As expected the album is a beast and they’ll be playing songs from it as well as older classics throughout their set. They have also just released Pitch Black, a free two track EP from Scion A/V that you can stream and/or download here. They’ll even have copies of Pitch Black on vinyl available at the merch booth at this show at the Fillmore! Also playing this show will be Animals As Leaders, an instrumental progressive metal band featuring former DC native Tosin Abasi on guitar. Let me tell you the guy can play! He is quite possibly the best guitarist in metal right now. The opening act will be the LA based trippy progressive metal band Intronaut. Don’t expect any slack instrumentation from them either. In all this should be another great metal show at the Fillmore. Check out the videos below by each band playing and tell me the reason you want to go to this awesome show in the comments!

February 11, 2013
Categories: Contests, Death Metal, Fillmore Silver Spring, Progressive Metal . Tags: Animals As Leaders, Contest, Contests, Fillmore, Intronaut, Meshuggah . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 36 Comments

Cannibal Corpse Ticket Give Away

Cannibal Corpse is one of the most infamous death metal bands in history and this Saturday, the 1st of December, they will be playing at the Rock And Roll Hotel in Washington DC! Because this show is going to be absolutely brutal DCHeavyMetal.com is going to give away a free pair of Cannibal Corpse at the Rock & Roll Hotel tickets to one of you readers. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment at the end of this post telling me which Cannibal Corpse song is your favorite (you can see their discography here, just click on an album to see the songs on it). Cannibal Corpse is known for having some of the most gory, disgusting, violent and downright offensive song titles in all of metal so I hope to see some interesting entries! On Friday, November 30th at 5pm EST I’ll pick a winner at random (using Random.org) from all valid entries to win the free pair of tickets to the show. If I don’t hear from you in 24 hours then I’ll pick another winner to get the tickets. Please don’t enter if you cannot attend. Be sure to enter with a valid email address you check regularly so I can contact you if you win. Don’t worry, I won’t add you to any email lists or anything like that, I hate spam too. If you enter more than once then all of your entries will be disqualified. If you simply can’t wait to see if you win the contest you can get tickets from Ticket Alternative for $20 here.

Cannibal Corpse originally formed in Buffalo, New York, but moved to Tampa, Florida to join in the growing death metal scene there. They’ve long been a center of controversy with their brutal lyrics and album covers, setting the bar of shock for countless death metal bands to strive to match. While metal fans tend to look at them, and death metal in general, as the musical equivalent of splatter horror films, politicians like Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman have tried to censor the band and in the 90s Germany and Australia both actually banned their albums from being sold. Despite this the band still continues on and their music has actually gotten faster and more brutal over the years, including on their latest release, Torture, which was released in March of this year. Also on this tour is Misery Index. The band was formed when several members of Dying Fetus left that band however only Jason Netherton remains from the Fetus days. The band has carved out its own sound since then and is one of the best live metal bands you’ll ever see, they absolutely destroy audiences live! Hour Of Penance is an Italian death metal band that is pretty similar in sound to Behemoth actually. Needless to say, they’re pretty damn brutal and should be a perfect opener for this show. You can listen to each of the bands playing in the videos I posted below while you decide which song you want to enter with. Keep it brutal everyone, cause this concert definitely will!

Cannibal Corpse – Encased In Concrete

Misery Index – The Spectator

Hour Of Penance – Sedition Through Scorn

November 26, 2012
Categories: Contests, Death Metal, Florida Death Metal, Rock And Roll Hotel . Tags: Cannibal Corpse, Contest, Death Metal, Free, Free TIckets, Heavy Metal, Hour Of Penance, Misery Index, Music, Rock And Roll Hotel, Washington DC . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 45 Comments

Municipal Waste and Napalm Death at Empire

Friday the 26th of October 2012 was one hell of a fun night. Municipal Waste and Napalm Death were kicking off their co-headlining tour with Exhumed and Vektor at Empire (formerly Jaxx) in Springfield, Virginia that night and you just knew a line up like that was going to result in an awesome night. Apparently a lot of you had the same idea as the place was pretty packed. It was probably the best turn out I’ve seen at Empire since the new management took over back in January.

There were a couple of local openers to start the show off but I didn’t get there until Vektor was just beginning their set. They play a futuristic tech-thrash that is pretty damn fun to watch live. Their songs are long but they go all over the place so you never feel bored listening to them. The crowd surfers were already starting during their set. I had seen Vektor headline a show in mid September (ready my review of that show here) and while they didn’t play as long of a set, it was still cool seeing them on a proper stage. Also, guitarist David DiSanto was playing a new guitar this time. After Vektor played it was time for Exhumed to unleash their gory death metal on the crowd. They were as fast and brutal as ever and they’re the kind of band you can tell is having a lot of fun on stage. They had their crazy chainsaw surgeon guy come out on stage a few times with his real chain saw that he was waving over the audience and they even had blood splatter onto some of the people up close when he pulled out a decapitated head. Exhumed opened their set with several songs off their latest album, All Guts, No Glory, but started playing older songs midway through their set. They ended their set with their classic The Matter Of Splatter which really had people going nuts in the pit. Two bands in and this show was already kicking some serious ass!

Napalm Death was the next band to take the stage. They’re one of the fathers of grindcore and have consistently put out good material since they formed 31 years ago (although none of the current members have been in the band prior to 1987). In addition to that they’re also known for being one of the best live bands in extreme metal. As they opened their set they showed that their age was not slowing them down a bit. I had seen them in May at Maryland Deathfest X but this time the audience was much closer up to the band and the setting was definitely more in your face. Hell, I even saw a guy in a banana costume stage dive during their set (photo of that below). Napalm Death’s vocalist, Barney Greenway, was as spastic as ever on stage, pacing back and forth between bursts of vocal rage and showing that he’s still one of the most ferocious live vocalists in metal. Their set contained mostly material from the past 10 years or so but they did sprinkle in some key tracks from older albums throughout the set. For some reason the band played their infamous Guinness World Record holding one second track You Suffer two times during their set, that was a new one. I didn’t love their latest release, Utilitarian, because a Napalm Death album with clean vocal parts just doesn’t sound right to me. Even so, when they played The Wolf I Feed, a song from that album, it still fit in well with the rest of the songs they played despite the clean back up singing. Napalm Death played a thoroughly brutal set from start to finish and the audience seemed to love every minute of it, myself included.

The final band of the night was Richmond, Virginia’s Municipal Waste. They’re a party thrash metal band and they’re known for having a totally wild live show. Most of the band’s songs revolve around binge drinking and partying and they readily encourage stage divers. However if you stay on stage too long you’ll get an atomic wedgie, which vocalist Tony Foresta explained by making an example of one lingering stage diver during the show. They got the crowd going from the start with their songs Headbanger Face Rip and Mind Eraser. Tony said that since the band had toured so much lately they wanted to change up the set list some. This included playing A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Destroyer) for the first time ever live as well as playing the first song Municipal Waste ever wrote, Thrashin’s My Business… And Business Is Good. You can see the full set list here. The band was a bit sloppy but it didn’t matter, they’re more about having fun than playing perfectly. Guitarist Ryan Waste was sporting a new custom guitar that had a body shaped like a big M and W. At one point Tony mentioned that he didn’t like most modern thrash bands, but that he definitely approved of Vektor. An odd opinion since Municipal Waste is one of the biggest modern thrash bands. The shred-fest went on for over an hour and the mosh pit went crazy all night. Crowd surfers and stage divers were a constant presence and I’m sure a lot of people were nursing bruises afterwards, but they were well worth it to be in the middle of all the fun. As usual, you can see my photos of the bands I was there for below. I didn’t get shots of all of the band members throughout the night because it was hard to move around the wild audience that close to the stage and I was not trying to damage my camera with all the crowd surfers over head either. I have some video footage of Municipal Waste as well but due to complications from Hurricane Sandy I haven’t been able to upload those yet. I hope to add them to the end of this post in a day or two. It was great to see such a good turn out for a metal show at Empire and I hope to see more of you out at metal shows soon to help support the scene you’re a part of!

Vektor:

Exhumed:

Napalm Death:

Municipal Waste:

November 1, 2012
Categories: Concert Reviews, Death Metal, Empire, Grind, Thrash Metal . Tags: Concert Review, Concert Reviews, Empire, Exhumed, Municipal Waste, Napalm Death, Vektor . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 6 Comments

Pig Destroyer at the Ottobar

On Friday the 19th of October 2012 I headed up to the Ottobar in Baltimore to see Pig Destroyer perform at their album release show. Their new album, Book Burner, is their first full length release in over 5 years and anticipation for the album has been high not only in the DC area, which the band is from, but in the overall world of metal fandom. I missed the opening act, Wargames, though they’re a Baltimore based hardcore band so they’ll probably be playing in the area again soon. Royal Thunder was the first band I saw play. They’re a slow paced hard rock/metal band from Atlanta and while I didn’t think they were all that bad, they were certainly out of place on this bill. The crowd who showed up to see a spastic grindcore band wasn’t really interested in seeing a drowsy southern rock band with clean vocals. Royal Thunder, along with Pig Destroyer, is signed to Relapse. I guess they were just trying to get Royal Thunder more exposure by adding them to this line up but they really sucked the energy out of the place. Luckily the next band, Baltimore natives Necropsy, came to the rescue with their set and got the mosh pits started. They play some catchy death/thrash and they are really fun to watch live. They’re all pretty young, I’m not sure if any of them are over 21, but they are certainly worth checking out if you haven’t seen them yet. They’ll be opening the first day of Maryland Deathfest next May. The next band to play was Washington DC’s own Ilsa. I’ve seen them a ton of times and as always they brought the heavy, chugging riffage doused in crusty filth. They started their performance off by throwing stripper glitter on the people standing close to the stage and I have to say that was rather unexpected. Just when you think you’ve seen it all at a metal concert… Anyways, Ilsa was in really good form, mostly playing songs from their upcoming album Intoxicantations which is due out on Black Friday (Nov 23rd) from A389 Records. I’ve got the set list posted here if you’d like to see it. They didn’t play the song Frostthrower, a personal favorite of mine, but it didn’t matter, they’ve got a lot of great songs and you could tell the audience agreed. They were loving the weight of the band’s sound and I’m sure Ilsa won some new fans with their performance.

After Ilsa’s killer set it was time for Pig Destroyer. They don’t play a lot of shows in the area and there was a good sized crowd out for this rare appearance by the local grindcore legends. Vocalist JR Hayes (who I recently interviewed here) was rather jovial between songs then like a light switch he would just turn on his pent up rage and funnel it through his throat. He was like a caged wild animal suddenly set free into the confusing world with his microphone as his only weapon. Guitarist Scott Hull stayed pretty cool on the left side of the stage, grinding out his bizarrely unique riffs as the songs jarringly started and stopped. This was the first time I had seen Pig Destroyer with with their new drummer, Adam Jarvis (also of Misery Index) and apparently it was his birthday as well. Even after taking birthday whiskey shots on stage he still ripped through those crazy Pig Destroyer songs with total precision. The band doesn’t have a bass player but they do have Blake Harrison who basically “plays” some sort of DJ console making noises and adding clips and samples to their songs. Since a lot of what Blake does is basically prerecorded he spends a lot of time on stage essentially acting as a hype man by helping pump up the crowd and keep them into the show. There were also a few guest appearances during the set. Kat Katz (vocalist for the now defunct DC doom band Salome) performed vox on a few songs and the Grindfather, aka Richard Johnson of Drugs Of Faith, did some guest vocals as well. Pig Destroyer’s set list didn’t include a whole lot from the new album though they did play a cover of a Void song. You can see their full set list here. Overall it was a great performance by one of DC’s biggest bands and it was awesome to see them in a local venue. During Pig Destroyer’s set I was up front trying to get some photos and videos and, unsurprisingly, the crowd was wild, hyper and just violent overall. I’m lucky I didn’t damage my camera but I think it was worth it to get some straight on, close up shots from this rare show. The videos are all the way at the end, I hope you enjoy them. Until next time, stay metal everyone and support the scene you’re a part of!

Royal Thunder:

Necropsy:

Ilsa:

Pig Destroyer:

October 25, 2012
Categories: Concert Reviews, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Grind, Local Band Info, Ottobar, Thrash Metal, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: Album Release Show, Book Burner, CD Release Show, Concert Review, Concert Reviews, Grind, Grindcore, Heavy Metal, Ilsa, Necropsy, Pig Destroyer, Royal Thunder . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 2 Comments

Dethklok ticket give away

If you’re a metal head and you’ve got a TV then you’ve probably seen Metalocalypse on the Cartoon Network‘s Adult Swim. The humorous show is about the fictitious metal band Dethklok which Brendon Small, the show’s creator and song writer, brings to life using animated back drops behind live musicians (including the legendary Gene Hoglan on drums!) playing the Dethklok tunes. Well Dethklok has just put out a new release, Dethalbum III, and so they’re hitting the road again. On Friday the 2nd of November 2012 they’ll be playing at the Fillmore in Silver Spring, Maryland and DCHeavyMetal.com wants to give you a free pair of tickets to this show! To enter just tell me who your favorite member of Dethklok is and why by leaving a comment on this post. Just to help remind you, the members are: Nathan Explosion, Skwisgaar Skwigelf, Toki Wartooth, William Murderface and Pickles. On Friday, October 26th at 5pm EST one lucky winner will be picked at random (using Random.org) from all valid entries to win a pair of tickets to the show. If I don’t hear from you in 24 hours then I’ll pick another winner to get the tickets so be sure to use an email address you check regularly so you’ll be able to claim your prize. Don’t worry, I won’t add you to any email lists or anything like that, I hate spam too. If you enter more than once then all of your entries will be disqualified. And if you cannot make it to the show please don’t enter because I want people who can actually attend to get the tickets! If you simply can’t wait to find out if you have won or not, or the contest is already over, you can buy tickets to the show for $35 from Live Nation here.

Dethklok is the headliner but don’t think they’re the only band worth seeing on this tour because there are some killer support acts as well. Direct support comes from Boston’s All That Remains. Their new album, A War You Cannot Win comes out on November 6th and I’m betting you’ll be able to hear some of those new songs live at this show before it is even released! Machine Head will also be playing and these Bay Area shredders will be sure to bring the heavy. Be sure to get there early to check out opening act The Black Dahlia Murder as this Michigan band plays some of the songs from their latest album, Ritual, live for the first time in this area. Still not convinced this show is going to kick ass? Then check out the music videos below, one by each band, and enter the contest while you’re getting your headbang on!