Venue Changes Around The Area

There’s been a lot going on at several concert venues in the area recently. The biggest story is probably that the Fillmore will be opening on September 15th in Silver Spring, Maryland. The original Fillmore is in San Francisco and during the 60’s helped spawn many of the era’s biggest hippy bands, such as the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin. Now there are several Fillmores around the country and it’s the DC area’s turn to get one. The Silver Spring location is a two level 2,000 person capacity venue. For comparison the 9:30 Club holds around 1,200. The first concert there is Mary J. Blige on September 15th, but the first metal show will be on Friday, September 23rd with Bring Me The Horizon. There are more metal shows coming as well, including Yngwie Malmsteen and Between The Buried And Me with Animals As Leaders. The venue is located inside what used to be a JC Penny and is run by Live Nation (who have merged with Ticketmaster) who also runs Jiffy Lube Live. I am excited to check out this brand new venue in the suburbs of DC and hopefully they’ll get even more metal concerts in the future.

Another big change happening in the area is the management of Jaxx Nightclub in Springfield, Virginia. The venue has been run by Jay Nedry since June 1994 but he has decided to sell Jaxx to Jason Malhoyt and Jeff Cohen of Outerloop. They will run the day to day operations of the venue starting on January 1st of 2012 though Jay will still book several shows a month for them, mostly the glam/hair bands, death metal acts and various European black and power metal bands. You can read Jay’s statement about the sale here. You can already see some changes at the venue though, the new website design is an obvious one. Unfortunately the calendar is awful to navigate and opening local bands are often not listed on it either. The new logo and site layout does look nice though. Outerloop has also recently taken over Alley Katz in Richmond, Virginia and renamed it Kingdom. It is still closed right now, but it will be opening for the first time under the new management on October 8th when Periphery plays there. Both Jaxx and Alley Katz/Kingdom appear to be switching their ticket sales to a company called Amped & Alive, which also seems to have ties to Outerloop, though I’m not 100% sure what they are exactly.

Up in Baltimore you’ll see that Bourbon Street hasn’t been booking any more shows. The venue is apparently closing down, though the people running it appear to be moving to a new Baltimore venue named the Baltimore Soundstage. This new venue is in the inner harbor area and will hold 1,000 people. However, on select nights they’ll have seated shows that will hold 500 people. I think this is going to be a table setting similar to what you’d find at the State Theatre or the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. There will also be a full menu with things like crab cakes as well as a full bar with wine, beer and liquor. The venue will open on Saturday, September 3rd when Milkman plays there, though the first metal show will be Devin Townsend and Anathema on Wednesday 12 October. The venue is going to sell its tickets through Ticket Fly, the same company that handles ticketing for the 9:30 Club and Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Aside from Bourbon Street, there have been a few venue closings and other problems of late with area venues. The Hexagon, a DIY space in Baltimore, closed on May 20th. Really it was more of an eviction and you can read their post about that here. So Addictive Lounge in Herndon, Virginia had long been holding Metal Monday local metal band spotlight shows every week before they decided they’d convert to being a gay bar seven days a week. However, the Metal Mondays are not entirely dead as the people behind them have been hosting various metal shows at the Old Firestation #3 (aka Firehouse Grill) in Fairfax City. Now you can see local talent as well as touring bands play there, and it’s still just $5 to get in. Hole In The Sky, a DIY venue in Northeast Washington DC, was shut down by police in the middle of a concert on February 16th. They’ve since done things like build a fire escape staircase to get up to code and have reopened, though they don’t seem to be hosting concerts very often and certainly not metal shows. Silver Spring, Maryland’s DIY space dubbed the Corpse Fortress has been condemned after 5 years of awesome shows. Everyone has to be out by October 1st but there will still be a final show there on September 24th. More info on why it is being shut down is here. This is a huge blow to the area’s DIY scene, metal or otherwise. It had just recently gotten a kick ass paint job in the basement where bands perform, which you can see here.

All is not lost though! There’s the Palace Of Wonders and The Red & The Black which have merged to form the Red Palace on H Street in Northeast DC. They get occasional metal shows, including a special free performance by Clutch that’s coming up on Monday the 29th of August. And while Sonar had a big problem with liquor licenses and almost shut down temporarily back in May (more on that here), it seems it was just a hiccup and they are back to running things as usual again now (although the lot across the street from venue is now metered and thus no longer free to park in). The Quarry House Tavern in Silver Spring, Maryland seems to be getting more metal shows as well (Auroboros will be performing there this Sunday, the 28th of August for a matinee show at 2pm) and I’d expect to see more metal gigs get shifted there once Corpse Fortress is gone. There’s also a new DIY house venue that’s starting to host a few metal shows in Annandale, Virginia that is called the Cellar Door.

So there is a lot changing in the area’s venues and hopefully this article will help encourage some of you to get out to an extra concert or two that you might not have before. Remember, if you’re looking for info on any of these venues’ upcoming metal shows be sure to check out the DC Heavy Metal upcoming concert calendar here. If you want to know more about any of these venues, including their addresses, links to their website, Facebook page or Twitter, or even on how to book a show there check out the Venue page here.

August 26, 2011
Categories: Baltimore Soundstage, Bourbon Street, Concert Reviews, Corpse Fortress, Fillmore Silver Spring, Firehouse Grill, Hole In The Sky, Jaxx Nightclub, Red Palace, So Addictive Lounge, Sonar, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 1 Comment

Summer Slaughter Ticket Give Away

The Summer Slaughter Tour is coming to Washington DC this year and this wouldn’t be DCHeavyMetal.com if I wasn’t giving away tickets to this heavy concert! They’re coming to the 9:30 Club on Monday, August 15th, 2011. All you have to do to enter to win is post a comment below telling me which of the 10 bands on this tour you are the most excited to see play (they’re listed in the paragraph below). One winner will be chosen at random from all valid entries to win a pair of tickets to the concert, awesome! Make sure you enter in a valid email address you check regularly when you submit your comment so I can contact you if you win, though it doesn’t need to be in the comment itself. Don’t worry I won’t add you to a list or anything, I hate spam as much as you do. On Friday, August 12th at 5pm EST the concert will end and I’ll select a winner at random (using Random.org) from all the comments below to win the pair of tickets. UPDATE: I’m going to extend this one an extra 24 hours, so you have until 5pm EST on Saturday August 13th! If the winner doesn’t respond within 24 hours I’ll pick another winner. Don’t be a jerk and enter multiple times or I’ll disqualify all your entries.

This year’s Summer Slaughter Tour is making it’s only area stop at the 9:30 Club on this Monday afternoon in August. There’s a total of 10 bands on this tour, but what really makes this show special is that two of them are a couple of local bands I know you have heard of before, Darkest Hour and Dying Fetus! That’s right, they’re both on the tour and are coming through with headliners The Black Dahlia Murder and White Chapel. If that wasn’t good enough there’s Six Feet Under, which is the current band of original Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes and also features Terry Butler on bass who played in Death on the Leprosy and Spiritual Healing albums. There’s also the video game themed metal band Powerglove who will be doing some sort of half time show. I’m not sure what that entails but they tend to wear costumes that are some sort of cross between Gwar and 90s video game characters. But that’s not all, there’s also several other bands, namely: As Blood Runs Black, Oceano, Fleshgod Apocalypse and Within The Ruins. This show is going to be big! If you can’t wait for the contest to end or if you don’t win you can get tickets from Ticket Fly for $24 here. Doors open really early for this one, 2:30 pm in the afternoon so be sure to bring a few dollars for food as the evening goes on. The 9:30 Club has a full menu and there’s also several local restaurants within walking distance along U Street that you can hit up as well. There is re-entry, just make sure you get your hand stamped to get back in. If you’re still not sure which band to pick just check out this video which is a short sampler of all the bands on the tour.

August 8, 2011
Categories: Contests, Death Metal, Local Band Info, Metalcore, Nightclub 9:30, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 27 Comments

The History Of Witch-Hunt

Well since there aren’t any shows I’ll be going to this week for me to review, I wanted to at least write about SOMETHING here and DCHeavyMetal.com reader James gave me the idea of talking about one of the local bands in the area. Well, I didn’t want to deal with picking favorites, so I’ve decided to write a sort of local heavy metal history lesson about a now broken up band from Northern Virginia, Witch-Hunt. Witch-Hunt was a black metal band that formed in 1992, put out a few demos and a couple of full lengths and eventually broke up in 2004. I really didn’t know who they were until an old friend of mine, Dave Schmidt, took over vocal duties for them. I started looking into their back catalog then and digging up their history.

In the summer of 1992 the brothers Brian and Ben Straight formed Witch-Hunt Witch-Hunt - Darkened Salvationand put out three demos over the next couple years, First Kill, Born Dead and Fearless. I’ve never heard these so I can’t really comment on their sound. However, it was in 1994 when Erik Sayenga moved up to Northern Virginia from Florida and began playing with the band as the bass player (even though he was a drummer). This line up put out the demo Darkened Salvation in 1994 which started to get them noticed in the area as well as in the international underground tape trading scene. Again, I haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy of this so I don’t really know what it sounds like. During this early period in the band’s life they were playing local gigs, mostly at the Teen Hut and a place in Dumfries, Virginia called Tiki Fala.

After releasing the demos they put out their first album, Prophecies Of A Great Plague in 1996 on X-Rated Records. By this point Ben had moved and thus left the band and Erik took over the drums. Seth Newton was added to the line up to play additional guitars and also keyboards. The total playing time of Prophecies Of A Great Plague was under 25 minutes long so it’s really more of an EP. A few of the songs are worth hearing, Witch-Hunt - Prophecies Of A Great Plagueparticularly the lead off track Fragments and the track A World Lit Only By Fire. The album’s production is primitive but still listenable. You couldn’t just download Pro Tools from the Pirate Bay back in those days, but there really aren’t any mid-nineties American black metal albums that had stellar recording quality. At that point the band kept it to a fairly slow tempo for black metal. This recording is closer in pace to something like the first two Dimmu Borgir albums (but without keyboards dominating the other instruments) than say Marduk or Mayhem. Hell, this album would probably be called blackened melodic death metal these days. They started playing shows along the east coast until the band went on hold for a little while when Erik Sayenga joined Dying Fetus as the touring drummer and went around the US with them. Upon his return Brian Straight decided to quit the band to pursue a professional career outside of music, leaving Seth Newton to take over vocals and all instruments other than the drums.

This line up, really just Seth and Erik, wrote and recorded nine new Erik Sayenga and Seth Newton of Witch-Huntsongs that they finally released as Souls Enshrouded Fire in 2000, also on X-Rated. This album is quite a step up from Prophecies Of A Great Plague in both production and song writing. The band picked up the pace considerably on this album. They added more keyboards to the mix as well as some guest female vocal parts on a couple songs. The guest vocalist is Dawn Desireé (from Rain Fell Within) and her performance on the song Enshrouded is as excellent as you’d expect from someone who I would call the best female vocalist to ever play Witch-Hunt - Souls Enshrouded Firein a metal band in this area. Her haunting voice makes the track my favorite on the album. Also worth hearing a few times are the songs Ablaze Thy Majestic Kingdom as well as And The Sun Fell Forever, just some solid local old school black metal there. The album as a whole has a much stronger European metal influence in the sound and is one of my favorite black metal releases from the DC area. After this release the band added Richard Johnson on vocals and guitarist Eric Buchannan as well as a guy that I only know of as “Phil” on bass. They started playing more shows with this line up and they severed ties with X-Rated around this time as well.

After drummer Kevin Talley, along with Jason Netherton and Sparky Voyles, quit Dying Fetus to go form Misery Index, Erik Sayenga once again joined Dying Fetus, this time as a full time member. He did a few tours with them and can even be heard drumming on Stop At Nothing, the 2003 full length release by Dying Fetus. During this time Witch-Hunt had several line up changes. Richard and Phil both left the band. My friend Dave Schmidt joined the band on vocals, as well as Fionn Himmel, aka Camulus, who became the new bass player. In 2002 this line up put out a new demo to shop for a new label with. It only had two songs on it but it is by far the fastest and most brutal material the band ever put out. Quite an impressive leap musically compared to their previous releases, though I have to say the mix on the recording isn’t very good. The core of the Witch-Hunt sound is still there, but the songs are faster and yet the band is very tight. This demo allowed them to get booked as the opening act for Polish death metal legends Vader on their European tour in September of 2002. UPDATE: Turns out I got this wrong and this was really Erik touring with Dying Fetus opening for Vader. Do’h!

While the band seemed to be doing better than ever they were suffering from a lot of internal strife. Unfortunately they ended up disbanding in the fall of 2004 due to continuous infighting. Erik Sayenga quit Dying Fetus in 2005 and focused on other projects, including Warthrone. In that band Ghost Storm Eulogy by WarThronehe joined former Witch-Hunt vocalist Richard Johnson and they actually retooled the songs from the Witch-Hunt 2002 demo. These songs were released on the first Warthrone album, titled Ghost Storm Eulogy. The band has since moved to Florida and I haven’t really heard anything from them since. Erik also played in a band called Mordichrist with Chaq Mol of Dark Funeral. It’s a pretty interesting project that is worth checking out, sort of black/sludge/doom with female vox. Witch-Hunt bass player Camulus went on to do his own thing in a solo project also called Camulus (changed name to Fuamnach at some point) as well as playing with the folk metal band Andsvara. My friend Dave, who is only on Witch-Hunt’s final recording, went on to play in several other Wolfsschanze - Dave is centerlocal metal bands, notably Bethledeign, Black Horizon and as one of the two founding members of Wolfsschanze. Now he’s a machine gunner in the US Army. Brian Straight apparently now lives in Colombia and I found a blog post of his from about a year ago that was very useful in researching this blog post. I’m not sure what happened to the other members of Witch-Hunt. Since Witch-Hunt broke up before the days where every band had a MySpace page you won’t find them there. They used to post some of their songs for free download, though their website is long gone now. So if you’d like to hear them I’ve taken the liberty of uploading what material of theirs I do have and you can download that here for free. I have also posted all of the old flyers and photographs I’ve found of the band doing research for this post, most from the mid nineties. Some are old pictures of the band with people like Corpsegrinder, Jason Netherton of Misery Index, John Gallagher of Dying Fetus, and even one with the legendary Chuck Schuldinger. You can check all of those out here. If anyone in the band is pissed I’ve posted these let me know and I’ll take them down. If anyone reading this has got any of their demos from before Prophecies Of A Great Plague I’d love to hear them, leave a comment and maybe we can work out a way where I can get a copy. I hope you all enjoyed hearing about this once great band from the DC metal scene, they were too good to just be forgotten so hopefully this post will help keep their music alive.

July 27, 2011
Categories: Black Metal, Local Band Info, Melodic Black Metal, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 15 Comments

Get a free copy of Splitting Sky the new Borracho CD

Borracho is a term for a drunkard in Spanish, but it’s also the name of a kick ass metal band based in Washington DC. They are releasing their new album, Splitting Sky, today and since they’re great guys they’re letting me give away 15 copies of it to the readers of DCHeavyMetal.com! All you’ve got to do to enter in the contest is tell me in the comments below a local band you’d like to see play with Borracho at their CD release show. They’re looking for suggestions so help em out! The contest will end when I have a total of 30 valid entries OR at 6pm EST on Friday 8 July 2011, which ever is first. If the contest doesn’t get 30 entries then less free copies will be given away (I’ll try to keep it so at least half of the entries are winners). Help spread the word so we can get to 30 quickly and more people can get a copy. You can use this short link: http://wp.me/pDCET-Wh When the contest is over I’ll chose, at random from all valid entries, 10 people to get a free digital download of Splitting Sky, and then 4 more to win physical copies of the CD and one grand prize winner to get a physical copy of the CD that is autographed by all four of the members of Borracho as well as a sweet Borracho t-shirt. Be sure to use a valid email address when you make your comments below so I can contact you when you win. The guys gave me an advance copy of their new album and here’s my take on what you can expect from it.

The Splitting Sky album is a heavy mix of stoner rock and doom metal with southwestern influences. Borracho has put a lot of work into getting their songs to sound just right and it shows, from the song writing to the production they’ve done a great job here. There’s lots of crunchy riffs that aren’t just heavy but are also infectiously catchy and memorable. The vocal style is raspy and blue collar, somewhere between Lemmy and James Hetfield, though not over the top so as to detract from the instruments. The rhythm section keeps these songs moving forward even when they slow way down. It’s not all super slow though, for example Concentric Circles picks up the pace quite nicely early on in the album. The album is a very solid 8 tracks long, all but two are longer than 6 minutes which lets the songs really progress well, even when the tempo slows down. The epic 11 minute song Grab The Reins is a great example of this, with a lead in riff that sounds like it would fit nicely on Black Sabbath’s Master Of Reality. Borracho is based inside Washington DC and along with bands like Pentagram, King Giant, and (the now defunct) Salome, they’re helping to remind everyone that this area is still a city for excellent heavy stoner and doom. You can download Splitting Sky right now in a variety of ways, iTunes here, Amazon here, or get a physical copy of the album on CD Baby here. If all that isn’t convincing enough to make you a Borracho fan, check out this song below, titled Bloodsucker, which is track three on Splitting Sky.

June 28, 2011
Categories: Doom Metal, Local Band Info, Shameless Promotion, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 29 Comments

DCHeavyMetal.com vs Inverted Umlaut

I was fortunate enough to be asked to guest co-host on the Inverted Umlaut pirate radio show/podcast last night for a special on heavy metal in the Washington DC area. DJ Young Padawan was really cool and let me pick the playlist too, which I’ve posted below. The show plays metal every Monday night from 9pm to 11pm on Radio CPR 97.5 FM on the radio dial if you’re in North West DC, or you can stream it from their website here (just click “listen live” on the right). If you missed the show last night don’t worry, they post every episode as a podcast the next day, and you can download the episode I was on by going here. Thanks to everyone who tuned in, I wish I could have played dozens more bands but I still think I got a good mix in the two hours I had. I tried to keep the playlist current and most of the songs are from the past year or two, some haven’t even been officially released yet. Check out the playlist below and feel free to click any of those bands’ names to find out more info on them, get more music from them, etc… Also, several of them are featured in my free local band downloads, which you can find version 1 here and version 2 here. Keep supporting our scene, there’s some great bands out there that are worth taking the time to check out.

Download the podcast here.

Playlist:

Oak – Saline
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Pentagram – 8
Pig Destroyer – Loathsome
Animals As Leaders – CAFO
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Deceased – The Traumatic
Loculus – Hacked Apart
Fierce Allegiance – Devil’s Knight
Magrudergrind – Incapacity Reigns/Stagnant/Heaviest Bombing
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Balor’s Eye – Pissing Rainbows
Ilsa – Frosthrower
The Neologist – A Dress Rehearsal For A Funeral
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Auroboros – Precarious
Division – Short Attention Span Society
Apothys – Venomcrest
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King Giant – Burning Regrets
Wrnlrd – Moonlight Ride
Orgy Of The Damned – Feces Fiend
Gravewürm – Brought Before The Altar
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Borracho – Concentric Circles
Hatred – Red Death
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Wolfsschanze – Peering Through The Looking Glass Of Hatred

April 26, 2011
Categories: Local Band Info, Shameless Promotion, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 3 Comments

Second Wave Of Free Music

It’s been a little while since my last post but I’ve been working on a few things and this is the first one to get finished up. Today is tax day and if you’re like me you’ve waited until the last minute to pay the man, so I figured you all could use some stimulus or at least an early return, so I give you free heavy metal! I’ve scoured the web and talked to local bands to put together this, the second download pack of free music for you readers of DCHeavyMetal.com! It’s got 73 songs by 18 different bands totaling over 5 and a half hours of music. Put it on shuffle or play it straight thru, there’s lots of good stuff here from across the spectrum of metal sub-genres. You can download the zip file with all the songs in it here (wait for the timer to count down then click “regular download”), or you can download the songs only by the bands you want by reading about them below and picking which you want to get. Don’t forget about the Downloads section of DCHeavyMetal.com where you can download the first wave of music that I posted to the site (here). If you like any of these bands give em a “like” on Facebook or follow them on Twitter or go buy some of their merch. Many of them have upcoming concerts in the area soon so check my Upcoming Concerts calendar and be sure to see them live too. Now here’s a run down of the bands in the new download pack:

Absolute Vengeance is a band from the NoVA/DC area that falls somewhere between melodic death metal, thrash and deathcore. They have four songs available as a free download on their Facebook page here, but you’ll have to “like” them first to access that part of their page.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Myspace

Apothys is a blackened death metal band from Northern Virginia and they’re pretty great both live and on their studio recorded EP, Advent: Doom. They’re letting me give away the first track off of that release, titled Venomcrest and that can be downloaded here. Killer song, give em a listen and be sure to catch them live some time.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – Merch

Auroboros is based out of Arlington, Virginia and features Brian Blickle (he played guitar on the first Baroness album) as well as Rob Moore of Salome. Brian has let me put up five demo tracks he recorded, though he is playing all the instruments and vocals (except the drums) and Rob is not on these recordings. These songs are probably not the final versions of them, but they’re what he’s got to put out for now. You can download the songs here and pay what you want. That means you can get it free or you can give them a few dollars to help them pay for a proper recording too.
Facebook – MySpace

Aurora Borealis is a black metal band from Waldorf, Maryland. They’re pretty good and being really cool by giving away their newest album, Timeline: The Beginning And End Of Everything, and are asking for a donation if you like it. You can download it (and donate some money if you’d like to) here.
Website – MySpace – Merch

Billows is a doom metal band, formerly known as Old Crow. They are from the DC area and have a three song demo available as a name your price download which is available here. You can get it for free and if you like it I recommend giving them a few bucks to say thanks. They’re pretty good and have been playing a lot around the area lately too so keep an eye out to catch them live.
Facebook – MySpace

Borracho is a sort of stoner/doom band with a bit of sludge and southwestern elements thrown in too. The name is a slang term for a drunkard in Spanish. They pride themselves in their heavy, repetitive riffs and they’re definitely good at writing them. Check out the three songs they’ve made available for free on their website here.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – Concerts

Cassandra Syndrome is an operatic metal band with a female soprano singer (her name is Irene not Cassandra) and they are from Frederick, Maryland. They also use a Zendrum which is a weird midi based percussion instrument. I don’t generally cover bands out in Frederick but they play the area often enough that they are part of the local metal scene here. They’re kind of goth, kind of fantasy and mythology based, and cover themes of paganism and environmentalism too. They’ve got songs from their demo and their full length both available for free on their website, though I only included the material from the full length in the big download pack because it is newer. The songs from their demo can be downloaded here and the songs from their album are here.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – Merch – Concerts

Deranged Theory is a death/thrash metal band from Northern Virginia. They’re very into things like video games and ancient warfare in the days of the Greeks and Romans. Their lead singer often wears gladiator gear on stage during their live shows. Pretty entertaining and the music is awesome too. They’ve let me post two of their songs as a free download and you can get those here.
Facebook – MySpace

Dragon Wing Begonia is a black metal band from Chantilly, Virginia. They’ve let me put up a two song demo of their material and it’s worth giving a listen. You can download those songs here. They’re pretty young but they’re already decent at putting a song together.
Facebook – MySpace

Gründle Hammer is a death metal band out of Takoma Park, Maryland. I ran into them at the Corpse Fortress and they were handing out demos, which I’ve posted here for you to give a listen to. It’s not studio recordings but a board recording of them playing live so the sound quality isn’t super awesome, but it’ll give you an idea of their sound. You can get it by going here.

The Neologist is a two person band, one living in the DC suburbs of Maryland and the other in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, but that’s still good enough for me to include here. They’ve put together a 12 track album they’re giving away for free and it’s pretty good. You can download it here.
Facebook – MySpace

An Obscure Signal is a metalcore band based out of Rockville, Maryland. They’re starting to get more attention on the national scene and they’re holding a contest right now for fans to basically make a karaoke video of one of their songs from their debut EP, titled Creations. For the contest they’ve posted an instrumental version of the EP as a free download, which is available here. You can get the details on the contest if you’d like to enter here.
Facebook – Twitter – MySpace

Permafrost is black metal band from Alexandria, Virginia. These guys are pretty cool, they’re not only giving away their kick ass demo for free, but they’re the only band I’ve ever seen with recommendations (and links) written on the demo’s liner notes on OTHER local bands to check out. That’s really cool, we need more people like them in our area’s metal scene. Anyways, you can download their demo here.
Facebook – MySpace

Prodigium is a deathcore band out of Manassas Virginia. They’ve posted a free song for download on their Facebook page and you can get that here. I don’t know a whole lot else about them, but hey free local metal is still free local metal!
Facebook – MySpace

Sacrum is a sludgy doom band out of Washington DC. They’re really bassy and heavy as hell. They’re giving away their three track demo for free here, get it now and prepare to be crushed.
Facebook

To The Teeth is a metal band that’s sort of hard to define, genre wise. They’re definitely metal but they draw their influences from a lot of the different subgenres and it’s not that easy to pin down what they are exactly. They’ve got elements of death, hardcore, thrash and tech death too. Whatever it is they pull it all off rather well and you’d be wise to download their three song demo here.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace

Wolfnuke is a blackened thrash metal band from Hagerstown, Maryland. I found out about these guys at one of the Metal Mondays at So Addictive Lounge and they really blew me away. They’re high energy and very polished, and while the songs aren’t super complex, they’re very aggressive and fun to hear. They’ve got some tunes available for free here and I really recommend seeing these guys live too as they really unleash it on stage.
Facebook – MySpace

Yesterday’s Saints is a metal band from Washington DC that plays a very quick paced metal style with clean vocals. They also share a drummer with Loculus, Albert Born, who is also the current drummer in Pentagram. They’ve got a new EP coming out but they have allowed me to post two of the songs from it here as a free download that you can get here.
Website – Facebook – Twitter – MySpace – Merch – Concerts

Well, that’s it. If you’d like your band to be featured in the next download pack (no idea when that will be posted) then just drop me an email at DCHeavyMetal@Gmail.com. Thanks for checking out some of the bands here in the DC area, we’ve got some great bands!

April 18, 2011
Categories: Local Band Info, Shameless Promotion, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: Leave a comment

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