This blog specializes in heavy metal music and how it relates to Washington DC and the surrounding area. Featuring info on upcoming metal concerts in Washington DC, Baltimore and Virginia, as well as info on local bands, area concert venues, reviews of live gigs, and lots of give aways.
Katatonia is coming all the way from Sweden to play the Black Cat on Wednesday, November 9th, and they’re bringing The Ocean Collective and Cellar Darling with them! Even better, DCHM is giving away a pair of tickets to this very show! All you need to do to enter: is just tell me your favorite band to listen to when you want to get into the Halloween mood. Then on Halloween, Monday October 31st, at 5pm Eastern the winner will be selected from all valid entries using Random.org. Be sure to use a valid email you check regularly when you enter so I can contact you if you win. Don’t worry, I won’t add you to any spam lists or sell your info or anything sleazy like that. If the selected winner hasn’t written me back within 24 hours another winner will be selected. If you can’t wait to see if you win or the contest is already over when you read this, then you can purchase tickets here.
This show is going to be the first night of the North American tour and Katatonia has a new album coming out in January titled Sky Void of Stars. Hopefully we’ll get to hear some of these new tunes on the tour (and be sure to check their music embedded video below for one of the new songs). Also along on the tour is the German band The Ocean Collective. Their proggy post-metal sound is a perfect compliment to Katatonia, and you should also check out their video embedded below for a song they did that features Katatonia’s vocalist Jonas Renkse. Cellar Darling is an up and coming Swiss band with progressive leanings and all three of the band’s members are former members of Eluveitie. Anyways, go check out the music videos by all three of these great bands and leave a comment telling me what your favorite band to get you into the Halloween mood is!
Katatonia – Atrium
The Ocean – Jurassic | Cretaceous (feat. Jonas Renkse)
I was a guest on the latest episode of DCBeer.com‘s podcast, The DC Beer Show. I talk about the fallout from the sudden shut down (to the public) of Atlas brewery’s Ivy City location, how the local metal scene got involved with the local beer scene to begin with, and how we’re starting to get metal shows going at the DC Brau brewery! Click the play button below to listen or see the post on DC Beer here.
The Headbanger’s Hangover radio show that I host every weekend has moved from Sunday mornings to Saturday evenings at 6pm! Since the show isn’t in the morning any more I have changed the name to the Metal Embassy, yes, the same name of my short lived podcast. You can listen to the Metal Embassy radio show live in the DMV area on 1190 AM every Saturday from 6pm to 7pm or livestream it here OR if you are busy at that time you can listen to the latest episode any time during the week by going here and clicking “download latest episode” to either stream it (left click) or download it as an mp3 (right click).
I’ve been trying to do something different on Metal Embassy than what I’ve heard out there in other places. I’ve found that Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music are all suggesting new music to people based on similar algorithms that are designed to steer people to larger and more established bands. I’m not saying larger bands shouldn’t get promotion, hell I’ll even play some on the show when they release something interesting, but maybe they shouldn’t be the only bands getting promotion, ya know? So with that in mind each week I’m scouring local releases, national bands and bands from all over the world (yes the entire world, not just the Western world) for new hard rock and heavy metal music. If you’re looking for a metal show to play a bunch of classic Slayer and Metallica songs this is not it. If you’re frustrated trying to find new music beyond the same old algorithm suggestions, well give my show a listen and maybe you’ll discover some new bands at least. Additionally, near the end of each episode I talk about the upcoming week’s metal shows in the DMV area and I’ll usually play a track or two by some of those bands to help you discover some new live music as well. You’re not going to find a show that does that anywhere else!
To give you an idea of what the show is about, check out this past week’s track list (4/9/2022), and give it a listen here.
Pink Floyd – “Hey Hey Rise Up (featuring Andriy Khlyvnyuk of BoomBox)”
From England/Ukraine – Release Date: 4/7/22
The Zeta – “La flor de la palabra”
From Venezuela/Florida – Release Date: 4/22/22
Clutch – “Red Alert (Boss Metal Zone)”
From Maryland – Release Date: 4/5/22
Cave In – “Blinded By a Blaze”
From Boston – Release Date: 5/20/22
Kontinuum – “Hafið Logar”
From Iceland – Release Date: 4/5/22
End Boss – “Nail and Tooth”
From New Zealand – Release Date: 4/8/22
Steak – “Papa’s Special Custard”
From England – Release Date: 4/1/22
Just thought I’d make a round up of some great recent (nothing before January 2022) and upcoming local releases to check out. If you’re in a band I missed feel free to email me at DCHeavyMetal@Gmail.com and I’ll add your release too!
The first one isn’t even an album but local politician (elected delegate of Virgina’s 13th district) and metal head Danica Roem made these awesome metal style campaign shirts as a fund raiser for her campaign. Order soon (here) as they won’t be available very long.
Weed Coughin is, as you might expect, a stoner band, though they’ve got some grimy sludge aspects to their sound as well. The Frederick, Maryland based band released their debut album, Other Worldly, on January 31st.
The Dregs play sludge/doom and released a 2 song EP titled Nightshade on February 25th.
A Sound of Thunder released a new music video on February 25th for their song, Theme from Shadowman, which is an official tie-in to the Valiant Comics character Shadowman. You can purchase the single here. They’ve also got a new album out in May and you can find more info on that later in this post.
Haunted Shores is an instrumental side project of Periphery guitarists Mark Holcomb and Misha Mansoor that is a lot more intense than their djent main band. They released their first album since 2011, titled Void, on March 11th but it isn’t on Bandcamp so you’ll have to check this link for the different places to buy it.
Kontusion is a new two piece death metal band featuring DC’s own Chris Moore on drums (Repulsion, D.O.C., ex-Magrudergrind) along with Mark Bronzino (Iron Reagan, Mammoth Grinder) and if the first track they’ve released is any indication, their debut EP (out March 25th) is going to rip!
Day of Departure is a DC based progressive band and they are set to release their self titled debut full length on March 25th.
Darkest Hour plays hardcore infused melodic death metal and they are releasing a 2 song EP with both tracks being not just re-mastered versions of older songs but entirely re-recorded versions of those songs. It’s out on April 1st, which is a Bandcamp Friday.
False Church plays intense metallic hardcore and their debut album, Dystopian Dissent, is being released by Horror Pain Gore Death Productions on April 22nd (preorders are available now though).
No/Más is an exciting grind band from DC and they’re releasing their debut album on Closed Casket Activities on April 29th. You can pre-order (including vinyl) here and listen to their new track “Exile” below.
Iris Divine is a progressive metal band from Northern Virginia and they currently have a Kickstarter campaign running for their upcoming third album, Mercurial. They already have most of the recording process completed they’re just looking for funding to get everything out to fans, which is expected to be in May. They’ve already met their funding goal but you can still pledge through April 6th to get your copy through the Kickstarter campaign here.
A Sound of Thunder has a new album, The Krimson Kult, out on May 20th, that was inspired by events that took place during the pandemic.
Black Lung from Baltimore plays psychedelic doom and they’ve got a new full length album, titled Dark Waves coming out on Heavy Psych Sounds on May 27th.
Stellar Death is a proggy instrumental metal band with spacey sci-fi flourishes. Their new EP Sentient (Chapter 1) will be out on June 10th via Bravemusic.
Yatra from Ocean City plays some heavy sludge along the lines of High on Fire and Lord Dying. They announced that their new full length album, Born into Chaos will be out June 10th on Prosthetic Records but you can already listen to a track and pre-order it now.
Omicron has come and gone and shows are starting to happen again, including with international bands. We here at DCHM are super psyched for the Norwegian prog band Leprous to take the stage at the Black Cat on Friday, March 11th, that we’re giving away a free pair of tickets to the show! All you need to do to enter: is just leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite album release during the pandemic is. It can be a live album, split, compilation or anything, just as long as it is from March 2020 or newer. Tuesday, March 8th at 5pm Eastern the winner will be selected from all valid entries using Random.org. Be sure to use a valid email you check regularly when you enter so I can contact you if you win. Don’t worry, I won’t add you to any spam lists or sell your info or anything sleazy like that. If the selected winner hasn’t written me back within 24 hours another winner will be selected. If you can’t wait to see if you win or the contest is already over when you read this, then you can purchase tickets here.
I discovered the band Leprous when they performed at Maryland Deathfest in 2013 as the backing band for Ihsahn (of Emperor) for his solo performance. However Leprous has created a legacy all their own in the progressive metal world releasing a diverse seven full length albums, including last year’s Aphelion album. The band has a way of taking elements from several different genres and still making it sound like “Leprous” no matter what they’re doing. Support on this tour is another favorite of mine, the German band The Ocean, who play a epic style of heavy metal with lots of progressive elements. All in all if you’re into prog you’re not going to want to miss this chance to see two of Europe’s best share the stage in DC. Now check out these videos of Leprous and The Ocean and leave a comment below telling me your favorite album released during the pandemic!
Sundays from 9am to 10am I’ll be hosting a new radio show on 1190 AM WCRW that I’ve decided to name the Headbanger’s Hangover. You’ll also be able to stream the show online during that time here. I won’t be playing anything super brutal, no harsh or growled vocals and no blast beats, but I’ll be playing hard rock along the lines of desert rock, stoner, psych, grunge, and bands will be local, national and international as well. Feel free to email me at DCHeavyMetal@Gmail.com if you’ve got song/band suggestions or any other suggestions for the show.
WCRW is a 50kw station, so you can pick it up on your radio dial throughout the DMV area (the signal coverage map is below). This thing sort of landed on my lap so I’m running with it.
DCHeavyMetal.com 