DC Metal Spotlight On Metal Underground

I was asked to write a guest post for one of my favorite metal news websites, MetalUnderground.com, and it went live on the site today. They have a weekly column called Unearthing The Metal Underground where each post explores a different area’s underground metal scene. They asked me to write the one about underground metal in Washington DC and let me pick three bands to go into detail about. I chose to write about Ilsa, Midnight Eye and Borracho for this post, however if the post gets a decent response they said they might let me write another about Northern Virginia or Baltimore or even another DC post. So feel free to leave a comment there or share it with people on Facebook or something if you enjoy it and maybe I’ll get to help expose more of our kick ass local acts to a national audience! You can read the post on Metal Underground here:

http://www.metalunderground.com/news/details.cfm?newsid=72050

Also of note, I had one of my recent videos of Clutch playing a new song at the Red Palace posted on Blabbermouth.net on Saturday, you can check out that post here:

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=163735

And one more thing, and it’s totally unrelated and is really just shameless promotion hardly related to my site, but some good friends of mine have been in a non-metal rock band for years and I have finally convinced them to play a live gig. I got them booked at the Velvet Lounge this Wednesday, the 28th of September and I certainly recommend checking them out. They hit the stage at 9pm, and are playing with the Megaphone Barons and Electric Grandmother (bands I admittedly don’t know much about). Again, they’re not metal but they are a damn good band, and they have three guitar players! You can check out the event’s Facebook page here but even if you can’t go feel free to check out the Garage Hoppers on Facebook here. Ok, I think that’s enough blatant non-metal promotion for one post. Stay metal everyone and support the scene you’re a part of!

September 26, 2011
Categories: Concert Reviews, Local Band Info, Red Palace, Shameless Promotion, Velvet Lounge, Washington DC / Maryland / Virginia Metal Scene . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: Leave a comment

Three ticket give aways!

That’s right, in celebration of DCHeavyMetal.com entering its third year of existence, I’ve decided to hold a mega contest giving away a pair of tickets to three different upcoming metal shows! There will be three different winners, not one person getting all three. Just leave a comment at the bottom of this post telling me which of the three concerts you’d like to go to and I’ll use Random.org to pick three winners, one for each concert, on Monday the 19th of September 2011 at 6pm EST to win tickets. You can only win for one concert but you can enter to win for all three or whichever ones you’d like. Be sure to use a valid email address when you enter so I can tell you that you have won, though it doesn’t have to be visible in the post itself. Don’t worry I won’t add you to any email lists or anything annoying like that. Read below to see what the three metal concerts are, and choose wisely!

Choice One

On Wednesday the 21st of September the West Virginia based Karma To Burn is coming to the Rock & Roll Hotel. Karma To Burn is an excellent sludgy stoner band and they play a lot of instrumental songs, though some have vocals. To make this show even better, DC’s own Borracho will be opening. They are an excellent stoner act that you should be sure to check out if you haven’t already. Borracho recently put out their first LP titled Splitting Sky and this show would be a great chance to save on shipping and pick it up after seeing them play live. Local act King Giant was supposed to play this show but due to an injury to one of the band members they have had to cancel their appearance at this concert. If you don’t win or you just can’t wait, you can get tickets to this show here for $10.

Choice Two

On Friday the 23rd of September the brand new 2,000 person capacity Fillmore in Silver Spring will host its first ever metal concert! British metalcore band Bring Me The Horizon headlines a night of some of the best core bands coming from the UK and Australia such as Parkway Drive, Architects, While She Sleeps and Deez Nuts. And come on, if you win you can spend all week telling people you won tickets to see Deez Nuts. The Fillmore will have just opened on September 15th so this will be the first chance to destroy the place with some insane mosh pits! If you don’t win or you just can’t wait, you can get tickets to this show here for $23.

Choice Three

Kyuss Lives! is the name of the reformed version of legendary stoner band Kyuss featuring all the original members of the band except Josh Homme (he’s busy playing with super group Them Crooked Vultures these days). So now the band has Bruno Fevery on guitar but what’s really exciting is that they have been working on a new album and, assuming they play some of that on this tour, this show will be the first chance this area is going to have to hear new Kyuss material in over 15 years! To make things even better Texas based doom masters The Sword and Atlanta’s Monstro are opening. This show is on Saturday the 24th of September at the 9:30 Club and you know it’s going to be awesome. If you don’t win or you just can’t wait, you can get tickets to this show here for $30.

September 13, 2011
Categories: Contests, Doom Metal, Fillmore Silver Spring, Hardcore Metal, Nightclub 9:30, Rock And Roll Hotel, Stoner . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Metal Chris . Comments: 56 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
—
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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