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.
One of the original Bay Area thrash bands from the 80s, Exodus, is coming the Empire on Monday, November 24th for the band’s first area appearance with returning vocalist Steve Souza fronting the band. We here at DCHeavyMetal.com couldn’t be more excited so we’re giving away a free pair of tickets to one of you lucky DCHM readers. To enter just leave a comment on this post telling me which Exodus song you want to hear the most (if you need help you can find their discography here) when they come to Empire on Monday. At 5pm EST this Friday, November 21st, a winner will be chosen at random (using Random.org) from all valid entries to win the tickets. Be sure to enter using a valid email you check regularly 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 I haven’t heard back from the winner in 24 hours another winner will be chosen at random. If you can’t wait to see if you win or the contest is already over when you read this, then you can get tickets from Ticket Fly for $17 here.
Steve Souza fronted Exodus for the band’s four albums from 1987 to 1992, and then again for their 2004 return album Tempo Of The Damned. Now he finds himself back in Exodus with the release of their new album, Blood In, Blood Out, and fans and critics alike are raving about it. Exodus fan’s won’t want to miss the band’s only area appearance this year with Souza back to perform those classic songs with them. Exodus is currently touring with Slayer and Suicidal Tendencies this show is an off date of that tour, which unfortunately isn’t coming anywhere near us. As such there’s isn’t any touring support, however we will get sets by some great locals including Yesterday’s Saints, March To Victory, Oberris, Blunt Force Rebellion, Afarinesh, and Red Sky Research. So check out these awesome Exodus videos below, tell me which song you want to hear them play the most on Monday, and get ready for a killer night of thrash!
Thursday of last week, October 23rd, I headed up to the Baltimore SoundStage in, you guessed it, Baltimore, Maryland to catch Arch Enemy and Kreator. Starkill and Huntress also opened the show, but I couldn’t get up there in time to see them. In fact, German thrashers Kreator were already two songs into their set when I walked in. I did get a few shots during their third song though. Their set wasn’t bad, pretty typical for Kreator really. A mix of older classics with more popular modern songs thrown in. They had a ton of fog up there and their light show was very bright as usual. I ended up buying a Kreator bottle opener but the merch girl didn’t give me any change back so I ended up paying $10 for something that should have cost $3. After arguing with her about it for a few minutes (and failing to get my change back) the negative experience took me out of their show. They didn’t play their song “Flag Of Hate” either, which was a bummer, but otherwise the set was good overall.
Next up was Arch Enemy. This was the Swedish death metal band’s first US tour with new vocalist Alissa White-Gluz fronting the band, and not only that, the Baltimore show was the first date of the tour. I wasn’t sure what to expect, the band’s previous vocalist, Angela Gossow, left some pretty big shoes to fill. Arch Enemy was around before Angela joined in 2000, but they really rose to prominence once she joined the band. She was one of the first women to front any kind of death metal band, and she wasn’t just up there as eye candy either, she was really good at it. She could growl and had great stage presence and it earned the band many fans over the years. I didn’t love Alissa’s performance on the new Arch Enemy record, War Eternal, her voice seemed very flat and digitally tinkered with in the studio. However this night she really was incredible live. She had excellent stage presence and great energy, fans reacted immediately to her charisma, and her voice held up really well throughout the entire set. While she is certainly the main focus while the band is on stage she still made sure to step back and let guitarists Michael Amott (of Carcass fame) and Nick Cordle (a Virginia native) draw the audience’s attention from time to time. You could tell she had studied old Arch Enemy live footage as she used many of the same moves that Angela did, but Alissa had plenty of her own too. It was really fun photographing her not only because of her model-like looks but because she was always doing something on stage and I never felt like I was getting the same shot twice. The one thing I really didn’t enjoy much was when she instructed the audience to start pogo hopping in place, something you usually see at a pop punk show, not a metal show. I have to admit I was impressed overall though, and I think Arch Enemy fans are going to love seeing Alissa front the band for some time.
Below are some of my photos from the show. You can see these photos much larger, and many I didn’t even use here including both bands’ set lists, on Flickr by going here.
Short post today but the Northern Virginia based thrash metal band Death Penalty is having their album release show tonight at the Sidebar in Baltimore (details here). The full length, titled Electric God, will be available at the show but you can stream/download the first track off it, titled “War” below. If you can’t make the show you can message them on Facebook (here) to grab a copy as well.
Last Friday, the 31st of January 2014, was a good night for the area’s metal heads. Attila sold out Empire in Springfield and Amon Amarth, Enslaved and Skeletonwitch played the Fillmore Silver Spring. However I decided to skip both of those shows for the rare chance to catch Morbid Saint play a DIY show on the campus of American University. So who the hell is Morbid Saint?
Well they were a thrash metal band from Wisconsin that in 1988 put out their only album, the underground classic Spectrum Of Death. They were a frequent opener on Death’s tours in those days but unfortunately broke up in the 90s. In 2010 they reformed and if you went to Maryland Deathfest X in 2012 then you got to see them play Spectrum Of Death from start to finish on one of the big outdoor stages there. That was a pretty great performance in the midst of many at MDF X but last Friday’s show at the Kay Spiritual Life Center at American University was something else altogether. There was no lighting rig, no barrier between the bands and fans, no big stage, hell there wasn’t even a stage. The room was small, packed, and hot and you couldn’t hope for a better DIY setting to see an old school thrash band in. Most of those old thrash bands from the 80s have either blown up like Slayer and Megadeth, disbanded after the rise of grunge, or regularly come through the area to places like Empire promoting whatever new album they may have. Those shows are all good but this show wasn’t like any of them and I knew it going in. Basically, I couldn’t let myself miss this show!
I showed up a bit late but apparently there had been an issue with the electrical box at the start of the night and everything got delayed. The show was sold out when I arrived but I had ordered tickets online ahead of time cause I knew it would. The room was basically a big oval with merch tucked into a small room on the side opposite the venue entrance. Normally it is used as an on campus religious center for any religious denomination that wants to use it but this night it would become a place to worship metal! When I got there the first band, Genocide Pact, was still playing. Genocide Pact features members of another local band, Disciples Of Christ, but isn’t quite as grindy as D.O.C. is and instead has more focus on the death metal sound. They were fun but since the room was already packed I didn’t get up front to see them. The next band up was Baltimore’s Noisem, formerly known as Necropsy. These guys are young but ever since getting signed to A389 Recordings they’ve really started to garner attention, and not just locally. They opened on a run of 22 shows for The Black Dahlia Murder and Skeletonwitch last fall and they’ll be the opening act on the entire upcoming Decibel tour with Carcass headlining. They’re definitely getting better in the live setting, that showed even when performing at a DIY show with no stage. Their high energy death/thrash really got the audience into the show and the pits got pretty intense a few times. Next up was another A389 band, the (mostly) DC based Ilsa. They play a crusty style of death/doom that is full of mosh friendly riffs and very heavy slower parts as well. It has been a little while since I’ve seen Ilsa live and in that time they’ve replaced one of their guitar players with a guy who used to play with several of them in a band called Time Of The Wolf that was a precursor to Ilsa’s formation. Their set was heavy but I do wish the band members would face the audience more. Most of the show they formed a circle facing inward at each other, aside from vocalist Orion who looked all around the room with his vice grip on the mic he was screaming into.
Finally it was time for Morbid Saint to play and after the delay and several sets you could tell the audience was getting a little restless. The audience wouldn’t settle for a bad performance from the headliner at this point and Morbid Saint delivered. The crowd erupted into a mosh pit from the first note played and frontman Pat Lind really kept the intensity up the entire show despite the heat that was becoming overwhelming. The band did not play Spectrum Of Death start to finish as they had at MDF but instead kept the set list pretty varied, they even played songs off their never officially released 1992 demo Destruction System and some other obscure material as well. They had a few extended pauses between songs because the drummer was overheating but they mostly played songs back to back to back. There were crowd surfers and people flying in and out of the mosh pit the entire set with the intensity reaching its apex when Morbid Saint played “Lock Up Your Children.” Maybe I’m just getting old but by the time it was over I was feeling pretty drained and headed straight to the water fountains. A big thanks goes out to Mariana and the AU Independent Arts Collective for making this show happen. I hope they put on more awesome metal shows in the future. Getting the chance to see one of the classic old thrash bands up close in a small, sweaty, sold out room was like stepping into a time machine back to the days of Heavy Metal Parking Lot and despite the other options that night, there’s nowhere else I’d have rather been.
Band: Volture Album: On The Edge Release Date: 13 September 2013 Record Label: High Roller Records Buy from Bandcamp (digital) and name your price: Here Buy from High Roller Records (CD or vinyl): Here
One of the best new things here at DCHM this year has been the addition of two new writers doing album reviews on the site. We try to keep our album reviews focused on local bands, that’s kind of the point of the blog, but for the end of the year I told them both that they could pick any album from 2013, local, national or international, that they thought didn’t get enough attention this year to write a review of. The following is Grimy Grant’s pick for his favorite unsung album of the year, On the Edge by Richmond natives Volture. Of course be sure to follow Grimy Grant on Twitter at @jgrantd if you don’t already and be sure to read Tal’s choice for unnoticed album of 2013, Echoes Of Battle by Caladan Brood, here.
Volture is a band I’ve grown attached to recently. Their loyalty to old-school metal doesn’t stand out much in the crowd of current throwback bands worshipping at the shrines of Raven, Judas Priest, or Motley Crue. What makes them unique to me is their focus on tight, quick hard rock that is good old fashioned fun. Brent Hubbard, the former vocalist for the band, and Jack Bauer, the current lead singer, both seem to be imitating Rob Halford as they belt out tunes referring to motorcycle rides and the deadly Volture – an electric steel bird similar to the one on the cover of the Judas Priest classic album Screaming For Vengeance. A recognizable face in the group is Ryan Waste, lead guitarist for one of Richmond’s major metal bands, Municipal Waste. When I saw Volture play at GWAR-B-Q this year, Ryan Waste seriously plucked his bass and didn’t do the stage banter that he usually does with Municipal Waste vocalist Tony Foresta. Considering the ‘Waste is a huge asset to the RVA music scene, it’s commendable that Ryan Waste sticks to being just a member of the gang in Volture rather than the “star talent.” That could be on purpose since most of Volture’s themes are about being a gang of brothers as well as a band.
On the Edge is the band’s 2013 release and to me it’s the best thing they’ve put out yet because it goes over the top and doesn’t look back. The first track, “On the Edge,” kicks the album off with an image of soldiers “Raging onward / … / taking back what’s ours” and living by the code of “No surrender, no return” to their homes. Nick Poulos and Dave Boyd, the guitarists for the band, shred out a number of quick solos that help energize the song with the kind of speed and excitement of a battle. It’s a thrashy sound that goes overboard and which I really got into from the start. “Ride the Nite” follows immediately with Bauer joyfully singing about “Kick start the weekend / Going for a ride.” It’s a simple lyric but a sincere one sung by Bauer, whose voice doesn’t show any irony. Barry Cover drums a quick, solid beat through both of the first two tracks while Ryan Waste keeps the beat going steady with his bass. Performing classic fantasy themes tied with speed metal may be a bit laughable and tongue-in-cheek when performed today, but it’s pulled off well due to the commitment from the band and their skill.
Simplicity is both an engine for making On the Edge a perfect party album but also teeters on the side of being forgettable. Volture’s main issue is the same as Municipal Waste, Cannabis Corpse, and the other bands under the RVA punk and metal scene: they are consistent, keep their songs simplistic yet fun, and can be taken for granted as just another party band. On the Edge tries to raise the bar a bit in songs such as “Deep Dweller,” where Bauer paints a world of living underground in a post-apocalyptic Earth and surviving on the basics. That’s an interesting twist on the “band of brothers” theme that the album depicts in songs such as “On the Edge” and “Brethren of the Coast” and I like that it’s included as the last track on the album. The song before “Deep Dweller,” “Rock you Hard,” is the most light-hearted song on the album, something that reminds me of Manowar’s “Kings of Metal,” since both boast their respective band’s prowess and skill to their own fans. Volture’s version is overwhelmingly positive and traditional, referring mostly to the power and volume of their music rather than being brutal or overly technical. On the Edge is a great example of a classic metal album keeping it positive, powerful, and most importantly – timeless.
On Tuesday, November 19th of 2013 I went to the Fillmore Silver Spring to see Slayer and Gojira. Although I arrived over 15 minutes before Gojira started, the will call line was so slow I didn’t get into the venue in time to photograph them from the photo pit (at most big shows photographers only get to shoot during the first three songs each band plays). I finally made it in and the venue was already uncomfortably packed. I’m not sure if the show was sold out but I’ve never seen the venue this packed before. There wasn’t really anywhere to stand without being shoulder to shoulder with people on the main floor so I headed upstairs to try my luck. Unfortunately if you’re not on the rail on the Fillmore’s second floor the sight lines are, well, pretty much nonexistent. The French band played a pretty similar set to the one they played at Rams Head Live in Baltimore back in February so I didn’t feel like I missed too much. Backbone is always heavy as hell but as much as I enjoy Gojira’s music, I was really here for Slayer.
The curtain came down in front of the main stage while Slayer set up and this is when things started getting better. I worked my way to the front of the stage. I noticed there were some very large boxes for shipping gear in the photo pit area which made it so the guard railing was pushed farther away from the stage than usual. This certainly made things on the ground level more crowded but at least for three songs I got to have some space up front and shoot the band. They actually ended up giving us an extra song to shoot (I think the stage hands just miscounted) and I’ve gotta say being between the wild crowd and intense band performing at a show like this is a bit surreal, like being in the eye of a hurricane. After my songs were up I assimilated back into the audience and got to enjoy the show as a regular fan.
Exodus guitarist Gary Holt has been playing with Slayer since the late Jeff Hanneman left the band in early 2011 due to an infection from a spider bite. Original drummer Dave Lombardo was recently booted from the band as well, to be replaced by Paul Bostaph who had previously replaced Lombardo in Slayer from 1992 to 2001. Of course I was worried going in how these line up changes would affect Slayer’s live sound. Luckily I needn’t worry at all, the band was as tight as ever! In fact, the last time I saw all four original members of Slayer play together, in 2010 at 1st Mariner Arena, Jeff Hanneman was obviously drunk and his playing was pretty sloppy. The version of Slayer we got at the Fillmore was really tight once again. Everyone in the band was in sync, there was very little stage banter between songs as they only paused between songs four times. That all combined with the intensity of their “old school” set list (see it here), which featured no songs written after 1990, showed everyone that Slayer wasn’t slowing down at all. The set list was pretty similar to the one on the excellent live double album Decade Of Aggression though it did feature some different songs, such as an old favorite of mine, “At Dawn They Sleep.” As a nod to Gary Holt being in the band they played a Slayer-ized version of the Exodus classic “Strike Of The Beast” too! Any problems I had with the venue prior to their set were far from my mind as I thrashed in the pit during Raining Blood. This show was overcrowded, sweaty, intense and had almost non-stop shredding from these gods of heavy metal, just how a Slayer show is supposed to be. I really can’t wait until they come around again. If there was any doubt in anyone’s mind before, this night proved to all in attendance that in a live setting Slayer still fucking rules!
I only shot photos of Slayer at the show but I think some of them turned out pretty good. See the full set, including some images that I didn’t post below, by clicking here.
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