Sweden's Opeth and Norway's Enslaved played to a reverent near-capacity crowd at the 9:30 Club last night. Putting these two bands together was an inspired idea, as both currently play a kind of heavy progressive metal with melodic passages and clean vocals mixed into the downtuned riffs and growls. However, the bands' backgrounds are different [...]
So that was fun. Festival organizers estimated that some 2,700 people attended this year's (incredibly well-run) Maryland Deathfest. I missed the first day, but will post more about Saturday and Sunday of MDF VII later. For now, here are a few photos and my thoughts in superlative form, after the jump.
Maryland Deathfest is about to kick off its first day in a couple hours, but better late than never, right? I'll be covering Saturday and Sunday, but for anyone still thinking about heading up to Baltimore (tickets are still available, but not many of them!), here is my absolutely non-comprehensive and subjective preview of [...]
Mastodon have been bringing nerdy extreme metal to the masses since signing with Warner Brothers after their second full-length album, the Moby Dick-based concept album Leviathan. But on the Atlanta band's latest record, Crack the Skye, they drop most of their extreme tendencies in favor of what is basically really heavy prog-rock. Their sold-out show [...]
Less than two weeks out from the festival's kick-off on Friday, May 22, Maryland Deathfest organizers have announced that, in order to accommodate higher than expected ticket sales, the fest will have a stage set up outside Sonar, in addition to the Sonar main stage. As of today, tickets are available again for purchase but [...]
Last Saturday, May 2, Jon Blank of Rockville, MD passed away of a suspected drug overdose. Blank was the bassist in Rezin and, most recently, Scott "Wino" Weinrich's latest project; he played on Wino's new album Punctuated Equilibrium and is pictured above playing with Wino at the 9:30 Club this past February. Blank was the [...]
Sweden's The Haunted made me a new fan on Wednesday night at Jaxx. I had long planned on going to this show despite having no familiarity with this band. A few months ago, the lineup included three other metal bands of which I am a big fan: Nachtmystium, Kylesa and Intronaut. Incredibly, all three of [...]
Before the main acts of the Music as a Weapon IV tour kicked off at 1st Mariner Arena last Tuesday, I had the chance to sit down with Cristina Scabbia, frontwoman and one of two lead singers of Italian rockers Lacuna Coil. (She's pictured above performing a couple hours after our interview – more photos [...]
Hard-rock/metal arena show up in Baltimore on Tuesday: Disturbed, Killswitch Engage, Lacuna Coil and Chimaira. No words for this one, just the photos, after the jump. I did get a chance to interview Lacuna Coil's Cristina Scabbia before the show, though, the results of which I'll be posting in the future.
There are also more of [...]
If you're a metal fan, check out tonight's show on H Street, which features three local-ish bands of varying stature in Misery Index, Drugs of Faith and Salome, plus Phoenix grindcore band Landmine Marathon. Should be an interesting mix of slow & heavy (Salome) and fast & brutal (everyone else). This show is a prelude [...]
