February « 2010 « Hollywood Metal

February 27, 2010

Episode 88 – ANACHRONAEON interview

Today on the show I interviewed a good friend of mine, Patrik Carlsson, from Västerås, Sweden. Patrik is the guitarist for two excellent bands, ANACHRONAEON (melodic dark metal) and EYECULT (melodic black metal) while Andreas Åkerlind is the great drummer for both. Our history goes back about 3 years now as listeners know that I am a big fan of Patrik’s work, particularly the song “The English Wizard” off ANACHRONAEON’s 2007 album As The Last Human Spot In Me Dies. Over the course of the interview we talked about the motivations behind the two bands as well as the thematic content and song construction. He detailed the history the two projects and explained what is in the immediate future for both. If you’re into melodic death and black metal, I think you will agree that both of these bands deserve to be counted amongst the upper-crust of the dark metal world. Four ANACHRONAEON songs from the new album 2010 The Futile Quest for Immortality were featured on today’s episode. They include: “Ages Ago”, “The Darkness In The Corner Of My Eye”, “The Message” and “The Beast Called Man.” Two EYECULT songs were also featured. These songs are from a December 2009 release called Morituri Te Salutamus, they are “Aeternum” and “Oblivaeon.”

ANACHRONAEON - 2010 The Futile Quest For Immortality

For information on ordering these two masterpieces, feel free to contact Patrik at either:
www.myspace.com/anachronaeon
www.myspace.com/eyecult

As I alluded to on the show, back in the summer of 2008 the company I work for, SaysMe.tv, was shooting a series of television commercials to promote the company services which is mainly to make it easy for anyone to run their own commercials on TV. The idea was to put someone one TV who clearly looked like they hijacked a commercial spot. I was selected to be that guy so we shot the commercials one night with some camera equipment and copious amounts of Jack Daniels. During the weeks leading up to the shoot I was rocking out hard to ANACHRONAEON’s “The English Wizard” and the director thought it would be great to use that as the soundtrack for the spots. The result was these nine gems:

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: ANACHRONAEON, Brendan Biryla, EYECULT, Hollywood Metal, Patrik Carlsson — Brendan Biryla @ 6:46 pm

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February 22, 2010

Hollywood Metal Episode 87 (Feb-6-2010)

Hollywood Metal Episode 87 (audio)

Saturday Feb 6th 2010: One of the forefathers of heavy metal, Kimmo Kuusniemi, was on the show today along with the director of the Finnish metal documentary “Promised Land of Heavy Metal,” Tanja Karttunen. Kimmo is the guitarist of the first Finnish metal band SARCOFAGUS. In addition to pioneering heavy metal, Kimmo is also a pioneer of music videos, and music distribution mechanism. This was a very interesting conversation to say the least. During the show we played two SARCOFAGUS songs, “Astral Flyer” and “The Truth of 1000 Megawatts” both from 1980, two years before I was even born. Keeping with the spirit of Finland, a country that has really shown its appreciation for my little show here, we also played “Tahto” from upstart band ROUTAKEHA. These guys have a melodic thrash sound that’s easy to rock to. ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW is in the upper echelon of melodic death metal and “Heart of Wilderness” was requested by Ronny Lee Marks, frontman and guitarist of LA’s own STATIUS. Lastly, while filing The Promised Land of Heavy Metal, Kimmo and Tanja held a contest to find a feature song for the documentary. The winning band was CORRUPTION INC. with their song “Absolution.” These guys have a heavy melodic sound but they utilize the clean vocal style which is less common than you might think. Please check out the following sites and get The Promised Land of Heavy Metal on your iPhone.

www.PromisedLandofMetal.com

www.Sarcofagus.com

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: Brendan Biryla, CORRUPTION INC., ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW, Hollywood Metal, Kimmo Kuusniemi, ROUTAKEHA, SARCOFAGUS — Brendan Biryla @ 6:11 pm

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Hollywood Metal Episode 86 (Jan-30-2010)

Hollywood Metal Episode 86 (audio)

Saturday Jan 30th 2010: After a few weeks off Hollywood Metal Radio is back in the saddle charging forth towards honor and glory! I was at the KORPIKLAANI – TYR – STATIUS – REIGN OF AVARICE show this past Tuesday and there is plenty of footage on the youtube channel Youtube.com/HollywoodMetalRadio. Tracy Hays was back on the show today after taking a leave to start a new job so it was good to have my old pal back rocking on the show. Tracy picked AMORPHIS “Silver Bride” to lead off the show. While they do sound quite a bit different from the early days, I still like their heavy sound and polished production work. AMORPHIS will always be legendary in my book. Next I played a clip of the Howard Stern show that featured an audio byte from me during the Conan O’Brien rally at Universal Studios last week. I’ve been a huge fan of Conan since I was 12 so I’ve been very involved with the whole late night shakeup that’s going on. Upon return to the metal I played a band called TUMULUS which I was recently introduced to via a friend on twitter. This band is everything I’m looking for in a power/folk band and definitely one of the best Russian bands I’ve ever heard. The guitars are so perfect in the songs and the lead singer has a great voice. The synthesizers create a really cool folk melody using an interesting sound, very much like AMORPHIS did on “Black Winter Day” years ago. Very glad to hear that sound again. CRYPTIC WINTERMOON was next with what I would call a black metal ballad. The song features some great piano parts that setup a powerful story of war and hardships sung in a black metal voice. Unique, to say the least. I decided to play two songs in a from from VIGRID next because the one I like the most, “Crown of Thorns” doesn’t feature vocals and was only 3 minutes in length but “Howl for the Absent Moon” does and both are fantastic pagan black viking metal songs. SKELETONWITCH is coming to town in 2 weeks to put on a free show at the Roxy on Sunset Blvd. There is a website where you can RSVP for the show which is hyperlinked off www.moshking.com February 11th. That’s going to kick ass so I played “Released from the Catacombs” from their new cd called 2009 Breathing the Fire. Lastly, I closed the show with a song from a friend of mine named Kevin Curtain who has a band called DAYS OF LAMENT which was featured about a year ago. This song is called “Absent” and it’s a virtuoso melodic groove metal piece that I dig.

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: AMORPHIS, Brendan Biryla, CRYPTIC WINTERMOON, DAYS OF LAMENT, Hollywood Metal, SKELETONWITCH, Tracey Hays, TUMULUS, VIGRID — Brendan Biryla @ 6:08 pm

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Hollywood Metal Episode 85 (Dec-13-2009)

Hollywood Metal Episode 85 (audio)

Sunday Dec 13th 2009: I met a fellow black metaller at a party this weekend named Pasha Hanover aka Warharan. Pasha is a guitarist who has played in several LA based bands and has quite an impressive list of both released and unreleased material. I invited him on the show to pick up on the conversation we started on Friday. I kicked the show off with BORNHOLM because I’ve been dying to play “Call of the Heathen Horns” for weeks now and I couldn’t hold back any longer. For those of you who are unfamiliar BORNHOLM is the best black metal, if not the best heavy metal band, from Hungary. This album is a bit more up-tempo that the last one and it totally kicks ass.. enjoy. LUFTWAFFE RAID is one of Warharan’s current bands. It’s a raw black metal sound that centers around a WWII European theatre theme. “Doom from the Dark” and “My Friend Axis Sally” are the two selections I played today. This band has been getting a good amount of recognition in the US and overseas and it’s good to see SoCal black metal making a mark in other black metal circles. COR SCORPII is the band that was created by ex WINDIR keyboardist Gaute Refsnes and ex WINDIR guitarist Stian Bakketeig. Thus, it is not hard to figure out why this band sounds identical to mighty WINDIR. While I was aware of VREID’s WINDIR roots, I was unaware that this band was the other spawn and am happy to hear a similar sound carried on. HITHLUM is another project that Warharan was involved with. The band is a Tolkien-influenced black metal band that released a great cd is 2005 called 2005 In The Land of Mordor, Where the Shadows Lie. The song I picked was “Children of Thorondor.” Warharan says this project is likely finished but I hope that turns out not to be the case since this is definitely some quality stuff. MEN ENTER TAVERN. I don’t have to say anything more than that because I already know that if you are reading this, you are already interested in a band with that name. As their name suggests this is a folkish, viking, black metal band hailing from Germany. Furthermore, I am happy to report that this band friggin rules. Listen to “Oskorei” I think you will agree.

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: BORNHOLM, Brendan Biryla, COR SCORPII, HITHLUM, Hollywood Metal, LUFTWAFFE RAID, MEN ENTER TAVERN, Warharan — Brendan Biryla @ 6:06 pm

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Hollywood Metal Episode 84 (Nov-21-2009)

Hollywood Metal Episode 84 (audio)

Saturday Nov 21st 2009: After a few weeks of schedule and time zone conflicts I was finally able to record a conversation with one of my favorite metalhead friends, Tero Tolkki. Hailing from Finland, Tero is the creator of Finnish news and band database MetalFromFinland.com. The timing of our conversation actually worked out quite well because I was right in the middle of a heavy concert week that featured two Finnish bands. KIVIMETSAN DRUIDI (Heathenfest, in support of ELUVEITIE, BELPHEGOR, ALESTORM, VREID and local support from STATIUS) as well as mighty ENSIFERUM on the North American leg of their From Afar Tour (Support from BLACKGUARD, LAZARUS AD and local support from EINVERA). In between those two concerts I also saw DETHKLOK!!! Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep this week but it didn’t matter because I was totally prepared for this conversation having had a few weeks to think about what I wanted to ask the dude who created my most trusted source of brilliant metal. In spirit of the conversation I kept the playlist strictly Finnish leading off with STAM1NA an excellent power/thrash band that utilizes and interesting vocal cadence in their songs. They truly have a unique sound and that is extremely hard to do these days. Along with STAM1NA, Tero and I share a mutual respect for MORS PRINCIPIUM EST, a fast pace, but extremely melodic band that is long overdue for some world attention. Every album these guys put out is flawless, yet they still seem to fly beneath the radar. Tero tells me that they are working on new material so hopefully it releases to much fanfare. Mighty ENSIFERUM and INSOMNIUM were also necessary for today’s show, both with new releases and both within my top 5 band list. Tero shares my sentiments on these bands including my appreciation for Petri Lindroos as Jari Maenpaa’s successor. Lastly, KIVIMETSAN DRUIDI was the last choice for today because I saw them on this night and I say, because I am writing this post after the fact, that this band is very good live. I enjoyed the album when I first heard it. I thought that they could use some finishing touches on their sound but I definitely like them more having seen them live. I hope they get the opportunity to come back soon. Big thanks to Tero Tolkki for taking the time to speak with me, Please check out his site for all things Finnish, metal and awesome.

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: Brendan Biryla, ENSIFERUM, Hollywood Metal, INSOMNIUM, KIVIMETSAN DRUIDI, MetalFromFinland.com, MORS PRINCIPIUM EST, STAM1NA, Tero Tolkki — Brendan Biryla @ 6:01 pm

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Hollywood Metal Episode 83 (Oct-31-2009)

Hollywood Metal Episode 83 (audio)

Saturday Oct 31st 2009: Dan and Emilio from LA metal band BLOODSTEEL stopped by along with Victoria for my “un-halloween” halloween party. Listen to the first mic segment and you’ll understand. Ok music for the show was heavily influenced by a Finnish metal withdrawal. So WINTERSUN, INSOMNIUM, ENSIFERUM and newcomers BARANDUIN were all featured. The first three you should be very familiar with if you are reading this but hopefully you come away liking BARANDUIN too. They only have an Demo/EP out but it is one of the best I have ever heard in the battle metal genre, you’d think this band has been around for years. STATIUS “Storm Bracing” was played at the request of Emilio and normally I have a policy of not playing the same song more than once on the program but that rule is negated if the band has actually been a guest on the show before. (read: local band) That, and the fact that the song kicks ass. SVARTBY was selected because I wanted to show Dan a great band from his homeland of Russia. If you are into FINNTROLL you will definitely like SVARTBY. They bring that heavy folk, forest party sound. This selection “Vinterkvall” (“Winter Evening’) is slightly more melancholy than the others on the new album, but it’s still a good representation of the quality on display here. I am particularly glad we played LOST HORIZON today because in double checking the set list I realized that I had forgot to record a previous playing of this band. So I went back and listened to old eps and found the mistake. Turns out episode 64 featured “Sworn in the Metal Wind”. Anyway, great band great song.. end of story. BLIND GUARDIAN is a major influence on BLOODSTEEL so it was only fitting that we ended the show with “Born in a Mourning Hall.” As soon as BLOODSTEEL has some decent recordings I will feature them on the show. Dan and Emilio are excellent guitarist so that stuff should be awesome.

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: BARANDUIN, BLIND GUARDIAN, BLOODSTEEL, Brendan Biryla, ENSIFERUM, Hollywood Metal, INSOMNIUM, LOST HORIZON, STATIUS, SVARTBY, WINTERSUN — Brendan Biryla @ 5:57 pm

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Hollywood Metal Episode 82 (Oct-24-2009)

Hollywood Metal Episode 82 (audio)

Saturday Oct 24th 2009: LA neoclassical/power/progressive band SEVEN SERAPHIM stopped by for the show today. I saw these guys a few weeks ago when they opened for STRATOVARIUS at the Key Club and I was thoroughly impressed with the musicianship of Andrew Szucs, the guitarist. The band has an album out called Believe in Angels and I highly recommend it if you are into jaw dropping guitar work and melodic power metal. Andrew and the lead vocalist Sam Terceman were kind enough to stop by for a chat about their music and the direction they are headed. Initially I was going to play other bands too but I decided to play just SEVEN SERAPHIM while they were here instead of spread out over the course of a couple weeks. Listen to the show and check out their myspace page: www.myspace.com/sevenseraphim to get in touch with these great LA metallers.

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: Andrew Szucs, Brendan Biryla, Hollywood Metal, SEVEN SERAPHIM — Brendan Biryla @ 5:54 pm

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Hollywood Metal Episode 81 (Oct-17-2009)

Hollywood Metal Episode 81 (audio)

Saturday Oct 17th 2009: Sir Cruz and Sir Daniel from LA based pirate metal band REIGN OF AVARICE were at my place for episode 81. www.myspace.com/ontheedgeofbattle These guys recently opened for EDGUY (which I mistakenly cited as STRATOVARIUS which was the following week) at the Key Club and it was a great performance. So much so that it made me want to get in touch with these guys and do an interview about their unique blend of pirate metal which is comprised of Sir Cruz’s folk accordion base blending with the amazing neoclassical skills of Sir Daniel’s guitar. During the coarse of the show we played 4 of their songs. The quality of the recordings isn’t great in this early stage of the band’s history but you can clearly hear the foundation for an awesome folk band. In addition to these songs we also played some mutual favorites from TYR “By the Light of the Northern Star” and ALESTORM “That Famous ol’ Spiced.” Lastly, NOMANS LAND is one of the best viking metal bands from Russia and they have a new album out which is of the usual high quality. My favorite track from the new album is called “Father North” and it features some extremely memorable riffs. There is a lot of good viking metal in the world these days but most of the material fails to really stick with you after a run through the album. Not so with the memorable and melodic riffs of NOMANS LAND.

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: ALESTORM, Brendan Biryla, Cruz Andrade, Hollywood Metal, NOMANS LAND, REIGN OF AVARICE, TYR — Brendan Biryla @ 5:50 pm

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Hollywood Metal Episode 80 (Oct-3-2009)

Hollywood Metal Episode 80 (audio)

Saturday Oct 3rd 2009: Grant and Mike from LA metal band EINVERA stopped by today to talk about their music and their upcoming show at the Key Club in Hollyood with ENSIFERUM, HYPOSCRISY, EX-DEO and BLACKGUARD. Their music is wide ranging and difficult to classify but blackened folk metal would be a good place to start. All 3 band band members are high skilled at their main weapons but each also helps contribute of of the abstract instruments you’ll hear on the upcoming album. Woodwinds, Cello and even horns were on display in the three songs played today on the show. If you haven’t heard these guys visit:

www.myspace.com/einvera1

“The Gift of a Ghost” “Let In Without a Name” and “A Mausoleum For the Living” were the 3 songs chosen for today’s episode. Four more songs are in the works so as soon as they are ready we will play them here. In the meantime contact the band through their myspace page for tickets to the ENSIFERUM show ($15 as opposed to $30 at the door). In addition to three great songs from those guys I also picked out four exceptional tunes from some old and new favorites. ENSIFERUM of course is on top of my mind lately with the release of 2009 From Afar so it was fitting today that we play “Smoking Ruins.” As I mentioned on the show, I like the new direction of this band which has taken a liking to utilizing chorus’ instead of a lead singer for many of the newer songs. I think it makes the way more epic and probably a lot more engaging live… can’t wait to see them live for the 3rd time. SVARTBY is another of my favorite bands. These guys are from Russia but they sing in Swedish, albeit badly. The music is of the utmost quality and even though the music sounds pretty serious it is actually lighthearted in nature. The songs are mainly about mythical creatures in magical lands so you know this is going to be great stuff. The song I selected was “Groda Ryttare” which means “Frog Riders” ,… and yup that is full of awesome! GARLEBEN is the discovery of the week though and possibly the year. Randomly came across their myspace page and I cannot believe how impressed I am with their demo material. Not only does it sound great production wise but these guys clearly know how melodic black viking metal works. Every song has a memorable melodic core with heavy rhythm crunching and searing guitars. “Die Letzte Fahrt” (The Last Ride) is the first of a few we’ll play on the show in the next few weeks. Damn these guys are good. Lastly, NORTHLAND is a band I played last week which is another melodic viking metal band that I think is going to go far. From Spain, these guys also have a keen sense of core melodic structure and impressive musicianship. “Freezing Sadness” is the title track from their EP from 2007. Their is new footage of STATIUS, EDGUY, EPICUREAN, REIGN OF AVARICE and EPIDEMIA on my youtube channel www.youtube.com/hollywoodmetalradio. Next week I will have more from SATYRICON and STRATOVARIUS.

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: Brendan Biryla, EINVERA, ENSIFERUM, GARLEBEN, Grant Benziger, Hollywood Metal, Mike Talanca, NORTHLAND, SVARTBY — Brendan Biryla @ 5:46 pm

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Hollywood Metal Episode 79 (Sep-27-2009)

Hollywood Metal Episode 79 (audio)

Sunday Sept 27th 2009: My internet buddy METALOVE joined me on the show today to discuss the NYC metal scene. I always enjoy getting perspectives on scenes outside of LA so this was a great opportunity to speak to someone who is thoroughly entrenched in the metal happenings of the greatest city in the world. This month has been a particularly big one for me as many of my favorite bands decided to release top notch albums. Paramount among these bands is ENSIFERUM who I’ve worshipped since the Jari days. Everyone always compares ENSIFERUM releases to those first two albums which featured the great Jari Maenpaa but this is unfair to the band who has decided to go a different direction than the one they were on when Jari was at the helm. The band has become a lot more epic in recent years by incorporating more elements to the songs. Keyboard atmospheric melodies, epic voice-overs and stand-alone chorus parts are way more prominent these days. I love the new album and the direction this band is and has been heading for a few years now. “Twilight Tavern” is the first of the songs we will play from his album leading up to their tour which comes to LA on Nov 18th. INSOMNIUM is my favorite melodic death metal band. Their first album, 2002 In The Halls of Waiting is still my all time favorite release from these guys. However that is not to say that the music is any worse. That album just set the bar extremely high. This years release 2009 Across the Dark is now my second favorite INSOMNIUM album. Interestingly, in the 2002 album their is a three track run of “Dying Chant” “The Elder” and “Black Water” which I personally consider to be the best three songs in a row on any album ever. In the new album there is also a 3 track run that rivals this starting with the song we played today with “Against the Stream” “Lay of The Autumn” and “Into The Woods” (Definitely will be playing those other two soon.) NORTHLAND is my discovery of the week. These Spain based metallers are well on their way to becoming one of the world’s great viking metal bands. What I particularly enjoy with this band is how the melody wants to stick in your head after you’ve heard it. It is often the case that I will hear good metal yet nothing wants to stick in my mind and I recall the songs melodies as I play it. With great bands like NORTHLAND, they create a simple melodic hook that keeps you humming the songs even after they conclude. You’ll hear exactly what I mean with “Ancient Tales” and a couple others that I will play in the next few weeks. THY WICKED has been in the playlist queue for a while but our themed shows kept getting in the way so I was very happy to finally get to play their great folk metal song “Im Wendel Der Zeit” which loosely translates to “The Change in Time” in English according to Google Translate. While I’m at it, the name of the album “Treu dem alten Weg” translates to “True to the Old Path” which immediately signals awesome epic folk metal and the music confirms it. SATARIEL is one of Sweden’s up and coming melodic death metal bands. It’s been 4 years since their last album so I hope that by playing their song “Claw The Clouds” today they may release something soon. Lastly, newly crowned Hollywood Metal Top 10 band, TYR, concluded the show with another beautiful piece in their native Faroese language “Turi Torkilsdottir.” The latest TYR album is their best one so far and everyone I talk to here in the metal circles agrees. HAIL TYR!

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: Brendan Biryla, ENSIFERUM, Hollywood Metal, INSOMNIUM, NORTHLAND, SATARIEL, THY WICKED, TYR — Brendan Biryla @ 5:39 pm

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