April « 2010 « Hollywood Metal

April 27, 2010

Hollywood Metal Episode 92

Sunday April 25 was the day of the FINNTOLL – MOONSORROW – SWALLOW THE SUN show in Hollywood so it was only fitting to open the show with those bands. I’ve made it know before that MOONSORROW is one of my top tier bands but now I’m making it clear that I’m putting them second on the list behind ENSIFERUM and bumping ELVENKING to 3rd since they have deviated from their early power/folk albums I fell in love with. Perhaps if they get back I will re-evaluate this decision but for now MOONSORROW really strikes a chord with me. Their music is so epic that each song deserves an accompanying video. “Unohduksen Lapsi” was the song selected for today. SWALLOW THE SUN, also from Finland, is another band steadily moving up on the overall list. These guys combine melodic death with doom in a way that gives the songs a really thick emotional feel to them while retaining the MDM riffs that make you want to bang your head. “These Woods Breathe Evil” is the track I selected. Side note: Kai Hahto is drumming with SWALLOW THE SUN during the WINTERSUN interim. Hopefully some news regarding ‘Time’ will surface during the tour. The headliners for Sunday were FINNTROLL. Their new album 2010 Nifelvind is quality. I had trouble selecting the best track so I flipped a coin and went with “Drap”. Videos of this show can be found on my youtube channel. When Emilio Hochet from BLOODSTEEL is on the show it can only mean one thing…. power metal. Thus we closed the show with a few mutual selections from his signature genre. DARK MOOR “In the Heart of Stone”, DRAGONLAND “Ride for Glory” and VIRGIN STEELE “Kingdom of the Fearless (The Destruction of Troy)” closed the show. DRAGONLAND owes us a release that they announced for September 29th 2009…. not sure what’s going on there but no doubt it probably rules.

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: Brendan Biryla, DARK MOOR, DRAGONLAND, Emilio Hochet, FINNTROLL, Hollywood Metal, MOONSORROW, SWALLOW THE SUN, VIRGIN STEELE — Brendan Biryla @ 9:35 pm

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April 11, 2010

Hollywood Metal Episode 91

Hollywood Metal Episode 91 (audio)

Alas, the US release date for KALMAH’s new album had arrived so it was time to add “Sacramentum” to the playlist as co-host Tracey Hays and I both marked that as a must-play. All in all, I think its a very strong release from these veterans but I think the album of the year title is still very much up in the air. (Jari, are you listening?) A pair of Austrian bands were next. HEATHEN FORAY and BIFROST are two quality viking/pagan metal bands. I had a hard time choosing which songs from each but settled upon “Winterking” from HEATHEN FORAY and “Ragnarok” from BIFROST. Both have memorable riffs and epic subject matter. Tracey introduced me to IMMANIFEST today. These guys are a symphonic black metal band from Florida who just released their first EP called Qliphotic. I had no idea what that meant during the show but doing some research afterwards reveals that Qliphotic is a derivative of Qliphoth which refers to “the representation of evil forces in the mystical teachings of Judaism (such as in the Kabbalah)” according to wikipedia. In other words, evil and demonic stuff…. awesome. “Thaumiel” is the song we picked from the EP and it too is dark and epic all around: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thamiel. WINTER RAGE is an upstart band from Croatia that released an EP in ‘08 called The First Raging Snow. “Northern Legacy” is off that EP and I am now definitely on board for a full length from these winter warriors. Congratulations goes out to our friends in STATIUS, who won battle of the bands last weekend for a spot on California Metalfest this summer. Drummer Wyatt Bentley brought WODENSTHRONE to my attention during the bonfire after-party. “Leodum On Lande” is pretty much an atmospheric black metal clinic.

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: BIFROST, Brendan Biryla, HEATHEN FORAY, Hollywood Metal, IMMANIFEST, KALMAH, Tracey Hays, WINTER RAGE, WODENSTHRONE — Brendan Biryla @ 8:37 pm

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