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.