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.