AMORPHIS « Hollywood Metal

February 22, 2010

Hollywood Metal Episode 86 (Jan-30-2010)

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 52 (Jan-24-2009)

Hollywood Metal Episode 52 (audio)

January 24th 2009: Today’s show was unoffically brought to you by my friend Jack Daniels. As I’m writing this I am working on taking down a 375 mL bottle…METALLL!!!!! Tracey and launched into this weeks show with some IMMORTAL, one of our favorite black metal bands. “One by One” is the track I choose. PATHFINDER is a band from Poland with incredible potential. The first song I played is the most refined of the song these guys sent me but even though it is awesome as is.. the other song I played by them today is better.. or rather…will be better with a few simple changes.. stay tuned… Before I played HELRUNAR, I told the story of the death of Baldr the tale that is said to bring about the events of Ragnarok. The song “Baldr” is a super heavy piece that has a memorable main riff. Too often in metal bands try to over complicate songs with a multitude of riffs instead of isolating one and driving it home. An old favorite AMORPHIS was up next. These guys pretty much wrote the book on melodic death metal with their early albums and especially Tales From The Thousand Lakes. “Black Winter Day” is off that album and it remains on of my favorite MDM songs. The song’s intro rules too as Tracey pointed out during the show. ORACLE is a death/thrash metal band from Indonesia. “In the Land of Frost” is off a demo they sent to me and it’s well above average, I’m looking forward to a full length from them this year.. HAIL to Indonesia! HEOROT from Finland is a folk/viking metal band. The song I picked “Kansaansa Vastaan”which we translated to “Against his Nation” is a good example of their high grade work. The name HEOROT comes from the anglo-saxon story of Beowulf and it is a great mead hall described as the greatest on earth. SYMPHONY X was up next with “Serpents Kiss” a song that shows off the unbelievable shred skills of Michael Romeo. “Sons of Immortal Fire” was the second track from Poland’s PATHFINDER. Listen to the show as I vent my frustration with this song. I think it has potential to be one of the best metal songs ever if a few simple changes are made. Good job d00ds! I was very drunk towards the end of the show and I could feel myself quieting down and getting ready to pass out. To my credit I took down an entire 375mL bottle of jack in under and hour…METAL!!! I closed the show with “Courage” by MANOWAR which is my favorite song by the self proclaimed “Kings of Metal.” HAIL AND KILL!!!!!!

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: AMORPHIS, Brendan Biryla, HELRUNAR, HEOROT, Hollywood Metal, IMMORTAL, MANOWAR, ORACLE, PATHFINDER, SYMPHONY X — Brendan Biryla @ 3:26 pm

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February 19, 2010

Hollywood Metal Episode 3 (Jan-5-2008)

Hollywood Metal Episode 3 (audio)

Saturday January 5th 2008: Recorded episode #3, a 15 minute pilot episode. Hopefully next week will be the final 15 minute episode before the show gets expanded to at least a half hour. The first song was from DISSECTION (“Black Dragon”). Unfortunately the song skipped in the recording studio so I had to cut it out from the show afterwards. I am going to play it again at the top of next week’s show. WINTERSUN (“Winter Madness”) was the next song. Combining elements of Black, Folk, and Power Metal to create an extremely EPIC Viking Metal sound, Finland’s WINTERSUN is one of the top metal bands in the world. The long awaited second release “Time” should be released later this year. Once the show is expanded we will discuss the genius of Jari Maenpaa in more detail, for now, just enjoy the insanity of the guitar solo at 3:06. The last song was by AMORPHIS (“Drowned Maid”) off “Tales from the Thousand Lakes (1994).” Amorphis was a pioneer of the Melodic Death Metal Genre back in the early 90’s. Around the turn of the millenium they had evolved into a progressive/psychedelic band but after a few lineup changes an the release of “Silent Waters (2007)” they are slowly getting back to their melodic death metal roots.

Filed under: Showlog — Tags: AMORPHIS, Brendan Biryla, Hollywood Metal, Jari Mäenpää, WINTERSUN — Brendan Biryla @ 12:06 am

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