February 22, 2010

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.


Hollywood Metal Episode 76 (Sep-4-2009)

Hollywood Metal Episode 76 (audio)

Friday Sept  4th 2009: Episode 76 featured one of the biggest figures in the LA metal scene. He goes by the name Warpigg and if you’ve ever booked a show in Hollywood, chances are you know who he is. It was great to have him on the show today in what was probably the most insightful show we’ve ever done. I will be referring all the bands that write to me about the LA scene to this particular episode because it contains years of knowledge. In terms of the music selected for the show. Warpigg brought two of his tracks, from two separate band projects, of which he is the vocalist. The first was his current band DIRE DAWN which is a death metal outfit and the second was DEMORALIZING SICKNESS which was his former, now split up, band. Their band name lives on as the name of Warpigg’s production company. Three other songs were played today including BARANDUIN “A Warriors Death.” These guys released an EP of the same name after a long break following their demo in 2005. It is honestly one of the best pre-full-length-album EP’s I’ve ever heard and I plan to play at least one more song from in soon. They are an folk/viking/pagan metal band that utilizes harsh vocals and male-sung chorus parts to give the songs that “epicness” we’ve come to appreciate in folk metal. TALAYMUS is an interesting band from Canada. They too utilize a viking theme but rather come at it from the typical pagan/black metal approach these guys have take the viking/thrash metal road.. Plenty of headbanging riffs and speedy drums in “…In These Days of Violence”. Lane picked out “I Am The Wargod (ode to the battle slain)” from DESTROYER 666 to round out the lineup. DESTROYER 666 is one of Australia’s finest bands, I’d venture to say that these guys picked up the torch when the AC/DC era slowed in the mid 90’s and are showing no signs of giving it back. Fifteen plus years of blackened thrash and still rocking faces across the world.