Hollywood Metal Episode 68 (audio)

Saturday June 14th 2009: Episode 68 was a long overdue. Truth be told, the building that I used to do the show out of is no longer in the possession of the company I work for so I need to find a new venue. In the meantime I will be doing the show out of my small apartment in Venice Beach (Viking Beach). Lane Storli, the bassist for epic metal band PHLEGETHON was over for the show along with my guitar teacher Dave Trau. Over the course of the evening Lane and I would get very drunk (much of which was after we stopped recording the show) and may or may not have included hard drugs. The first song I played was by Finnish metallers ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW “Baptized by the Blood of Angels” aside from being and excellent melodic death metal band, one that has especially grown on me the past few weeks, these guys how and when to use my favorite guitar technique, sweeping. The ones 2/3rds of the way through this song simply own my soul. The rest of the song is brutal and melodic… perfect. DESTROY DESTROY DESTROY is a band that Lane introduced me to the first show he was on with us and they pretty much kick ass. I have a minor pet peeve with bands that are silly when it comes to the music. This band can sometimes be on the silly side but they take their music seriously as evidence by the precision and skill. Lane and I have a good discussion about this band. As for the song “Battle Cry” the drums and rhythm cadence are intense, and the lead singers voice is piercing. CRYSTAL EYES was up next with “Northern Rage”. I find this band fascinating because the guitar player keeps the songs really interesting despite having just one primary guitar track on each song. How this one dude is able to fuel such great melodies is a mystery I hope to unlock in my playing someday. Following some questionable conversation topics, which I will not recap in this blog, I wanted to play some really dark black metal from the northlands. IRRBLOSS just released and album called 2009 Bloodline and features a song called “Irrbloss” that kicks ass. Most people who listen to the show I know dig heavy tremolo picking and sweeps so this satisfies the former which some great heavy melodic tremolo picking over some blasting drums. FEJD is a folk band from Sweden. No electric guitars need apply in “Offerok”, this rhythmic folklore is heavy with just drums and bass and an excellent male chorus. FEJD means “fued” in Swedish. WIZARD is the name of the next band.. their latest is 2009 Thor which obviously is a power-viking masterpiece, (how could it not be?) “Stolen Hammer” is not your typical power metal though, this song has the heavy bite that you get from the the right arm of the best thrash metallers. It’s a. refreshing departure from the epic-grandiose power that is common these days. After that one you heard Lane and I singing “The Bard’s Song” by BLIND GUARDIAN.. yes we we’re drunk and I admittedly didn’t know the words as well as I thought. But I think we did a good job. HYBORIAN STEEL is a band I discovered this week. The song I picked was “Pirates of the Black Coast”. I like this one, as did Lane, because it has a bit of a raw quality to it. It has a retro 80’s thrash feel with it’s sloppy productions and fast paced riffage. As Lane put it.. some SONATA ARCTICA songs put hair on your chest.. others make you question your sexuality… this one is unfortunately the latter but I don’t care.. I love this song.. and just like the words say “Needed to sing the very notes I heard..” so do I need to sing this song when I hear it… its called “Gravenimage” The every instrument in this song is perfect including the vocals which hit some pretty hard notes indeed. The harpsichord is especially awesome too, something I don’t get to say very often. EQUILIBRIUM is one of my top 10 bands, “Der Sturm” is the song Lane picked because its literally impossible to pick a bad song from these guys. Helge Stang has one of the best voices in metal and the whole band is leagues above anyone else in the epic pagan black metal scene… Although I think the show went on for 2 more songs.. the recording of the show ended with “Midnight Bird” by ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW once again showcasing their perfect melodic cadences and harsh vocals.