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Integrity Trap Them Magrudergrind Profound Lore Ceremony Black Breath SCION A/V SCHEDULE J a n u a r y

JAn. 8th MetAL MAtinee, trap them, Black Breath and Mammoth grinder

JAn. 9th MetAL MAtinee, Los AngeLes trap them, Black Breath and Mammoth grinder

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sCion A/V Primate, Draw Back a stump eP

M a r CH

MAR. 5th sCion 2011 Pomona, California

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scion A/V: Magrudergrind, Crusher eP MusiC ViDeos to wAtCH inCLuDfreee download kyLesA MuniCiPAL wAste “tired Climb” “wolves of Chernobyl” “electric Flower” check it out SCION PROJECT MANAGER: Jeri Yoshizu, Sciontist For additional information on Scion, email, write or call. EDITOR: Eric Ducker SCION CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE CREATIVE DIRECTION: Scion 19001 S. Western Avenue Mail Stop WC12 Question: How do you choose the artists at scion Rock Fest? ART DIRECTOR: Ryan Di Donato Torrance, CA 90501 PRODUCTIONStaff DIRECTOR: Anton Schlesinger Phone:Contact 866.70.SCION AnsweR: each year at scion Rock Fest, the goal has been to feature the greatest bands in the key areas CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: J. Bennett Fax: 310.381.5932 of underground metal: , ,Ask thrash, Scion and doom. the intention is to present an exciting combination of absolute legends alongside younger bands who breathe new power into this music and ASSISTANT EDITOR: Maud Deitch Email: Email us through the contact page carry it into new directions. we also put a special spotlight on artists who have been doing incredible work for GRAPHIC DESIGNERS: Cameron Charles, Kate Merritt located on scion.com many years, who are possibly unknown to some and who we feel do not receive the recognition they deserve. Hours: M-F 6am-5pm PST this year in particular we are placing a greater focus on hardcore-leaning metal bands, as a counterpart to the Online Chat: M-F, 6am-6pm PST PHOTOGRAPHER: Greg Bojorquez scion Metal Matinees we’ve been doing every month in Los Angeles. All in all, through scion’s many metal initiatives, we are proud to work with about 150 bands a year, and we always have slots available for bands we Scion Metal Zine is published by malbon Brothers Farms. For more information about mBF, contact [email protected] do multiple projects with—great artists and great people we love to work with. —Adam shore, booker for scion Rock Fest ContributorsCompany references, advertisements and/or websites listed in this publication are not affiliated with Scion, unless otherwise noted through disclosure. Scion does not warrant these companies and is not liable for their preformances or the content on their advertisements and/or websites. If you have a question, email us through the Contact page on scionav.com © 2010 Scion, a marque of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc. All rights reserved. Scion and the Scion logo are trademarks of Toyota Motor Corporation. 00430-ZIN01-MT Photography by greg Bojorquez

trap them is a band whose sound seesaws from grind to crust-punk to black-eyed hardcore. But perhaps what really sets trap them apart is vocalist Ryan Mckenney’s epic lyrical concept, a multi-faceted story about a small town that began on the band’s 2007 full-length debut, sleepwell Deconstructor, and has continued through every song on their five subsequent releases, including their as-yet-unnamed album due out in March. Mckenney recently took a break from cleaning out trap them’s tour van in Lubbock, texas, to explain. Before we did the first record,i had an idea that was kind of similar to what i ended up doing on all our releases. i thought about making every song an extension of one person who grew up and left a small-town and basically turned into a complete abomination of every human spirit, who did everything he could do to ruin any faith in humanity. But that seemed too small and condensed for what i felt i could work with over the time of the band’s career. so i spread it out and theorized an entire town of desolate, depressed people, and what would happen if something snapped in every person all in one day—who would stay there, who would leave and what would happen to them. i decided to tell those stories secondhand, firsthand, from every aspect of small town life. i grew up in Dover, new Hampshire, so i have a pretty firm grasp on the two sides of the story, of feeling trapped in a small town and being this close to being like, F*** it. i’m gonna be a townie. i’m gonna work at the gas station and listen to whatever comes on the radio and just be happy with day to day life. or being like, i wanna get outta here. And i chose to get outta there. so what clicked in my head about doing something like this storyline is that i definitely know what it’s like to question yourself, to decide whether you’re going to do something you don’t wanna do for the rest of your life or if you’re gonna do something about it. the songs about the people who left the town are about whether they left for negative or positive reasons, and what they ended up doing. the stories about the people who stayed in the town end up being about whether they appreciate what they do there or whether they’re so miserable about being trapped that it boils up and over and they want to basically destroy the place that destroyed them. i really do feel like it’s a novelistic approach. i take references and phrases from every song and incorporate them into new songs, and i graduate the story into each new release by making sure i’m referencing a lot of things from the previous one. i never really write a whole chunk of the story at once, though. Like with many people who write, a certain idea or phrase will pop into my head and i’ll have to run to get a piece of paper and get it down as quick as i can. it might just be a line or two, but i’ll build on it afterwards. i realized on the first two records whati could do with this. i wrote those over maybe two months. nowadays, i usually have the lyrics to a record done about a year before any music is written. i give them to [guitarist] Brian [izzi] so he can get a feel for how he can work with that musically. once the music is done, i might have to rework them a little bit to fit the music, but at this point,i ’ve probably written enough for the next two full-lengths. when i started writing this stuff, i really didn’t think much of it. Coming from a punk and hardcore background, you notice that a lot of kids sing along at shows, but i don’t think the words necessarily sink in with them. But then kids started coming up to the merch table to ask me questions about the lyrics and where the story was going. i really didn’t think that was something that would get any attention. the major thing for me was that i was so impressed with Brian’s songwriting ability that i felt it would be an insult to him if i were to go through the motions and write words that weren’t given the time and respect that he gives to the music. As told to J. Bennett wecraftindarkness.com to get information about trap them’s January shows in Los Angeles and Chicago as part of the scion A/V Metal Matinee series, visit scionav.com/metal trap them in Columbus, ohio I n T r OD u CI n G CE r EMON y STORY : J. BENNETT PHOTOGRAPHY: GREG BOJORquEz

SCION

Listening to Ceremony’s third and latest album, Rohnert Park, is like taking a slingshot ride back to the early ’80s, the era when hardcore was first being forged ROCK FEST by Black Flag, Minor Threat and the Circle Jerks. Taking its name from the Northern California town where the band is from, the album is a white hot blast of attitude that follows hardcore’s long suburban tradition. It’s also arguably Ceremony’s mellowest album to date. “On the first couple of records that we did, the music and lyrics were a little bit more abrasive than they are now,” vocalist Ross Farrar explains. “When we SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 2011 first started playing shows, we got a rep as a fast, aggressive band, and more people started coming to the shows. It’s gotten a little less abrasive, maybe, but people still POMONA, CA go crazy—stage-diving, jumping off bars, throwing chairs.” “It’s like recess for people in their early twenties,” adds bassist and sometimes- guitarist Ryan Mattos.

Rohnert Park is clearly the sound of a band in transition. While 2006’s Violence Violence and 2008’s Still Nothing Moves You bristle with youthful anger, Rohnert Park reveals an subtler, more nuanced hardcore outfit. “Our goals for this band are completely different than when we started,” explains guitarist Anthony Anzaldo. “I’m FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT more concerned with what I think is great music rather than just writing the fastest 20-second song I can come up with and losing my mind onstage as hard as I can.”

WWW.SCION.COM/ROCK As Farrar points out, it’s just a matter of expanding one’s horizons. “It’s like when you’re a little kid, you see a fire engine go by, it makes you really happy. When you’re 30, you don’t care about the fire engine anymore,” he says. “It’s kind of like that with punk and hardcore. You’re pumped on it when you’re a kid but then other things come along. You start going to the MoMA or learning about astronomy. But Minor Threat will always be rad.”

ceremonyhc.com

To watch a longer interview with Ceremony and see videos and pictures from their performance at Scion A/V’s Metal Matinee, visit scionav.com/metal Named after the housing project where they used to practice, Washington, DC scour-trio Magrudergrind are among the vanguard of modern grindcore. Founded in 2002, the band has risen through the high-speed ranks on the strength of two mammoth full-lengths, a pile of splits and a relentless touring schedule that has taken them all the way to Southeast Asia. Their latest EP, Crusher, was released through Scion A/V and is a testament to their craftsmanship and dedication to a musical form first created by the likes of Repulsion, and Carcass in the 1980s. The title and cover art are also clever nods to Earache’s infamous Grind Crusher compilations of the late ’80s and early ’90s. A recent graduate of the University of ’s Department of Economics program, vocalist Avi Kulawy recalls a life in grind.

WAS ThERE A PARTICUlAR MoMENT WhEN yoU KNEW yoU WANTED To BE IN A GRIND BAND? I started out playing in bands, but my music taste kind of changed when I was about 16 or 17 and went toward the more extreme elements of hardcore. Grind was just so harsh and emotional in an aggressive way. It was very thoughtful and it felt real. I had a lot of angst and anger built up, so I figured a grindcore band was the most appropriate style of music to express myself.

A loT oF yoUR lyRICS SEEM SPECIFIC To lIVING IN DC. Do yoU ThINK MAGRUDERGRIND WoUlD BE A DIFFERENT BAND IF yoU WERE FRoM SoMEWhERE ElSE? yeah, absolutely. I think my lyrics are a product of the city I grew up in, and of the macro factors of the punk community that I was involved in. The punk and hardcore community in DC is a lot different than any other city, and a lot of that has to do with class and the demographic makeup of the area. In DC, there are two tiers to the punk scene. There are a lot of wealthier suburban kids that come into the hardcore scene, and they can be very hypocritical sometimes because they hate on gentrification, yet they move into these Interview: J. Bennett neighborhoods and spur gentrification. They hate on certain social aspects of the scene, yet Photography: Greg Bojorquez they participate in it. And a lot of that has to do with the demographic nature of the area. BUT MAGRUDERGRIND ISN’T IN ThAT TIER. Right. But I’m not gonna say that we’re poor kids or anything. We’re not uneducated or anything like that. I guess it’s just that there’s a very far-left sentiment in the punk community here, just like any other punk scene, but I feel like it’s taken to a different level here, and that level is kind of hypocritical. you have these kids talking about social issues that they’re not even experiencing. They don’t even have a clue. And that just doesn’t seem real.

Do yoU hAVE A SySTEM FoR WRITING lyRICS? I procrastinate pretty hard, actually. There will be times where I’ll be scribbling down lyrics the night before we have to record, so usually the things I talk about are very much up to date with whatever is going on in my life. When I look back at the lyrics I’ve written over the years, I can see how I’ve changed as an individual—my perception of the world, my perception of issues, politics, social problems, everything.

IN ThE PAST, yoU’VE TAlKED ABoUT MAGRUDERGRIND GETTING “lESS FUNNy” AS TIME GoES oN. IS ThAT JUST A MATTER oF MATURING AS A lyRICIST AND CollECTIVEly AS A BAND, oR IS ThERE SoMEThING ElSE AT WoRK? I think as we get older, our priorities change. For instance, a few years ago, I was in school and every break that we had, I was all about hitting the road and doing the band thing. I just finished school recently, and I’m starting to reevaluate things. I look at a lot of other people who I grew up with and I think my personality and my life is just changing in weird ways. I wouldn’t call myself a conventional hardcore or metal kid, because I don’t follow the typical guidelines of whatever people expect.

Do yoU ThINK yoU’ll PURSUE A CAREER IN ECoNoMICS AT SoME PoINT? Well, it absolutely interests me because it’s part of everyday life. It has to do with everything, from the food we eat and the clothes we buy to political decisions that are made. It even affects music, and I’d like to pursue the business side of music at some point. I work at a digital advertising agency right now. It’s all right, but I find myself sitting there sometimes thinking, Man, I wish I was on tour right now. Visit scionaV.com myspace.com/magrudergrind for original videos of interviews & performances, exclusive & free listen to Magrudergrind’s Crusher EP at scionav.com/magrudergrind music downloads, live event photos, streaming music on Scion Radio 17 & much more Story: J. Bennett In the past few years, the diverse roster of upstart Canadian Profound lore has ravaged the metal underground. Founded by owner and operator Chris Bruni in 2004, the label’s recent releases include acclaimed slabs from oregonian doom dealers yob (2009’s The Great Cessation), NyC black metal wizards (2009’s Dimensional Bleedthrough) and Portland folk-metal magi Agalloch (2010’s Marrow Of The Spirit, which was recently crowned Album of The year by Decibel magazine). Bruni credits Profound lore’s excellent track record to complicated than following his instincts. “It’s not like I went on some marketing campaign to build this brand,” he says. “There’s no grand scheme. It’s just been about releasing music I like.” In just six short years, Profound lore has gone from part-time hobby to full-time occupation. Bruni has only been dedicating all his workdays to the label since August 2009, when he left his day job at a packaging distribution company. “I guess you could say I was in the corrugated industry,” he says with a laugh. “It was one of the most depressing things I’ve ever been involved in.” Bruni cites Eater Of Birds, the 2007 album from Colorado war-metal maniacs Cobalt, and Works Will Come Undone, the 2006 album from oakland funeral doomsters Asunder, as key turning points for the label. “Cobalt was turned down by every other label, but that record just blew me away when I heard it,” he says. “And now they have a real reputation that started when that album came out. As far as Asunder, the overall aesthetic of that release signaled a new direction for the label because it was such a sprawling, epic doom record. It made me even more focused on really dark, really heavy music.” Today, Profound lore is essentially a one-man operation that Bruni runs out of his house in the ontario countryside, about 90 minutes from Toronto. “I have a graphics guy who does some of my ads and puts some of the CD designs together,” he explains. “But I basically do it all myself, even the grunt work.” profoundlorerecords.com twitter.com/profound_lore SElECTIoNS FRoM ThE PRoFoUND loRE CATAloG

ludicra, the tenant, 2010 agalloch, marrow of the spirit, 2010

asunder, works will come undone, 2006 man’s gin, smiling dogs, 2010

cobalt, eater of birds, 2007 slough feg, the animal spirits, 2010 The ARt Of FreNCh

Story: J. Bennett

The subheading of French’s blog says it all: “Drawing, Death Metal, Tea Drinking.” Such are the activities that occupy much of the English artist’s time. Born Richard Sayer, his first paid illustration work appeared in the record review pages of UK skate mag Sidewalk, drawing the likenesses of legendary metal bands Motörhead, Immortal and . “It didn’t pay much, but it was a pretty good first job,” he says. “I was so stoked just to be asked to draw anything.”

These days, French’s phantasmagoric designs—which often include some appropriately metal combination of hair, horns and snakes—grace T-shirts and decks from Vans, Zero Skateboards and Nitro Snowboards, among others. He’s also created art for many of the flyers for Scion A/V metal shows. Meanwhile, his highly detailed fine art paintings, done in the style of classical wood carvings, have appeared in galleries on both sides of the Atlantic (including two Scion Installation Art Tours).

As for recent inspiration, French says he’s turned to the guttural sounds of renowned death dealers Angel Corpse, Immolation and Monstrosity. “I first got into metal through my older brother,” he explains. “He and all his friends were into bands like , , Saxon and . From there, it just got heavier.”

funeralfrench.com To see some of the art French has done for Scion A/V metal projects, visit scionav.com/metal Art by French Art by French Over the past 25 years, ChiCagO has prOduCed sOme Of the mOst unique bands Of the ameriCan metal COmmunity, inCluding yakuza, peliCan and maCabre. nOt typiCally assOCiated with any One Watch vIdeos froM the scIon a/v vIdeo serIes sOund, the ChiCagO sCene is best knOwn fOr its diversity. we spOke with rOdney pawlak Of at scIonav.coM/MusIc/scIonavvIdeo the ChiCagO metal faCtOry, a listings website dediCated tO heavy musiC events in the ChiCagO area, abOut what he thinks metal fans need tO knOw abOut in the City.

reggie’s rOCk Club Reggie’s was kind of in one of those up-and-coming neighborhoods, but now it really is up-and-coming—the housing projects across the street are no longer there, the scary liquor store next door’s not there. When I was a kid growing up in Chicago, you had to go into the seedier neighborhoods to find this kind of music. Then everything changed, and everyone was going to House of Blues and there wasn’t really a place for the smaller shows. But Reggie’s and a couple of other DIY venues opened up and they can do all-ages shows, so now there are other options.

exit The Exit on North Avenue has just started doing metal shows. It has a metal night on Sunday that’s really popular. It’s more of a bar that has metal shows as well. Whenever there’s a Sunday and there’s a show in town, all the bands show up there, and smaller bands hang out there throughout the week.

the ChiCagO metal faCtOry Thecmf.com lists pretty much every [metal] show going on. Unfortunately, some days there will be five shows and some days there will be none, but that’s the metal scene here, I guess. It’s a resource that a lot of people really love. I’m behind the site. I’m not trying to do something flashy or high tech, it’s just a resource. It’s just this little site that tells what it is.

vOlume reCOrding/semaphOre reCOrding Sanford Parker from Minsk, he gets the local bands to come and record and, of course, all of the international bands as well [Parker has engineered records for Lair of the Minotaur, Yob, , Zoroaster and more]. His recordings are all really good, super booming, and he’s a really cool guy. Everybody wants to go there. The studio is in Wicker Park, which is a hip neighborhood, but you get made fun of for living there, too.

sCOtt davidsOn, “rebel radiO” IncludIng Scott Davidson has been the biggest metal supporter over the years. He’s been keeping it alive. He’s been doing it for so long, he books bands, is in bands, does everything. We don’t have a big corporate station MunIcIpal Waste’s “Wolves of chernobyl” that supports metal in Chicago. “Rebel Radio” is small, but anyone who grew up metal as a kid would tune in late at night to hear metal. He’s definitely shaped more people in the scene than anyone else.

kuma’s COrner Kuma’s is the heavy metal burger place. Every burger is named after a heavy metal band. People actually wait in line for like an hour and a half to get a table there. They play metal, but it’s not super loud—more the droney stuff—and it’s awesome. You know, Lady Gaga had to make her appearance there when she was in town for Lollapalooza.

thecmf.com To find out what bands are coming to Chicago for Scion A/V’s Metal Matinee series, visit scionav.com/metal Story: J. Bennett

Black Breath guitarist Eric Wallace does not mince words. Ask him why his band plays at top speed and ear-splitting volume and he’ll give it to you straight: “Because playing loud and fast is more fun than quiet and slow.”

INTRODUCING… And make no mistake, this Seattle-based metal outfit seems to be having nothing but fun. In fact, Wallace responded to our questions from Vienna, Austria, where he and his bandmates—vocalist Neil McAdams, bassist Elijah Nelson, drummer Jamie Byrum and guitarist F. Funds—were on their first European tour. “Last night we played at a university in Stockholm, and the kids tore down the barrier between the crowd and the stage,” Wallace reports. “We kept playing, stoked, figuring security would come and intervene sooner or later, but they never did. Come to think of it, I don’t think there was any security at all, just some theater nerd kids from the school looking real nervous!”

On their 2008 EP Razor To Oblivion and 2010’s full-length debut, Heavy Breathing, Black Breath lash d-beat punk and thrash riffs to roaring Swedish death metal tones. Wallace cites classic black metal and punk bands like Bathory, Discharge, and as initial inspirations, but points out that Black Breath’s songs have become progressively more complex since the band’s inception in 2006. “As time ticks by, we’ve definitely incorporated different influences and ways of playing that would never have made it into earlier songs,” he says. “It’s quite safe to say at this point that more death metal has crept into our stuff than before. Whether that’s good or not, who knows?”

As for the album title? “Heavy Breathing was just too good not to use,” Wallace explains. “Considering the band name, it worked in a tongue-in-cheek way, in the vein of countless old metal records. Plus, it had the word ‘heavy’ in it.”

blackbreath.com To get information about Black Breath’s January shows in Los Angeles and Chicago as part of the Scion A/V Metal Matinee series, visit scionav.com/metal ourselves. that’s where our interest is—not so much the amount of audience, or lack of. Interview: j. bENNEtt

Formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1988, hardcore legends Integrity were never big on tradition. While many of their contemporaries were content to bark lyrics about straight edge or scene unification (or both) You made Integrity’s back catalog available for free over the same done-to-death chug runs and generic I had an allowance as a kid, and I would save up breakdowns, Integrity helped inculcate the genre on the internet a few years ago. Why did you decide my pennies to buy records. I would only be able with metal riffs, guitar solos and bizarre samples, to do that? to afford one record a month, maybe two. I would laying much of the groundwork for the metallic buy them pretty much solely based off the album hardcore explosion of the late 1990s. Meanwhile, artwork, particularly if Pushead was drawing it. If frontman and conceptual mastermind Dwid Hellion he did the cover, you pretty much knew it was safe. was writing lyrics about psychological warfare, but sometimes I’d buy records that I wasn’t into, terrorism and the various activities of government and I’d be stuck with them. this was before the agencies. today, Hellion lives in while internet existed in a way that the citizens could use the rest of his bandmates are scattered across the it. So giving the music away to people now is a way . though he and multi-instrumentalist for them to hear the music without buying it. If robert Orr are constantly writing and recording they don’t like it, they can delete it. I’d rather do it new Integrity material, they rarely play live or give that way than be part of a deception, where people interviews. We had the chance to sit down with them would buy it based on a lie or a misrepresentation before their recent Scion A/V Metal Matinee show of what we’re about. Misrepresenting what we’re in Los Angeles. An excerpt with Hellion follows: about is something that’s been a constant with this band. Even the band name is like that. based on our name, you probably wouldn’t think our music would sound the way that it sounds. It’s a I feel like Integrity started as sort of a terrorist contradiction, I guess. Whyreaction did toyou society. start Integrity? I was born in the ’70s and became a teenager in the ’80s. to like the kind of music I liked back then was kind of like putting a target on your head. It sounds crazy now, but back then if you were to wear a Samhain shirt or a Misfits shirt, that automatically meant that in school you were DoesI don’t Integrity really knowmean something the reason different why Ito makeyou today this fighting people everyday, just because of the bands thanmusic. it did I don’t back in know 1988? what’s driving me now any you liked. It made no sense. Nowadays, things like more than I know what was driving me back then, punk rock and skateboarding are everywhere. but other than I just wanted to create something to back then, you had to fight for it.t hat’s the world I entertain myself. I listen to a lot of music and I’m come from, and Integrity’s music reflects that. interested in a lot of different things, and I often feel unsatisfied with what is available to me. I want to make something that’s more tailored to my own interests. that’s something that rob shares with me, and that’s why we do it. Ultimately, if no one was listening to it, that would be just fine.t here are You don’t play live very often these days. As a a lot of songs that we make that no one hears, that result,Well, we Integrity don’t really shows think are big about events. the Areband you in those we just make for ourselves. We have bands where overwhelmedterms—as far by the as response popularity you orget? attendance. We we don’t say that it’s us. but we don’t care. We do it pretty much just do it for ourselves. We’re selfish because we like it. people. We’re entertaining ourselves by making the music that we wanna hear, music that we don’t feel is out there now. And because of that, we taught holyterror.com ourselves how to record on our own, to mix on our To watch a video of an extended version of this interview own, to master on our own and do all the artwork and to watch performance videos, visit scionav.com/metal INTERNET PICKS

As Editor-in-Chief of Decibel magazine, it’s crucial that Albert Mudrian keeps up with every level of metal bands. And while he still gets pitches from writers, publicists and labels, the internet remains a crucial tool. Here, he discusses how he uses the internet and what sites he visits to stay informed.

There are a lot of really good download blogs. I’m not going through trying to collect as much of this music as possible. I’m going because it becomes a very easy screening process where I can grab half a dozen records that somebody has uploaded and go through them to determine if they make sense for coverage in the magazine. I have to approach things differently because I’m constantly being inundated by record labels, publicists and other writers pitching me new records before they come out. A lot of times I don’t end up going to blogs to find out what bands they’re talking about, because chances are, someone’s been whispering in my ear for a couple months prior.

There are some good metal blogs out there that are writing about bands and doing some expository pieces. There’s a blog called Invisible Oranges that posts some sample tracks to check out, but they also have interesting interviews and record reviews. They’re as close as you’ll come to a print magazine in an online blog form.

There’s the site Metalsucks.net, which despite having an unfortunate URL is a good source for general audience metal music. It isn’t just super underground stuff or the traditional mainstream stuff, like or Slayer. They really span a very, very wide breadth of things.

There are a lot of interesting message boards out there that talk about metal, and you can definitely glean some interesting things by reading what über nerdy people are posting about. There’s a general music message board called I Love Music that has a lot of metal threads. Decibel’s message board gets a lot of traffic, and people there talk about a lot of records that we will eventually end up covering, or may have just covered, so it’s interesting to read what people’s take is on those. There’s a forum called Foreverdoomed.com that has a lot of and black metal discussions. I honestly hear more about underground bands from those sites than I do from magazines or blogs or publicists even.

I was lurking on a forum discussing old school style death metal. The discussion was about new bands playing old death metal. When those death metal bands were first out I was really into them, so I was taken with that idea. There was one band that people were talking about called Deathevokation, and I had never heard of them, but I ended up checking them out and was blown away. The record was a year old at the time, and I sent it around to some writers and some friends. Last year, Decibel did a top records of the decade piece, and Deathevokation actually made it in.

As told to Maud Deitch decibelmagazine.com p r e s e n t s

tOP PICKS: A DA M S H O r E

Adam Shore, host of “Radio Doooom!” on Scion Radio 17 and booker of the Scion Rock Fest, spotlights what’s currently interesting him in the world of metal.

Hole In the Sky Festival In , Norway. Ivar Bjørnson from Enslaved and Martin Kvam produce Hole In the Sky, one of the great festivals in the world, which is now in its 11th year. A devastating overload, with a special focus on death and black metal, this year’s fest saw tremendous sets from , Ihsahn (from Emperor), Autopsy (with ’s Dan Linker on guitar) and so many more. But the true highlights were Dead Congregation, the great old school-sounding death metal band from Greece that has yet to play the US (but, thanks to Maryland Deathfest, will be here soon!); absolutely thrilling sets from Obituary and Venom, two bands you would never believe would be so tight, so strong and so powerful 25 and 31 years (lambgoat.com) into their careers, respectively, and, of course, the mighty , who’s full “ritual” show stands as one of the greatest performances of 2010. Covering the collision of metal, hardcore and other types of extreme music, lambgoat.com is a streamlined site offering Bay Area Black Metal Something putrid is growing near the San Francisco Bay. While the northeast has seen news, reviews and a message board for the faithful. an upsurge in black metal activity—thanks to bands like Krallice, Liturgy and Woe—the Bay Area is about to take over with releases from Necrite, Pale Chalice and Dispirit. Necrite and Pale Chalice both record for the excellent Flesner Records label, and conjure up a wretched noise that owes more to the second wave of Scandinavian BM than the east coast crews ever do. Necrite’s Sic Gloria Transit Mundi is one of the albums of Metal assault the year. Pale Chalice has yet to make a full-length, but from what we’ve heard so far, it will be spectacular. Meanwhile, we wait with bated breath for Dispirit, the new BM project from John Gossard, late of one of the (metAlAssAult.com) most important USBM bands ever: Weakling. From the demos you can hear on dispirit.org, it looks like the Founded and awesome power of Weakling’s music will surely rise again. run primarily by Aniruddh “Andrew” Integrity and Bastard Noise I am having the best time delving into these two bands’ impossibly exciting and Bansal, metalassault. unending catalogs, having admittedly come a bit late to both of them. Integrity, led by Dwid and started in com follows metal 1988, are the pillars of everything that was once and still is great in hardcore, and their latest album The from the mainstream Blackest Curse, is unimaginably fierce, brutal and stirring hardcore filtered though a filthy, blackened lens. to the farthest Bastard Noise is the culmination of Eric Wood’s life work, which began in 1991 with Man Is The Bastard, in reaches of obscurity through interviews, which he virtually invented the genre of music called power violence. Built upon a challenging avalanche of show reviews, photos, hardcore, grindcore and electronics (plus a seriously warped way of looking at the world), Bastard Noise is videos and audio something everyone needs to hear. That both Dwid and Eric Wood are into their third decade making such releases. startling, original music, with over 50 releases to each of their names, proves it’s time to recognize that these two aren’t just cult geniuses. They are true giants in music, deserving of our admiration and respect for their incredible dedication to making such powerful, original and pure music.

Albums “Radio Doooom!” Will Not Stop Playing: Necrite, Sic Gloria Transit Mundi (Flesner); Harvey Milk, A Small (metalinjection.net) Turn Of Human Kindness (Hydra Head); True Widow, As High As the Highest Heavens and From the Center to the At metAlinjection.net Circumference of the Earth (Mexican Summer); Swans, My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky (Young they pile on the content, God); Wold, Working Together For Our Privacy (Profound Lore); Nightbringer, Apocalypse Sun (Anja Offensive). providing A deep resource of videos, podcasts and show photos for metAl fAns. Listen to Radio Doooom! at scionav.com/music/radio17 The crowd at Scion Metal Show featuring Doomriders and Skeletonwitch, LA Death Angel at Scion Metal Show at The Roxy, LA

A b OU t tOWN

Ross Farrer of Ceremony at Scion Metal Matinee at The Roxy, LA Artist Murdoch at the Close To A World Below exhibition at Scion Installation LA

YOB at Scion Metal Show at The Roxy, LA

Doomriders at Scion Metal Show at The Roxy, LA Iron Age at Scion Metal Matinee at The Roxy, LA

Artist/Curator French, guest, Kill Pixie at the Close To A World Below exhibition at Scion Trash Talk at Scion Metal Matinee at The Roxy, LA Installation LA

Artist Ashley Lande at the Close To A World Below Artist Marcus Oakley at the Close To A World Below exhibition Acid Tiger at Scion Metal Matinee at The Roxy, LA exhibition at Scion Installation LA Skeletonwitch at Scion Metal Show at The Roxy, LA at Scion Installation LA Scion’s commitment to artistic expression provides a platform for passionate artists to focus on developing their art and exploring the endless possibilities. To learn about current and past projects from Scion Audio/Visual (SA/V), please visit scionav.com.