This has been yet another loaded 12 months of metal. I’ve never listed this many before and decided not to pare it down any further. So…now, in no particular order, I proudly present to you…The Class of 2018! Top Albums 2018 1. Wolftooth-s/t 2. Aparia-Beyond the Walls of Man 3. Gygax-2nd Edition 4. Visigoth-Conqueror’s Oath 5. Immortal-Northern Chaos Gods 6. Portal-Ion 7. Judas Priest-Firepower 8. Primordial-Exile Amongst the Ruins 9. Shakma-House of Possession 10. Tribulation-Down...
HomeAuthorDarren Lewis, Author at First Angel Media
More than two months ago, intensely morbid, violent, and technical Toronto death metallers Tomb Mold branded the psyches of those who were fortunate, sturdy, and brave enough to attend Migration 2 over the course of their set. On a misty Monday in November, they returned to a nearly full house at Bloomfield’s Howler’s Coyote Café, slamming skulls into gravestones with funereal aplomb. Percussively impressive was skinsman/larynx Max Klebanoff, who was able to growl and rumble...
There was a time when acts in the vein of Icarus Witch were the temporarily exiled aristocracy of the heavy metal scene. However, Icarus Witch are no nostalgia show. While paying tribute to the past in their singular way, they also look forward, blazing paths with the precision of lasers and the aplomb of a fireworks display. Icarus Witch are on their fifth album and fourth singer, current throat Andrew D’Cagna also moonlighting in...
Robb Flynn is a warrior born. Early in the year — the team captain of a band with a very complicated trajectory that took them from groove metal to nu-metal to thrash to a place where they embrace their entire history–stopped a show 45 minutes into what was to be a 2 1/2 hour spectacular after a throat infection put up an insurmountable wall. A date was rescheduled. Tickets from the prior date were honored....
It was like a well-attended family reunion that was being held on a misty Saturday night close to Halloween in a decidedly industrial part of town. The venue, Get Hip Records, also doubles as a record label, shop, and warehouse and was highly apropos for such a historic event and a general showcase for Icarus Witch, one of Pittsburgh’s most exciting metal acts. Andrew D’Cagna, a multi-instrumentalist known for his work in Brimstone Coven and...
Thirty years ago, my father, then a limousine driver, chauffeured Alice Cooper around Pittsburgh when he toured here. To this day, my dad can’t get over how “normal” and decent he was. Since then, I’ve had an affinity for the gruesome old devil and his violent vaudeville spectacle, which I’ve caught on numerous occasions since 2010. Alice Cooper, rock’s most macabre villain, made it to The Steel City yet again the other night at a...
A Clutch concert is always a quasi-religious experience, and last night was ideal for such a church service. It’s become an annual tradition in Pittsburgh for Clutch to swing by for an evening of worship, a fall classic if you will. And you will. Rock that is, by the will of iconically bearded electric evangelist Neil Fallon and his murder of crows. This having been my seventh Clutch show, I found the set to be...
That Deceased aren’t as renowned as other thrash and death acts, be they mid-level or major league, is an injustice. They should be headlining festivals large and small and packing the denimed, leathery, mophead mobs in. Instead, they gave their all in front of a small Pittsburgh crowd on a patchy, concrete floor at an odd, appropriately disheveled new Oakland venue called Babyland, which serves as a workspace for struggling artists during the day....
If Metallica hadn’t released Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, an album I feel is their best in thirty years, I may not have bothered to shell out a small ransom to catch the James and Lars Show at PPG Paints Arena. I let my expensive (over-priced?), upper-level ticket walk. Twice. Metallica began as underground heroes only to end up as metal’s mainstream, multi-platinum, mass-merchandised top heel stable. Changes in appearance and musical direction combined with some sub-par, dumbed-down...
Having formed in 2003, The Breathing Process are a band that has endured myriad changes in terms of personnel and style. From the title to the actual content, Samsara, the band’s third album and first in six years, sounds and reads to be an allegory for their cyclical nature. https://thebreathingprocess.bandcamp.com/ Vocals either hiss like locusts or roar like bears awakened from hibernation. Guitars die, decay, and are reborn, in triplicate no less. Cryogenic keyboards...