Images by Trinidad Valdez, words by Andrew Bansal
February 22 2020, The Viper Room, West Hollywood CA: Every year, the Wacken Metal Battle USA crowns a national champion to perform at the world’s most prestigious heavy metal festival, Wacken Open Air in Germany, and to represent the country on the Global Metal Battle stage at Wacken. The second battle in the preliminary Los Angeles round of this year’s WMB USA took place last Saturday, and what an epic evening of heavy metal it was, with the Viper Room sold-out to capacity. Over 250 metalheads congregated to witness six splendid performances by some of the finest of our city’s own local unsigned bands.
The participants, in order of appearance: Lacerated, Seizure, Darwen’s Theory, Ater, Deified and Consciously Dying
The panel of judges: Lloyd Grant (of Metallica fame), Mikey Muller (ex Helsott) and Mike Wells (mastering engineer for John 5 and many others)
The prize: Top two bands progress through to the Los Angeles Final, March 21 at Viper Room
Photographer Trinidad Valdez was on-site through the entire evening to give you a visual recap of how the evening unfolded. Check out his stunning photos below, and make sure to keep tabs on our WMB events as well as all other events and activities.
LACERATED Photos:
SEIZURE Photos:
DARWEN’S THEORY Photos:
ATER Photos:
DEIFIED Photos:
CONSCIOUSLY DYING Photos:
WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT:
WINNERS:
Remaining WACKEN METAL BATTLE USA events at Viper Room:
Sat 2.29 – LA Round #1, Battle #3
Sat 3.21 – LA Final
Sat 4.11 – West Coast Final
Sat 5.9 – National Final
For lineups, tickets and more info on these events, visit out Wacken Metal Battle USA 2020 landing page.
