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By Avinash Mittur

When you think of heavy and savage music in the Bay Area, what is the setting that you picture? Is it a small club in San Francisco, or a grimy warehouse in Oakland? Maybe it’s a house or a dilapidated rehearsal space in the vast recesses of the East Bay? Why not the surfer’s haven, Santa Cruz? That odd town hidden behind Highway 17 is home to one of the bay’s coolest secrets, a band called BL’AST! We’ll just call them Bl’ast from here on out- no need to yell after all. Back in the late ‘80s, Bl’ast was one of the Bay Area’s best contributions to the hardcore punk movement. Their music, noted by blinding speed, shredded vocals and jagged (yet incredibly heavy) riffs, was the logical successor to the sound first heard on Black Flag’s legendary My War LP. Fittingly enough, Bl’ast released three albums on Black Flag’s own label, SST Records, before calling it quits in the early ‘90s. In late 2013, the hardcore punk world found itself in for a treat- Bl’ast came back from the dead, and the band brought with them a new version of their second album, It’s in My Blood, now entitled BLOOD! As 2013 comes to a close, the members of Bl’ast are ready to play their second show since reforming. I meet with singer Clifford Dinsmore and guitarist Mike Neider barely an hour before they hit the stage at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco, and they offer me a look at how they managed to return to the music world and resuscitate the raddest band to come out of Santa Cruz, CA. Continue reading “A Bl’ast From the Past”

By Andrew Bansal

While some of the better-known names in the world of hard rock and heavy metal had a great 2013, others failed to live up to their past reputation. But amongst these were some who were relatively unknown, and based on what they did this year, they were able to stake their claim as the best emerging artists. Below are my picks for the top 13 in this category: Continue reading “Best Emerging Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Artists Of 2013”

By Andrew Bansal

The year of 2013 is drawing to a close, and it’s that time of the year when I start reflecting on the events that decorated the year that’s about to end. While my countdown of the best 50 albums continues, I decided to delve into the spreadsheet of shows I covered for Metal Assault this year and out of the 183 shows I attended, I’ve come up with this list of 13 best metal shows of the year. Not only the performance of the headline act, but that of the support acts, the crowd turnout and the venue setting have all been taken into consideration. Without further ado, here it is. Continue reading “Best Metal Shows Of 2013”

By Avinash Mittur

It’s a Friday night in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. On 17^th and Wisconsin, there lies a little bar and grill called Thee Parkside; if you’re not careful, you might drive right past without even knowing it. I’ve ventured to Thee Parkside just for this night, one that I have been waiting for since the age of fifteen. About one hundred metalheads and I have gathered to see one of the best bands in the world, Brocas Helm. I enter the minute the doors open, and I’m immediately greeted by friends and many of the Bay Area’s most dedicated metal lifers- this is the band’s first local show in nearly four years and before the night ends, the dive finds itself packed with Brocas Helm’s most rabid fans.

After three strong openers, the legendary act finally takes the stage at half past midnight and my excitement is boiling over. Standing tall at 6’4”, frontman and guitarist Bob Wright introduces the first song of the night as one that showcases his two bandmates, drummer Jack Hays and bassist Jim “The Wizard” Schumacher; the song is ‘Time of the Dark,’ Brocas Helm’s masterpiece and the high point of their thirty year career. Thirty years is a long time for any band to be around for, and Brocas Helm has come out of it with all three of its original members onstage. How did they reach this point though? How does a band exist for three decades, release only three studio albums, hardly ever play hometown shows and still end up with a fanatical, cult-like following? How does a band that breaks every other rule in the heavy metal handbook end up being one of the best on planet Earth? Continue reading “Defenders of the Crown: The Mighty Brocas Helm”

By Avinash Mittur

“It was just dead. Completely dead.” What was dead? Was it a person? An animal? A society? When Sean McGrath, singer (growler) and guitarist for a gore-obsessed death metal band called Impaled uttered those words he was referring to the San Francisco Bay Area’s heavy metal music scene in the early ‘90s. For McGrath and his fellow metalheads, that time may as well have been the dark ages. “People just didn’t go to metal shows. There really wasn’t anybody doing anything.”

For sixteen years, Impaled has been one of the flag-bearers for Bay Area death metal. Their first full-length album, The Dead Shall Dead Remain, was released right in the middle of those bleak times. Thirteen years later, Impaled is releasing a spit-shined re-recording of that album under the name of The Dead Still Dead Remain via Willowtip Records. Until now though, the detailed history behind Impaled’s debut record has been somewhat murky, really only known well by those who were there at the time. The following words are my attempt to document the early days of this band, and chronicle the events surrounding their debut album and its imminent rebirth. Continue reading “The Dead Remain Dead: An Impaled Retrospective”