Night Demon Headline Metal Monday At Skinny’s

By Andrew Bansal

March 31st 2014, Skinny’s Lounge, North Hollywood CA: Gearing up for their appearance at the Ragnarokkr Festival in Chicago next weekend and their upcoming two-month European tour, Ventura CA traditional metal trio Night Demon played at Skinny’s Lounge in North Hollywood last night, headlining the March edition of the venue’s monthly Metal Monday series, presented and curated as always by hard-working local promoter Lara Gladstone. Along with Night Demon, it was Cobra Venom, Infinite Death, Brain Dead & Savage Reign completing the lineup for the show, and it promised to be yet another fun night out for LA/NoHo locals.

The show started promptly at 8:15 with Brain Dead taking the stage and delivering an excellent 30-minute set filled with thrash, grooves and a touch of punk. I must admit, when I saw them open for Cauldron at the Five Star Bar last year, I wasn’t really blown away by their performance that night but here it was a totally different story and they made a strong impression on everyone in the audience, myself included. All four members are clearly much tighter and fiercer on their respective instruments, and they brought forth great energy on stage to go with their musicianship. Their original tunes packed a punch and the set-closing cover of GWAR’s ‘Sick Of You’, a tribute to the recently deceased Dave Brockie, was extremely well executed, specially by the vocalist who seemed to revel being in Brockie’s shoes. Brain Dead’s debut album ‘Indoctrinator’ was produced by the legendary Bill Metoyer was released in February. As a local LA band you definitely can’t go wrong if you have Bill Metoyer’s seal of approval. Props to Brain Dead for giving us a great start to this show.

Visit Brain Dead on the web:
BrainDeadThrash.bandcamp.com

BrainDeadThrash.com
facebook.com/BrainDeadEvil
twitter.com/BrainDeadThrash 

Next up, Whittier-based extreme metal Infinite Death took the stage. They came across as adept musicians and their vocalist gave it his all. The crowd was largely indifferent to this band but that wasn’t necessarily a reflection of the band’s performance and it’s just the nature of the atmosphere at Skinny’s at times, with most people preferring to hang out at the bar and couches in the back rather than supporting the bands playing on stage. In terms of their music I enjoyed the guitar solos in the first couple of songs they played, and the black metal tune with which they ended the set. They blended elements of death, black, progressive and groove metal and gave a good account of themselves. A more than decent set that perhaps deserved a better crowd response.

Visit Infinite Death on the web:
facebook.com/InfiniteDeath.CA 

Then it was the turn of Cobra Venom, who were coming home from a short West Coast trek of their own. They tore up this stage on a previous edition of Metal Monday and played a typically solid set last night as well, infusing some d-beat hardcore punk action into this show, along with an element of humor with their song titles and lyrics. They also did a great job with their cover of Dead Kennedys’ old gem ‘Macho Insecurity’. Cobra Venom is certainly one of the better crossover thrash/hardcore punk bands going around in LA at present, and I’d recommend fans of that style of music to check them out at their next show.

Visit Cobra Venom on the web:
CobraVenom.TV
facebook.com/CobraVenomBand
twitter.com/CobraVenomBand 

And finally, it was time for Night Demon to stamp their authority on yet another LA stage, and sure enough, they delivered the goods, not only living up to the expectations of their fans in attendance here but making an indelible impact on those in the audience that were seeing and hearing the band for the first time. Starting out all guns blazing with the one-two punch of ‘Ritual’ and ‘Satan’, they delved into their best composition ‘Curse Of The Damned’. Even the people who’d seen Night Demon shows on a regular basis would not have expected what came next, and little did anyone know that they had a surprise up their sleeve with a cover of Riot’s “Road Racin'” to celebrate their appearance at Ragnarokkr next Saturday where they’ll be sharing the stage with Riot. Night Demon have certainly mastered the art of choosing the best cult old-school bands and songs to cover, and this Riot cover was done complete justice to by them. It got the crowd’s attention, and Night Demon were able to ride on the momentum for the rest of the set. Vocalist/bassist Jarvis Leatherby and guitarist Brent Woodward were at their best, even though for the most part Jarvis didn’t seem satisfied with the volume of his vocals and I’m not sure whether his vocals were even audible beyond the front few rows of the audience. But it didn’t matter, because those who truly cared for the music were gathered near the stage anyway. Drummer Dustin Kithcart was pounding the house drum kit so hard that he displaced the kick drum out of position at one point, and his drumming at this show was probably the best he’s done with Night Demon since he joined. They ended the set with three songs off of the debut self-titled EP ‘Ancient Evil’, ‘Chalice’ and the eponymous ‘Night Demon’. This last song triggered the first and last circle pit of the show, and finally this crowd had woken up. The golf claps had given way to singing, violent headbanging and moshing, and for a change, it felt like I was at a metal show. At one point Jarvis’ vocals completely cut out but the fans kept singing the words, easily the most metal moment of the night. I recommended quite a few of my friends to come check out Night Demon at this show, some of them showed up, and after the set every single one of them gave me an emphatic thumbs-up, some even saying Night Demon is the best LA band they’ve ever seen. The Los Angeles metal scene should feel privileged to call Night Demon their own, because they are undoubtedly destined for greatness.

Visit Night Demon on the web:
NightDemon.net
facebook.com/NightDemonBand
twitter.com/NightDemonBand
instagram.com/NightDemonMetal 

Set List:
01. Ritual
02. Satan
03. Curse Of The Damned
04. Road Racin’ (Riot cover)
05. Ancient Evil
06. The Chalice
07. Night Demon

And closing the show were thrashers Savage Reign. They’re still a very new band that began last year and played a handful of shows during the course of the last few months, so they’re very much on a learning curve and it must be mentioned and taken into consideration before I express my opinion on their performance, but to be honest, they didn’t quite create a positive impression on anyone in this audience. They’re all very nice guys and I have nothing personal against them whatsoever, so I hope they don’t take this the wrong way as it’s only meant to be constructive criticism. The vocal delivery is their weakest link, and their instruments sounded out of key and out of tune. Besides, they simply weren’t in sync with each other as a group. It’s definitely not the end of the world for them, and in fact it’s just the beginning. What they need to do is practice hard, take an brutally honest look at themselves and before booking another show, decide whether they’re actually ready to play on stage in front of an audience that would judge them on their every single move.

But overall, it was another fun Metal Monday at Skinny’s, dominated by Night Demon’s fantastic traditional metal onslaught.

Visit Lara Gladstone on the web:
facebook.com/LaraGladstone.Presents
twitter.com/LG_Presents

Visit ‘Metal Mondays’ on the web:
facebook.com/MetalMondaysInLA

Visit Skinny’s Lounge on the web:
SkinnysLounge.com

facebook.com/pages/Skinnys-Lounge-in-NOHO/109244342457873
twitter.com/Skinnys_Lounge 

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