Suspended, Sisters Ov The Blackmoon & Blade Killer Dominate ‘Maidens Of Metal 4’

By Andrew Bansal

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August 1st 2015, The Airliner, Los Angeles CA: ‘Maidens Of Metal’ is a series of shows organized by Los Angeles-based promoters Metal Invictus, as a celebration of female musicians in metal. The fourth edition of this series took place at Metal Invictus’ home, the Airliner bar in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, and featured eight bands boasting of at least one female member. The lineup comprised Cowgirls From Hell (Pantera tribute), Suspended, Harlequin, Blade Killer, Sisters Ov The Black Moon, DoubleKill, Darkult and Molly Vamp.

I arrived at the venue in time for the start of the show at 8 PM and saw all the bands, except for the Pantera tribute. Nothing against the Cowgirls, but Pantera is overrated, there are way too many bands in this country that sound like Pantera without even covering Pantera songs, and I have no interest in seeing a Pantera tribute, male or female. Out of the remaining seven bands on the bill, here are the ones I deemed worth reviewing:

The show was distributed across two stages, and the first band upstairs was Darkult, an extreme metal entity from Orange County. Their vocalist Katherine Leon was arguably the most brutal female to take either stage at this show, as the audience really had to be inside this room and close to the stage to discover that the voice was in fact emanating from a female. The stark contrast between the monstrosity of her vocal delivery during the songs and the softness of her voice when she spoke between songs was indeed extremely entertaining. She also jumped in the crowd to instigate mosh pits. In addition, the drums sounded crisp, and the other layers of the music had their moments as well. Darkult certainly ignited sparks early on in this show.

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Darkult

Next up on the same stage were Los Angeles stoner/doom quintet Sisters Ov The Blackmoon. I saw this band play their debut live show at the Whisky last April. My gut instinct told me it wasn’t quite the true representation of them, and that they had the potential for much more. Sure enough, on this occasion they not only put on an infinitely better performance in comparison to that debut gig, but also turned out to be the best band of the show, at least on the upstairs stage if not overall. The guitar riffs cut through the room with deadly precision, inducing some well-deserved headbanging from those in the front few rows, and frontwoman Sasha Wheatcroft’s voice came across as genuinely powerful. They began strongly, attracting the audience’s attention with the first song, only to keep getting better through the set, and ended with their best song ‘Sisters’ which boasts of delightful guitar and bass solo tradeoffs. The band was equally impressive in all aspects, the music, the vibe and the stage presence. While followers of this genre obsess about overhyped female-fronted occult-themed rock bands from Europe, there’s this band in Los Angeles far worthier of the attention. Even though ‘Maidens Of Metal 4’ presented some great bands after them, Sisters Ov The Blackmoon might have stolen the show.

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Sisters Ov The Blackmoon

One of Los Angeles’ finest new old-school metal bands Blade Killer were finally playing a show that was not a Night Demon show, and I was looking forward to getting a proper look at them for the first time. They played the downstairs stage, and moments after they started, the power blew out during the first song ‘Raise Your Fist’, causing a ten-minute delay in proceedings. Things eventually resumed and they took it from the top. They played as great of a set as I expected, frontman Carlos Gutierrez clearly blossoming into a real singer, reveling in his new role after being known in the scene as the drummer of Fueled By Fire. To compliment his pristine, high-pitched, early Di’Anno-esque delivery, he has a group of promising young musicians by his side that together make for an excellent band deserving of worldwide acclaim. But it must be pointed out that the standing room around this downstairs stage simply was not sufficient for the appreciably large number of people Blade Killer drew to this show, and there is no doubt they should have been placed on the upstairs stage. The audience being hindered from seeing and enjoying this band to the fullest perhaps took away from the impact of their set. Great performance, wrong stage.

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Blade Killer

Back on the upstairs stage, all-female death metal quartet Harlequin played an impressive set and garnered a positive response from the crowd. They certainly possess solid chops on all instruments, and the combination of the lead and backing vocals stood out in particular. Harlequin in its current incarnation as a live band doesn’t do much wrong, except may be for taking pauses between every song and the frontwoman talking to the audience too much. If there was less of that, they could be far more relentless in a manner that wouldn’t give the audience a chance to recover. Other than that, solid set.

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Harlequin

Based out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, all-female death metal trio Suspended were the last band on the downstairs stage, and absolutely destroyed the place with a performance of unmatchable intensity. Even though there was barely any room for it, mosh pits broke out at regular intervals during Suspended’s set, and one dude even jumped off a table near the stage to make a failed landing atop a crowd that did not catch him, breaking his kneecap in the process. Suspended came here with a sense of purpose, as was clear from the excellence displayed by all three members, individually and collectively. This band was not messing around. The sheer darkness and power of the expression they portray through their musicianship and live performance is most definitely a product of the region they come from, and couldn’t be found in a Los Angeles-based band. Suspended drove all the way from their hometown, and deserved to be the real headliners of this event, which they were not, and just like Blade Killer, were slotted on the wrong stage. Regardless, attendees loved every moment of Suspended’s set and immediately after, came up to congratulate the girls on a stellar exhibition of all things extreme.

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Suspended

Across two stages and eight bands, the show ran almost exactly on time for the entirety of the event, and for that, the hard-working Metal Invictus team should be commended and credited. All in all, ‘Maidens Of Metal 4’ treated attendees to a largely enjoyable selection of live music that followed a common theme throughout, to go with cheap beers (by LA standards), free parking and a chilled-out vibe. Good show, Metal Invictus.

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