By Lisa Burke
April 14th 2016, The Whisky-A-Go-Go, West Hollywood CA: One of the most enjoyable aspects of seeing live bands and deepening my knowledge of the Los Angeles metal scene is the constant discovery of new bands that sometimes emerge out of other existing bands to form something unique. On Thursday April 14th 2016, I went to the Whisky-A-Go-Go primarily for the band Westfield Massacre. On this night, the headliners were Choleric and on stage prior to Westfield Massacre was a band called Bag Of Humans. There are definitely nights at the Whisky where I seriously have to scratch my head at the bizarre lineups and I know this usually happens in pay-to-play cases with early bands, however, sometimes it just is a strange combination of bands to play together. I suppose this night was not that strange but Westfield Massacre should have headlined in my opinion.
I arrived for Bag Of Humans who landed in Los Angeles from Maryland and supplied us with some grungy alternative rock ‘n roll with some hardcore tendencies that kept my interest throughout. There was some of it that actually sounded like something off of Nirvana’s Incesticide album and I really didn’t mind it. The guitarist was the guy who happened to be dressed in a hospital gown and was playing a very pricy and uniquely interesting guitar to say the least and the pitchy tone was actually well played out. Every time I see a guy on stage wearing a hospital gown which I can honestly say is probably never, it reminds me of Kurt Cobain towards the end of his days when he pulled that off on stage all the time. I don’t know what the reason was, whether he was just out of the hospital, institution, or if he just likes to wear it for fun, but either way it’s something to gawk about. They played a song called ‘Last Victim’ that apparently they wrote in Vegas and basically with the punky lyrics and overall weirdness they pushed themselves out of the box enough to be noticed, even though it’s a hard genre to keep afloat these days with everything else that’s going on.
Next up was my draw to the show, Westfield Massacre, definitely met my expectations and exceeded them as well. With Ira Black on guitar you know you can’t go wrong, and Dio Britto on the drums is always a wild, heavy, and fun time. The singer’s vocals to me were similar in style to that of Killswitch Engage and the growls were as they should be, and despite the hardcore undertones of this heavy metal band, I did not mind the cleaner vocal stylings mixed in so much as they were done with a purpose, as were the backing tracks even if I’m not clear on the purpose there, but it worked nonetheless. There seemed to be a bit of Pantera influence and it definitely reached into metalcore with the heavy ‘no prisoners will be left alive’ kind of attitude. The singer jumped around impressively and the overall stage presence was selling the show. The turnout for their very first show was also good and everyone left with a smile on their face and the ticket price was well earned. At the end of their set they oddly chose to cover ‘Heart Shaped Box’ by Nirvana but they did it totally in their own heavy metal style and it was actually pretty awesome. You know you’re watching a purely talented band when they can take a song and twist and redefine it in another genre, and have it still recognizable, and turn out almost better than the original. Ira Black again was shooting out the badass riffs all over the place and it was a joy to watch. These dudes are definitely a force to be reckoned with, so watch out for them in the future and see them live on their upcoming tour with Sevendust.
After this, unfortunately I had no idea what to expect from Choleric but nothing too impressive happened for sure. They sounded to me like a hardcore band playing Candlebox and although I love Candlebox probably mostly for the vocals and lyrics, I did not love this confusing mess. The whiny pitchy vocals were a huge turn off for me and the echoey double drum was achieved in such a basic way that it didn’t take the band anywhere. It just kind of flew over my head as to what their intention was and I am so over badly done soft hitting hardcore bands that I just couldn’t even care anymore by the end. On that sour note I’ll say I’m glad to have seen two new bands that I was not at all disappointed with and am excited to see progress in the future.
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Westfield Massacre U.S. tour dates with Sevendust and Trivium:
4/26 — Baton Rouge, LA @ Varsity Theatre
4/27 — Birmingham, AL @ Iron City
4/29 — Atlanta, GA @ Center Stage
5/03 — New York, NY @ Playstation Theater
5/05 — Hartford, CT @ Webster Theater
5/08 — Baltimore, MD @ Rams Head
5/13 — Clear Lake, IA @ Surf Ballroom
5/17 — Sioux Falls, SD @ The District
5/18 — Arlington Heights, IL @ Home Bar
5/21 — Reading, PA @ Reverb
5/24 — Flint, MI @ Machine Shop
5/25 — Louisville, KY @ Mercury Ballroom
5/27 — Shreveport, LA @ Riverside Warehouse