By Avinash Mittur
February 22nd 2013, Key Club, Hollywood CA: After making a triumphant run through the U.S. nearly a year ago on the annual ‘PaganFest’ tour, Finland’s Turisas have returned on a headlining tour with Greek power metal warriors Firewind. The pair have been utilizing local openers on the many stops of this tour, and this date at the Key Club in Hollywood was no different. Though the venues on the Sunset Strip tend to make poor choices with the local acts more often than not, the Key Club managed to put together a great lineup for this show. This ‘Guards of Glory’ tour stop proved to be a consistently entertaining night for fans of fantasy-laced epic heavy metal, and a joyous celebration of everything over the top, silly, geeky, and plain awesome about this music and its culture. Continue reading “Turisas And Firewind: A Night Of Truly Epic Music”
February 8th 2013, Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA: For the past few weeks Norway’s most technically accomplished black metal act, Enslaved, have been hopping their way around North America with what can only be described as an oddball line up, and last Friday they paid a visit to the Troubadour in West Hollywood. This “Winter Rite 2013” tour has featured truly an eclectic mix of bands: the dark and haunting rock of Ancient VVisdom, Royal Thunder’s soulful blues rock, Pallbearer’s unrelentingly heavy doom metal and of course, Enslaved, who have managed to turn heads for decades with their brazenly progressive black metal. For fans into a wide variety of styles of heavy music, this night could have potentially been amazing. For others there to see only one band, it might have been extremely scattershot. Enslaved fans were guaranteed a great time however. Despite this utterly random lineup, Enslaved’s outstanding set was enough to justify spending this freezing Friday night at the Troubadour. 
