Metal Assault: Gig Reviews

Review by Andrew Bansal, photos & video by Carsten Steinhausen

March 27th 2015, House Of Blues, Anaheim CA: Even whilst they remain busy working on the next studio album, metal greats Queensrÿche recently embarked on a short run of US West Coast dates, and visited the House Of Blues Anaheim in Downtown Disney along with openers Leatherwolf and Gabbie Rae, for an excellently attended gig last Friday March 27 2015. Making the seemingly long walk from the parking lot to the venue through ‘the happiest place on earth’ is in fact a highly stressful ordeal for us metal-minded misfits, but this memorable Queensrÿche performance not only made us feel quite at home but put any and every doubt about the validity, quality and relevance of this band to rest forever. Continue reading “The Real Queensrÿche Enthralls Anaheim With Old-School Set”

By Andrew Bansal

March 25th 2015, Complex, Glendale CA: Coming towards the end of their current US tour, San Francisco occult/doom metal trio Castle arrived at Complex in Glendale for yet another sonically delicious Church Of The 8th Day gig, along with touring acts Demon Lung from Las Vegas and Wounded Giant from Seattle, and LA openers Philthy Heathens. Still supporting their third studio album ‘Under Siege’ (released in 2014 in North America via Prosthetic Records), Castle continue on their quest to conquer the metal underground with material old and new. In this journey of theirs, they have played the Los Angeles area several times, but owing to a multitude of factors, I never got a chance to see them perform. This gig finally rectified that, and it must be said that I couldn’t have picked a better show to form my first impression of Castle as a live band. It’s almost as if they knew I was coming. Continue reading “Castle Headline Doom Night At Complex”

Review by Andrew Bansal, live photos by Karina Diane

March 24th 2015, Complex, Glendale CA: Fort Collins, Colorado extreme metal band Allegaeon released a highly impressive third studio full-length album called ‘Elements Of The Infinite’ in 2014 via Metal Blade Records, and were heralded not only for one of the strongest releases of that year, but also as worthy newcomers in the genre. They’ve visited Los Angeles several times in the recent past, putting forth stellar shows on every occasion, and they returned as part of their ‘Get Rekt’ North American headline run along with support act Product Of Hate, for a gig at Complex in Glendale put together by Church Of The 8th Day which also featured local openers Thrown Into Exile and Servile Conceptions. Allegaeon’s performance was expected to be great, but all four bands combined for a delightfully heavy and immensely groovy evening at LA’s finest underground metal venue. Continue reading “Allegaeon Perform At Complex”

Review by Andrew Bansal, live photos by Karina Diane

March 21st 2015, The Troubadour, West Hollywood CA: Veterans of all things metal in Los Angeles for over 15 years, Desecrate had been working on new material for the past few years and the result is a hard-hitting third studio full-length album called ‘Of Death And Damnation’, for which they played a release gig at the Troubadour (blasphemously also known as “The Troub”) last Saturday March 21st, leading a lineup featuring Diamond Lane, Future Villains, Delta Rose, BrainDead and The Sahns. Put together by Lara Gladstone, this was perhaps the best group of local bands Los Angeles concertgoers have seen and will see on one stage in a very long time. Continue reading “Desecrate, Diamond Lane & Others Feature In Stellar Local Show At Troubadour”

By Andrew Bansal

March 20th 2015, The Whisky-A-Go-Go, West Hollywood CA: Los Angeles is a town that gives the hard rock/heavy metal lover plenty of options to choose from when it comes to live entertainment. Every night, there is invariably more than one event taking place, putting people that support a wide variety of heavy music in a dilemma. This dilemma is heightened much further on Friday and Saturday nights, wherein there are not two, not three but usually five or even up to ten shows to pick from. In my quest to attend and review as many shows as I can while I’m temporarily in town, I make such decisions every day, and oftentimes I find myself regretting these decisions. Last night was one such occasion. A lot of local friends warned me about how bad Dokken are live these days, but having never seen them, I wanted to check it out for myself. I love the Dokken classics as much as anyone you will come across, was listening to them on Spotify all week, and even the band I listen to the most on my bus/train rides, Skull Fist, also has strong Dokken influences in their music. So, I was genuinely pumped for this show, and the morning after, as I sit and listen to the same Dokken classics on Spotify and drown my sorrows that resulted from just how abysmally terrible the show was, here’s a recap of my experience from the night. Continue reading “Dokken Performs At The Whisky”

By Andrew Bansal

March 18th 2015, The Whisky-A-Go-Go, West Hollywood CA: It’s not very often that German metal queen Doro Pesch tours the United States, the West Coast in particular, so whenever she announces her band’s return to our part of the world, it’s an event in the true sense of the word and is surrounded by genuine anticipation. At the very end of her latest US headline run, Pesch and her band visited Los Angeles to play at the Whisky in West Hollywood last Wednesday March 18th, along with touring support band Archer from Santa Cruz CA and a whole slew of strangely interesting and diverse one-off opening acts. Continue reading “Metal Queen Doro Recaptures LA Crown”