Tag Archives: Heavy Metal

Music, The Features, We Love Music
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Hot Ticket: All That Remains @ 9:30 Club, 4/9/14

All That Remains (Photo by P.R. Brown)

All That Remains (Photo by P.R. Brown)

DC has been enjoying an interest in all things metal lately, particularly with the spectacular Spirits in Black monthly at various locations and Monday Heavy Metal nights at Satellite Room.

So it’s a perfect time to get out tomorrow and catch All That Remains as they hit the 9:30 Club Wednesday as they prepare to release their seventh studio album in the near future. Meanwhile, the band recently released a video for their song “What If I Was Nothing” from their last album, 2012’s A War You Cannot Win.

Sonically, A War You Cannot Win covers a lot of ground! Songs like the opening track “Down Through the Ages” and “You Can’t Fill My Shadow” are prime examples of the “metalcore” for which the band is known–howling hardcore choruses over thumping metal guitar riffs. Watching the video above, however, you would accurately conclude that the band is not without its sensitive side, capable of breaking out sweeping ballads to express wistful reflections of sorrow. Metalheads can be sensitive too!

Clearly, these guys have some tricks up their sleeve. Come out and see what other surprises they have in store for us!

All That Remains
w/ Darkest Hour, Wilson, Wings Denied
9:30 Club
Wednesday, April 9
Doors @7pm
$20
All ages

Entertainment, Fun & Games, Music
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The Winning Ticket: M3 Rock Festival

As a way to say thanks to our loyal readers, We Love DC will be giving away a pair of tickets to a concert to one lucky reader each week. Check back here every Wednesday morning at 9am to find out what tickets we’re giving away and leave a comment for your chance to be the lucky winner!

This week we are giving away double trouble with a sweet two-part M3 Rock Festival Prize Pack. That’s right, one lucky winner gets a pair of tickets to the M3 Rock Festival Kix-Off Party on Friday, May 13th AND a pair of tickets to the day long 80’s rock extravaganza M3 Rock Fest on Saturday May 14th!

Between these two epic parties you’ll catch the likes of Kix, Whitesnake, Lita Ford, Tesla, Slaughter, Warrant, L.A. Guns, the one and only Sebastian Bach, and many more! That’s more hair metal than you can shake a can of Aquanet at! So enter to win tickets to this insane event that celebrates the days when Metal meant crushing a beer can on your forehead, driving donuts in a Firebird in the High School parking lot, and playing air guitar to music made by men who had spent more time on their hair than the ladies! This one’s going to be be balls to the wall, wicked awesome, and seriously bitchin’!

For your chance to win these tickets simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address between 9am and 4pm today. One entry per email address, please. If today doesn’t turn out to be your lucky day, check back here each Wednesday for a chance to win tickets to other great concerts. Tickets for this concert are available on Ticketfly.

For the rules of this giveaway…
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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Meek Is Murder @ Firehouse Grill (Fairfax), 3/11/11

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all photos by author.

There is nothing quite like the experience of discovering a new band that is obviously destined for great things. For one, it is pretty rare to get in on the ground floor with a band that is this good before their secret is already out. So when you are one of the 10 or 15 people in a room who witness this new band rip open the sky with their musical brilliance for the first time, you should count yourself blessed by the gods of music. Second, while you are filled with the exhilaration of discovery and passion for the new band’s music, it can be very hard to convince people who were not there to take the time to seek the band out to give them a listen.

The reason for this is that there is no “buzz”. You’ve witnessed a band no one’s ever heard of, before they were big; no one cares. More than ever before, “buzz” is a critical element that anyone who wasn’t in that room with you requires before they’ll listen. Only then when the internet is ablaze with tales of the band’s amazing feats in far off cities will people start to take notice of the band that you have been shouting about for weeks, months, sometimes even years. So discovering a band like this; a fully formed, ass-kicking unit in their pre-buzz phase is both amazing and sometimes frustrating. I think out of that frustration is where music snobbery and “I saw them before they…” posing is born. I can see how it can make some people feel bitter and others feel elitist about their discoveries.

I’m not like that. I just want people, as many people as possible, to learn about the new music, embrace it, and support the folks making it. I don’t really care that I saw them first, but when I occasionally do, I am going to shout as loud as I can for as long as I can about this amazing discovery until the “buzz” bullshit catches up with them and people start to listen. Maybe a few of you will hear me and give Meek Is Murder a spin before waiting for them to gain the stamp of “buzz” approval.

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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Abigail Williams/Melechesh/Rotting Christ @ Jaxx Nightclub, 03/09/11

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all photos by Michael Darpino

Guest reviewer Mark Hensch is a freelance writer based in Washington DC. He has been writing about Heavy Metal since he was in High School back in Michigan. He currently contributes to the Washington Times online as Heavy Metal Hensch and is senior editor of Thrash Pit.

The “Apostles of Darkness Over The Americas” tour launched their nationwide sonic assault at Jaxx Nightclub on Wednesday night. The first stop on a two-month tour, the lineup read like a roster from the embassy of evil: leading the charge were the grim ghouls of Abigail Williams, followed by the Middle Eastern heavy metal of Jerusalem’s Melechesh and the battle-ready anthems of Athens’ Rotting Christ. It was a concert of musical carnage that wasn’t just great it was global; fire-breathing proof that the heavy metal scene still thrives at home and abroad.

Thanks to Jaxx’s layout, DC-area heavy metal fans were treated to a trio of intimate performances. The crowd was small but vocal, filling the floor space in front of the raised stage with an energy that surpassed their numbers. There wasn’t much space between band and fan, letting the two collide in uproarious confrontation. Guitar necks brushed past thrown devil horns as the fans and bands became one in an extreme metal meltdown.

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The Daily Feed
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Hot Ticket: The Sword @ 9:30 Club – TONIGHT!

Heavy Metal will never die. Like John Carpenter’s “The Thing” it will evolve, mutate, shape-shift, and grow until it assimilates and subjugates all other genres to achieve total domination. Of the many forms Metal takes, perhaps the most pure is the fantasy/sci-fi inspired sound of the 70’s. There is no current Metal band revisiting this sound better than The Sword. Like the original Thing that stumbled out of its spacecraft in Antarctica, The Sword are here to conquer with their inhuman speed and power. Their first two albums combine into one epic fantasy tome that would have made Robert E. Howard proud. Their latest release, “Warp Riders”, plays like the soundtrack to a hundred 70’s Science Fiction novel covers come to life.

The Sword (with a new drummer) are hitting the 9:30 Club tonight to make up for their canceled October show. Don’t miss their awesome dime-novel-inspired, retro-Metal onslaught!

The Sword
w/ Karma To Burn & Mount Carmel
@ 9:30 Club
12/6 – $20

NOTE: This is NOT a contest post.

Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Cannibal Corpse @ Rock & Roll Hotel 11/21/10

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all photos by author.

As soon as this show ended and my friend and I found each other amidst the human debris of the mosh pit, I asked him, “Why do we always under-estimate these metal shows? We always have a great time!” to which he replied, “Because we want to be intellectual metal snobs but deep down inside we just love fucking metal.”

Fair enough.

Cannibal Corpse are intensity personified. Cannibal Corpse are ridiculous, grotesque, and beyond offensive. Cannibal Corpse are a big, bloated, sack of swollen body parts; or rather they sing about such things on a regular basis. Cannibal Corpse are one of the longest running and most prolific Death Metal outfits in America. You could call them kings of their corner of the music underground; sporting titles well-fought with halberd and mace, guitar and kick-drum. Their subject matter is absurd and their music is brutal. For me their show on Sunday night at Rock & Roll Hotel started out as a lark; a trip down teen nostalgia lane. At its end I found myself drenched in sweat with a big bloody smile on my face as my innards slowly settled back into place after the aural pounding that Cannibal Corpse had delivered unto them.

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Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: Slayer w/ Megadeth @ 1st Mariner Arena

I know every self-respecting heavy metal fan is looking at the title of this article and wondering “where the f*ck is Anthrax?”. It is true that Anthrax opened the show in Baltimore on Wednesday night but I did not get to see much of their set. Try the last part of their last song only. Thank you Baltimore for forcing a show to start the minute the doors opened to get the small army of metal fans in and out of the Inner Harbor as quickly as possible. Seriously, my buddies and I made good time on our drive from DC to Baltimore, only to be shocked that Anthrax were saying their “Thank you, good night” the minute we took to the arena floor. It was 7:36 and Anthrax had already played their full set. FAIL.

Anthrax rant aside, the rest of the Jagermeister Fall Music Tour aka American Carnage II otherwise known as Clash Of The Titans Tour Redux was a head-banging, air guitar dueling, kick ass, good time. Megadeth performed their classic album “Rust in Peace” and then some with arena-metal showmanship that, frankly, I forgot still existed. Slayer then took the stage to perform their second masterpiece “Seasons in the Abyss” along with a sampler of their greatest hits and delivered a mammoth set of skin-peeling intensity. The show was a fun mix of somewhat silly 80’s Metal nostalgia followed by a virtuoso performance by the best Metal band in the business.

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