Artist Showcase
One of our main goals here at Metal Nexus is to turn you on to new bands that you haven’t heard before.
I have been heavily involved with local music for years and have made a slew of friends and discovered some of the best music available anywhere by going no further than my local music venues. Hell, at this point, most of my friends are people I have met just hitting a show at least one week. Cost ranging from free to about $10 to be on the front row or within a few yards from the stage; it is hard to beat for entertainment bang for the buck. Plus, everyone, bar none, have been approachable and just as passionate about playing as I am about listening to their work. All of us here at MN love what we do and could not do what we are doing if it was not for the artists creating what we love. Network a bit more and drive a few more miles out of town and the number of local bands available to support grow at an exponential rate. So it goes with my spotlight on Orlando’s own, A Brilliant Lie.
Continue reading →
*This is part of our State Of The Art series, showcasing bands every Monday from the featured State*
This month’s State is Washington!
One of my all time favorite black metal acts, Wolves in the Throne Room make their home in the misty forests of Olympia, Washington. Brothers Nathan and Aaron Weaver have been playing stellar ambient black metal epics since 2003, and released their first full length in 2006 with “Diadem of 12 Stars“. This album really made people reconsider what made black metal “BLACK METAL“. WIITR effortlessly juxtapose haunting ambient and choral passages with the usual blasting and tremolo riffing that BM is so well known for. The addition of waterfalls, wind blowing, and other sounds one would hear whilst traveling across the Cascade Mountains bring life to a genre of music that is most often associated with the cold and the dead. Continue reading →
Man! Have you ever had a band stop you cold; dead in your tracks? Just absolutely blow you away; leaving you wondering how in the hell the band ever got past you before that moment they grabbed your attention? Well, this recently happened to me when Dragon suggested I check out Fall of Messiah’s latest release, “Empty Colors” which was released earlier this year. “This is definitely your kind of thing” he said. “I’d cover it, but this is right up your alley.” Yes. It definitely is. Hook, line and sinker! It drives straight through me, even after listening to it endless times. Way to much to take in with a single listen. I may be a little late to the party, but remain awestruck by this French band from Saint Jans Cappel.
Continue reading →
*This is part of our State Of The Art series, showcasing bands every Monday from the featured State*
This month’s State is Alaska!
3 Kisses. Where the hell do you start describing a band that has been around since January 2004, performed thousands of shows, has nine albums under their belts, been in endless music magazines, on countless radio stations, been on ABC’s “Wife Swap”, had their own reality show, been featured in numerous commercials, video games, movies and TV shows (including the 2014 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards; Restaurant Impossible; Diners, Drive Ins & Dives; Dallas Card Sharks; Disaster Decks; Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare; Sonic Boom; Lifetime movies, and Hot Wheels spots), had songs in the Top 15 by Rock Solid Preasure, is currently rated #1 for Alaskan Alternative Music on ReverbNation, heavily supports breast cancer research through the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure and the American Cancer Society and been inducted into the Independent Artist Registry? I honestly don’t know, but let’s give it a shot. Here we go…
Continue reading →
The Las Vegas Strip. Bright lights, glitz, glamor, world famous casinos and celebrities. Sorry. Not a fan. Head northwest off the strip and things quickly change just like most downtown areas in any large city. You certainly won’t find any casinos out there but that doesn’t mean you can’t gamble. Many locals and tourists use sites like https://www.paybyphonebillcasino.uk/ to play their favourite casino games and avoid the Vegas strip. Online casinos are just as fun, if not more fun as you can play from anywhere you like. You want to pass the time while you’re out waiting for an appointment or on your lunch break at work. Online casino sites like livemobile66 can give you that thrill of playing the game and, of course, winning that cash prize right from your phone. You can also utilise the welcome bonuses and offers to boost your profits. Many different sites offer these sorts of bonuses; Mr Q Casino, for example, offers a welcome bonus of 10 free spins with no wagering requirements (resource). So you don’t have to tolerate the chaotic streets of the Vegas streets to be able to have fun gambling.
The polish fades and the world becomes “normal” at best and “seedier” and/or dangerous at worst. These are the areas that locals live, work and play in the shadow of the downtown machine. Many would choose to go to a mega888 register page over heading to the strip around here, and were it not so close it would seem like any other location around America. Take, for example, a short little street off the Vegas Strip, Meade Avenue. You can get your car fixed, buy a used boat, shop for “adult gifts”, recycle your worn out crap or rent a dirty old warehouse for whatever storage needs you may find yourself in need of. Not all that comes off of Meade Avenue is mediocre though. Take, for instance the killer, Hard Rock/Metal outfit named after this unassuming little Sin City street, Meade Ave…
Continue reading →
*This is part of our State Of The Art series, showcasing bands every Monday from the featured State*
This month’s State is Alaska!
I love our State of the Art Series! It gives us the opportunity to shed some light on bands that are likely not in many readers’ field of view (and my own, for that fact) but absolutely should be. This week I would like to introduce you to my next band pick from Alaska: The Artificer out of Fairbanks.
Continue reading →
Pop culture. Clean vocals. Movies. Heavy Metal. Television programming. Reggae. Humor. Screaming. Honesty. Weed. Hard Rock. Integrity. A list of seemingly unrelated subjects, right? Nah. With a name based on a Beetlejuice character, one can only expect that Lydia Can’t Breathe embodies everything in the list and so much more.
Continue reading →
*This is part of our State Of The Art series, showcasing bands every Monday from the featured State*
This month’s State is Alaska!
Alaska is turning out to be one of the easiest states for our State of the Art series. So much good music from our 49th state. This week, let me introduce you to a band that grabbed my attention from riff number one. Dirty, straight forward Rock ‘n Roll with a heavy hit of Punk and Hard Rock from Big Lake, AK. I give you Vicious Mammals.
Continue reading →
*This is part of our State Of The Art series, showcasing bands every Monday from the featured State*
This month’s State is Alaska!
For my second State of the Art from Alaska, I bring you the bad ass Hardcore Band Old Hounds from Anchorage. The band is formerly known as The Harlequin State and was formed in May of 2010. In just 6 short years the band has really came a long way. They have really done big things this year. The band participated in Battle of the Bands at warped tour in June and they will be releasing a new record in the first week of August entitled “Tooth & Nail”. The band includes 5 members: Alberto (Vocals), Argel (Lead Guitar), Joshua (Guitar), Toph (Bass) and Mac (Drums). The band members are all very talented and dedicated to their music. Old Hounds has an aggressive and energetic vibe thought all of their songs. The band really seems to be building up a strong fan base not just with local fans in Alaska but with people all throughout the United States. They have an amazing sound and amazing lyrics that go right along with their sound. The bands music is something that you are sure to enjoy. Their upcoming album release is something that everyone should be looking forward to. If you haven’t listened to these guys yet, I suggest you do so now!
Continue reading →
The year was 1992. Science fiction classics like Aliens 3, The Lawnmower Man, Freejack and Universal Soldier were playing in theaters along with the ever-so-humorous Army of Darkness that still illicit bouts of uncontrollable laughter some twenty four years later. Sci-Fi bestselling books like Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (one of my personal favorites), Quarantine by Greg Egan and Stephen Gould’s seminal classic Jumper were in first print and flying off bookstore shelves (pre-Amazon Kindle days, kids). Boyz II Men, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Kriss Kross, TLC and Vanessa Williams topped the musical charts (*sigh*). Hell, many of you were not even born yet and may not have even heard of any of this literature, music or movie selections. Know what also dropped in ‘92? How about Fear Factory’s “Soul of a New Machine”. That’s right. Their debut that took the Metal world by storm and still remains relevant today. Fast forward to today and tell me what happens when classic Science Fiction story meets old-school, Industrial Metal? Isolated Antagonist happens, that’s what…
Continue reading →
