New Wave Metal in Liverpool

• 11th Jun 2004

The New Wave Metal Tour hits Liverpool on the 11th June at the Liverpool Academy bringing with it a feast of distortion, grunting and dark, dark, dark…..dark………………darkness.

The lineup includes:
Killswitch Engage
Chimaira
Shadows Fall
God Forbid

Killswitch Engage have not merely become standard-bearers for GENERATION HEAVY. With The End of Heartache, the standard has been pushed aside. Trampled. Heavy music is, once again, re-ignited by a band unafraid to rewrite the rules of the game.

Sonically, Chimaira focused on crafting an album that ignores current metal trends such as rapping, guest appearances, and scoffs at any traces of “nu” metal. “The Impossibility Of Reason is less futuristic than the last record. The programming is more subsonic, and it's more of a dark synth style,” Hunter explains. “The low sub tones make you feel you like you are inside the record. It's the darkest thing we have ever done. We changed tunings. We tuned to C, the darkest key.” Further beefing up the new, improved Chimaira sound is the new voices Hunter used. On tour, he was able to hone his voice, and when recording The Impossibility Of Reason, he found voices he had never used before or even knew he had.

Rare is the hard rock band that can serve three masters successfully, but Shadows Fall can, thanks to their richly textured songs. An 8-minute metal epic is sandwiched between 4-minute rock anthems and moshworthy breakdowns. Put simply, The Art Of Balance is heavy metal for rock fans, rock for heavy metal fans, and rock and heavy metal for the hardcore fans.

Given metal's chiefly “white” nature, it's fairly uncommon for a metal band to have an African American among its ranks. Even more rare is the hard rock band where four fifths of the members are black. That's central New Jersey's God Forbid. With one full immersion into Determination, the quintet's Century Media Record debut, you'll drop to your knees and thank the hard rock Gods Of Thunder for bestowing upon your ears an Americanized form of melodic thrash that hasn't sounded this feral, this original, and this revolutionary in years.

Friday 11th June @ The Liverpool Academy
£14 adv