30-year thrash vets Overkill are obviously the draw on this Monday night Metal bill at Screamin’ Willies on the east side of Columbus but the bill is stacked with up-and-comers opening the show.
Diamond Plate can no longer be considered “kids” on the thrash metal scene, having formed in Chicago in 2004, but they are among the newer bands that pay homage to ’80s/’90s metal by assaulting listeners with furious guitar playing, machine-gun drumming and vocals that sound like the devil himself screaming in a lake of fire.
Diamond Plate’s 2011 full-length debut, Generation Why?, finds the band taking the Megadeth/Slayer/Anthrax sound found on their 2009 EP, Relativity, and moving into a metalcore direction, as evidenced primarily in the vocals. There’s still some melody found in Diamond Plate’s music which might piss off thrash purists, but these guys rank up among Warbringer and Havok as some of the better new “old school” thrash bands out there today.
Screamin’ Willies is located at 1921 Channingway Center Drive in the Reynoldsburg area. Tickets are $17 at the doors which open at 6pm. The full bill is: Overkill, Godforbid, Suidakra, Diamond Plate, Sourblood, Beneath the Sea.
The best CD of 1989 was released 20 years late! This b-list hair metal band brought original singer Ted Poley back for a reunion album filled with big hooks (“Hearts on the Highway”), bigger choruses (“That’s What I’m Talking About”), songs about girls (“Rocket to Your Heart”), guitar solos (“Ghost of Love”), and power ballads (“Fugitive”). Def Leppard and Bon Jovi’s recent efforts didn’t sound nearly this good.
Spread Eagle’s Ray West was my favorite singer from the sleaze-glam era (early ’90s). His solo debut may have been 15+ years in the making, but it was worth it as he updates Spread Eagle’s sound (which was similar to Skid Row, Guns N’ Roses, Motley Crue) by making it heavier and more aggressive (ala Godsmack, Disturbed, Killswitch Engage). I listened to this CD more than anything else this past summer.
My fears that The Damnwells were done were unjustified and proven false when the band released this FREE album in February. The older carryovers (“55 Pictures”, “Bastards of Midnight”, “Down with the Ship”) were my favorites initially but I grew to love the collaborations Alex Dezen did with his wife, Angela (“Dandelion”, “Like it Is”), just as much as anything the band has previously done.
Halfway through 2009, this album was my favorite. Though it’s billed under Lytle’s name, it’s really just an extension of the singer’s Grandaddy sound (spacey/dreamy indie-pop) and “Brand New Sun” may be one of the best, simplest pop songs released this year.
Blake Smith and Mike Willison hinted at their electro-pop/sample fascination as members of the short-lived alt.rock band Caviar but bring that fascination to full fruition (along with Local H’s Scott Lucas) on The Prairie Cartel’s long overdue debut (most of these songs were on a demo CD the guys gave me at SXSW back in ’07). The versatility of the music allows The Prairie Cartel to perform it live as either a full band or in a DJ setting with Lucas singing over pre-recorded sounds loaded onto an iPod.