The Conceal Pull No Stunts

I’m not going to lie, I’m fighting off a massive hangover today. The only music existing in my media library that can supplement how shitty I feel is the debut release from San Jose natives The Conceal, entitled Endless River | Stunted Prayer, which just hit the internet like a cheap whiskey-infused dirty bomb last Monday. Since then, my ears have been giving it a lot of attention and I am enthusiastically impressed by this new act coming from the South Bay (aka that place where a bunch of bands try to sound like Dredg, Circa Survive, and anything Post-Rock).

The Conceal is a reboot of Flood Peak, headed by Mike McClatchey (ex-Clearing Autumn Skies, Apiary, Early Graves) that features a few down-tuned, slower rehashes of songs from Flood Peak’s EP Filling Flasks along with mostly new material. This being said, anyone expecting The Conceal to be anything like its former incarnation will be in for a big surprise. Endless River | Stunted Prayer is a 45 minute masterpiece of doom, sludge, feedback, and industrial influenced shit-rock that brings a refreshing sense of creativity to heavy music. There is no mimicry or trend-following here, only trendsetting.

Casket of Cassandra Debut New Single, “Breathless”

Longtime readers of Wrecked or Bay Area locals should be familiar with Casket of Cassandra. In case you need a reminder, Casket of Cassandra, the female-fronted metalcore outfit from Concord, was featured on our site when they played the Bay Area Metal Fest last summer, put on by our good buddies in Nemesis Records. Well, we take our eyes off these guys for a minute, and Nemesis ends up signing Casket of Cassandra behind our backs. Where’s our record deal, Nemesis? Whatever, any music we’d put together would just be too progressive and too ahead of its time. It’s cool.

Anyway, Nemesis has agreed to let us stream Casket of Cassandra’s new single exclusively on Wrecked for a short period of time. Check it out after the jump.

The Fallout: Dolving Leaves The Haunted [Again]

Dolving truly was a mad man, it's going to be a tough pair of shoes to fill.

Fans of The Haunted on Facebook woke up to some very distressing news this morning. Peter Dolving, long time vocalist for swedish thrash-metallers The Haunted, has left the band permanently… again.

Crawl Into The Harvest Wombs

I don't know what's happening here, but I'm sure it's awesome.

As I’ve mentioned before, Metal is a hit-or-miss genre. It’s rare to find a band that plays incredible music while still being able to experiment with their sound. There are a few names that come to mind when I say that: Opeth, Meshuggah, The Black Dahlia Murder, Obscura, among others. However, when a band comes virtually out of nowhere and puts out a stellar album with all the right skill, sound and experimentation, it’s truly a thing of beauty. The reason I say this is because a band has just recently done exactly that. A band from right here in the San Francisco Bay Area. They’re called Fallujah, and they’ve set a new standard for Technical and Atmospheric Death Metal with their first full length album, The Harvest Wombs.

[UPDATED] LAMB OF GOD Debut New Track (Now With Video)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Lamb of God’s been working on a new album, Resolution, due out January 24th, 2012. The curtains have been  pulled back on the album, as the band has unveiled the groove-filled “Ghost Walking,” available for streaming exclusively at Metal Sucks.

DEAD ON ARRIVAL: Opeth Is No Longer Opeth.

I just want to start off by saying that I have a bit of a bias in this review: Opeth is my all time favorite band. I even have their logo tattooed on my right forearm to prove how much I obsess over them. There has never been a Progressive Metal band with such musicianship and talent like these guys. When people think of Opeth, they think of masterpiece albums like Ghost Reveries and Blackwater Park, which included equal amounts of ear-raping death metal and somber acoustics with beautiful clean vocals. These Swedes have been doing that for over 20 years, and we still can’t get enough of it. In 2008, they released Watershed which was still metal as fuck, but leaned a bit more towards their softer side — but even still, it was goddamn amazing. We couldn’t wait to hear what their new album would bring. After three years of waiting, they finally released Heritage… and it wasn’t exactly what anyone expected.

BAMF Spotlight: Desecrater

Every week, Wrecked will be highlighting bands playing the upcoming Bay Area Metal Festival. This week we present Desecrater from San Jose, CA.

For fans of Slayer, Death, Metallica, Megadeth, etc

If you like your metal with a constant barrage of double bass and shredding guitars, we’ve got the band for you. Desecrater hails from San Jose with no intention of slowing down or compromising their sound. Led by the bellowing low vocals of guitarist/vocalist Sid Frankosky, Desecrater seeks only to inspire circle pits and beer-fueled brawls. They’re as traditional to metal as you can get; there are no gimmicks or sing-along choruses in sight, just a pure relentless attack. Make sure to check these guys out at BAMF This July.

Bring Your Daughters

There’s a lot of music out there. A LOT. Much of it, you’ll probably never find, never hear, or never give a shit about if you do hear it. I spent a good portion of the last decade actually trying to hear a lot of it and coming to the conclusion that a lot of that mustic is terrible. Every once in a while, I’ll find a gem. Daughters was one of those gems for me.

BAMF Spotlight: Casket of Cassandra

Every week, Wrecked will be highlighting 2-3 bands playing the upcoming Bay Area Metal Festival. Check out Casket of Cassandra, the East Bay’s newest emerging metalcore outfit.

For Fans of Light This City, Bring Me the Horizon, As I Lay Dying, Himsa, It Dies Today, Manntis, etc

Casket of Cassandra is a metalcore band based out of the San Ramon area that really remind me of the old glory days when metalcore was first starting out; when the sound was fresh and I was watching these bands play at The Pound in San Francisco (RIP). Since then, metalcore has become a bit of a bad word, but I think there’s always room for good metalcore bands today. Casket of Cassandra definitely brings me back to those days, and that’s not a bad thing at all. The first thing most listeners will notice is the presence of female frontwoman, Amanda Maddera, and her vocal style, not unlike Light This City’s Laura Nichol — but that’s where the similarities end. Casket has a much more raw and in your face sound, with guitarist and back up vocalist Riley Olacsi providing appropriate doses of melody to give you something to sing along to. The band has also built up some internet-meme worthy notoriety for their metalcore cover of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, which you can check out here. I’m really looking forward to seeing this band tear up the stage at the BAMF festival this July.

Click the jump to check out some samples of Casket of Cassandra…

BAMF Spotlight: Repaid in Blood

Every week, Wrecked will be highlighting 2-3 bands playing the upcoming Bay Area Metal Festival. This week, we present you the San Jose based death-metalcore act, Repaid in Blood.

For Fans of  The Red Chord, The Acacia Strain, Veil of Maya, Despised Icon, Born of Osiris, etc.

One thing I absolutely love about covering the Bay Area Metal Festival is the fact that I’m discovering a lot of great bands from the Bay Area. One that really stands out to me is Repaid in Blood, from San Jose (aka Taqueria Heaven). I dig their technical, yet chugalicious approach to metalcore; think of a young, more rhythm-oriented All Shall Perish with the guitar soloing skills of Zero Hour. I can’t wait to see how their sound progresses over the next couple of years and I’m definitely stoked to see these guys in action live at BAMF. We’ve got some tunes and a music video for you after the jump!

Get Viking’d with Amon Amarth’s Surtur Rising

For fans of: Dark Tranquillity, (early) In Flames, Opeth, Dethklok, etc

There are a ton of big names in metal that we hear about all the time but somehow never manage to look into, and for me that big name was always Amon Amarth. I have friends that have liked them forever, I’ve seen people sport their hoodies at shows, I’ve seen their albums on store shelves, and every time I made a mental note to listen to the band, but never followed through in doing so. A few weeks ago, the Swedish natives released their eighth studio album, Surtur Rising. After so many years of passing this band up, I finally decided to give them a shot, and I’m very glad I did.

BAMF Spotlight: FORBIDDEN

Every week, Wrecked will be highlighting 2-3 bands playing the upcoming Bay Area Metal Festival. We figured we’d start with the headliner, a legendary thrash band native to the SF Bay Area known as FORBIDDEN.

For Fans of: Testament, Exodus, Slayer, Metallica, Iron Maiden, etc.

The 2011 Bay Area Metal Festival is fast approaching, and looks to be one of the most historical events the Bay Area metal scene has ever seen. The mighty Bay Area based thrash metal band, Forbidden, has stepped up to headline the festival and bring spotlight to this incredible event.

Between the Buried and Me & The Ocean are Coming to Wreck SF. Be There.

As most of you probably know, Between the Buried and Me just released the incredible EP, The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues this past month, and have already set out on a full US tour in its support. Brad gave the album a stellar 4.5/5, saying it’s the best thing BTBAM has done since 2005’s Alaska. On Wednesday, May 4th, BTBAM will be visiting our neck of the woods at Slim’s in San Francisco. I’m here to tell you how imperative it is that you all attend this show. It will be legendary!

Fill Your Flask and Get Wrecked to Flood Peak’s New EP

There’s something ugly brewing down in San Jose, and it sure as hell isn’t Gordon Biersch. I finally got my hands on Filling Flasks, the debut EP from Flood Peak, featuring Peter Layman, Mike McClatchey, and Jake Wright. I’ve been following Layman and McClatchey’s sonic endeavors very closely over the past 8 years (Clearing Autumn Skies, Something Must Die, Apiary, Early Graves) and they’ve always struck me as musicians who write ahead of the curve in the originality department. Flood Peak is no exception.

Please Take a Minute to Read This!

ATTENTION: My friends in the metal & hardcore community, one of our own needs our help after suffering a terrible injury at a show. What do we do when one of our own falls? WE PICK THEM UP. Please take the time to read this post and donate what you can.

Thank you.

Click the jump to see the story.

I Hate Protest The Hero Live

I really do…

This hate does not spawn from anger because one of the members killed my cat or stole my girlfriend, but rather because this band showed me that I have a long way to go before I can write and perform music of this caliber. Needless to say, I went home the next day and feverishly practiced scales for the first time in months, maybe even years.

Unearth Have A New Album Coming Out

According to Theprp.com, Unearth are set to release their upcoming album, Darkness in the Light, early in July.

In other news, Unearth suck at coming up with album titles. I mean, really… Darkness in the Light? Who do they think they are, Ronnie James Dio? It sounds like the inverse of something he would write.

Do people even still listen to Unearth? I’m still waiting for them to write a new song. Hopefully they will at least keep all of their content original on this one.

-BW

Between The Buried And Me Blow Minds With The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues

Back in February, like most of you, I had the chance to listen to the first half of “Specular Reflection”, the first track off Between the Buried and Me’s latest EP, The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues (why the fuck does Google always try to correct “dialogue”?!). At first, my reaction was a bit lukewarm… BTBAM has always impressed the hell out of me with their creativity and technical capabilities, but have lacked serious replay value ever since Colors for some reason. After listening to The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues in its entirety, all I can say is “holy shit”.

Born Of Osiris Discover Themselves

I first heard Born of Osiris back in 2007 after the release of their debut EP, The New Reign. I didn’t fall in love with them exactly, but I couldn’t help but enjoy their machine gun-like breakdowns and frantic style of playing. What can I say? I’m a sucker for heavy, rhythmic chugging. Especially if it’s beer.

Wrecked Is Partnering Up With B.A.M.F. 2011!

Wrecked is happy to announce that we’ll be partnering up with Nemesis Records to promote the biggest local metal event in the Bay Area ever! We’ll be spotlighting each and every band playing this awesome event, so you’ll have everything you need to know before the festival comes! Check out the basic info below and stay tuned for more coverage!!

Nemesis Records LLC would like to proudly announce B.A.M.F 2011 ( Bay Area Metal Festival ). The Bay Area’s newest premier metal festival. B.A.M.F 2011 is an all ages all day metal festival consisting of multiple local Bay Area metal bands and will span over 12 full hours. The goal of B.A.M.F is to incorporate all genres of local metal from all areas of the bay into one great festival.