Metal and Hardcore

Steel Blades of Vengeance cut loose at 3 Kings on April 12

David Ellefson of Megadeth: "We had punk attitude with metal chops"

Megadeth (due tonight at the Fillmore Auditorium) may be one of the Big Four of thrash, but in many ways, its frontman Dave Mustaine is largely responsible for the sound and aesthetic of three of the Big Four. As a member of Metallica before that band recorded its first full-length, Mustaine's name ... More >>

Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth: "The chemistry in the band is better than it's ever been"

Iced Earth (due tonight at Summit Music Hall) came out of the rich heavy metal scene in Tampa Bay, Florida in the late '80s. At a time when melodic heavy metal, especially the glam variety, was on the wane, Iced Earth came in with the wave of metal that produced a melodic speed metal as well as the ... More >>

Reed Bruemmer and Richie Tice of Speedwolf on "Denver 666" and having a sense of humor

​The members of Speedwolf (due tonight at the Marquis Theater) specialize in brand of no frills metal in the vein of Motorhead and Venom, played with the playful ferocity of a hardcore band. The guys are not necessarily carrying the torch for that older style of heavy music as much as they'r ... More >>

Scott Kelly

Saturday, December 3, hi-dive, 720-570-4500.

Review: Judas Priest at the 1STBANK Center, 11/5/11

Eric GruneisenRob Halford of Judas Priest: Still going strong after nearly 40 years. More Judas Priest Denver photos.JUDAS PRIEST, THIN LIZZY, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY At the 1STBANK CENTER | 11/5/11Somewhere early in the set, Rob Halford told us that the band was going to play material from all roughly ... More >>

Judas Priest

Saturday, November 5, 1STBANK Center, 303-830-8497.

Motörhead returns to Denver February 28 with Megadeth

Timothy NorrisMotörhead in March in LA.​Stop showering now. You may be almost sleazy enough to enjoy Motörhead when the legendary NWBHM band returns to Denver in the February cold for Megadeth's Gigantour with Volbeat and Lacuna Coil. The show is slated for Tuesday, February 28, at the Fill ... More >>

Opeth

Tuesday, October 25, Ogden Theatre, 1-888-929-7849.

Chuck Billy of Testament on the 70000 Tons of Metal cruise, Reign in Blood and Gene Hoglan

Testament​Testament (sharing a bill tomorrow night at Summit Music Hall with Anthrax and Death Angel) is one of the bands that make a strong case for expanding the Big 4 to the Big 5 (or Big 6, if the often overlooked Exodus were included). The Bay Area act was part of the original thrash move ... More >>

Queensryche

Saturday, September 17, Ogden Theatre, axs.com.

Top five Headbanger's Ball videos

​Headbanger's Ball started on April 18, 1987, and ran for nearly eight years. With little regard for a narrow definition of what constituted metal, the show's programmers seemed to embrace it all. So you would see a Poison video, something from Motorhead and then something from the Cult. The e ... More >>

Photos: Megadeth, In Flames, Kingdom of Sorrow and more at Mayhem Fest

In Flames​Our ace photographer and man on the metal front, Brandon Marshall, set up shop yesterday at Comfort Dental Amphitheatre for the local stop of Rockstar's Mayhem Festival -- featuring Megadeth and Machine Head, a pair of acts (the latter of which gave us a track-by-track breakdown of i ... More >>

Megadeth's David Ellefson on the new album, Big 4, corporate sponsors and the band's legacy

Brandon Marshall​When Dave Mustaine was kicked out of Metallica, he decided to from his own band that would be bigger, faster and heavier. So with that in mind in 1984, he enlisted the help of an eighteen-year old Minnesota transplant named David Ellefson on bass and formed Megadeth. Over the ... More >>

Tonight: Liturgy at the hi-dive

​It is hard to believe black metal band Liturgy (playing tonight at the hi-dive with Collapse and Barnacle) has only been around for a handful of years. The Brooklyn quartet -- led by Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, whom we spoke with in advance of this evening's show -- sounds like it has put decades of ... More >>

Danzig at the Boulder Theater, 5/3/11

Dane Cronin DANZIG 05.03.11 | Boulder Theater The first time I went out to see Danzig over a decade ago as a teenager in the Pittsburgh, the concert was inexplicably canceled minutes before show time, and I returned to my '89 Pontiac Sunbird to find it towed. Last night in Boulder, I feared some s ... More >>

The Deftones at the Ogden Theatre, with Funeral Party and the Dillinger Escape Plan, 4/22/11

Aaron ThackerayChino Moreno of the Deftones up close and personal. See more photos from last night. THE DEFTONES With Funeral Party and Dillinger Escape Plan 04.22.11 | Ogden Theatre See the photo slideshow Funeral Party got the evening started, and after enduring its set -- one in which ear plug ... More >>

Top ten retro metal bands currently melting faces and minds

​The world of heavy metal can be an exercise in absurdity and uninspired imitation played at blistering volume. With the relatively recent (and fading) popularity of "stoner-rock" and "doom metal," as evidenced by tours including the reunited line-ups of Sleep, Saint Vitus (read our recent int ... More >>

Elitist

Thursday, February 24, Rhinoceropolis, 303-641-9809.

3 Inches of Blood

Friday, February 11, Marquis Theater, 866-468-7621.

3 Inches of Blood

Friday, February 11, Marquis Theater, 866-468-7621.

The Big 4: Four reasons to extend your stay in Indio after Coachella that rhyme with Metallica

Old school metal fans across the country are no doubt peeing themselves right now over The Big 4 (we certainly are). In case you happened to miss the big announcement on Facebook earlier today, four of the metal's venerable titans are going to be together on the same stage for the first time since ... More >>

The 20 bands that inspire tattoos like no other

An average Misfits fan.​Personally, it's been the "One Bad Album" rule. That's all it takes for a band's musical reputation to be asterisked forever, which makes getting a tattoo of that band, well, risky. You have to wonder how often thirty-somethings across the land hear "Nice Chi' Pep's tat ... More >>

Max Cavalera of Soulfly talks about his history and darkly humorous song titles

​As the leader of Sepultura for over a decade, Max Cavalera helped put Brazil on the map. From the beginning, the outfit was clearly influenced by punk rock as much as it was by other metal bands, as evidenced by its socially conscious lyrics, its grassroots efforts to get its music out into t ... More >>

Danzig at the Ogden Theatre, 11/12/10

The Danzig camp enforced a strict no photos policy last night at the Ogden. Pshaw! Who needs pictures when you've got Noah Van Sciver?​ DANZIG With Withered • Toxic Holocaust • Marduk • Possessed 11.12.10 | Ogden Theatre Atlanta's Withered set the stage for much of what was to follow ... More >>

Hail, Satan! The ten best metal songs about Hell

1981: A vintage year for devil-worshipping heavy metal.​Of the countless contributions heavy-metal music has made to modern society -- leather pants and corpse paint not least among them -- perhaps the finest addition to this often crunchy, driving genre of music has been the focus it's put on ... More >>

Win tickets to see Sonic Youth on October 4 at the Ogden Theatre

Update: The answers are as follows. If you think you won, check your email right now. Thanks for playing, let's do it again sometime.

High On Fire's Des Kensel about the origin of band's moniker and his massive drum sound

Travis Shinn​ After Sleep broke up in 1998, singer/guitarist Matt Pike formed High on Fire with drummer Des Kensel and bassist George Rice. Initially evoking more of a doom rock sound, High on Fire evolved into being more of a straight ahead metal band without either dumbing down the music or ... More >>

Mega Metal

Travis Shinn​ After Sleep broke up in 1998, singer/guitarist Matt Pike formed High on Fire with drummer Des Kensel and bassist George Rice. Initially evoking more of a doom rock sound, High on Fire evolved into being more of a straight ahead metal band without either dumbing down the music or ... More >>

Meet nine-year-old Ezra Lux, your new favorite metal blogger/critic

​Behold nine-year-old Ezra Lux, possibly the world's first (and greatest) pre-teen metal blogger. Over at his barely a month old metal blog Crud Wizard (which is also the best name for a metal blog we've heard in a long, long time), Ezra is dropping some serious wisdom, such as this gem of an ... More >>

Members of Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax remember Dio

It was almost six weeks ago that metal legend Ronnie James Dio died and the tributes keep rolling in. Yesterday, a video appeared online that featured members of thrash mainstays Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax sharing their memories of the man. The video was originally recorded and broadc ... More >>

Iron Maiden

Monday, June 14, Comfort Dental Amphitheatre, 303-830-8497.

Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire's Ethan McCarthy on grindcore, running Kingdom of Doom and expressing his angriest, darkest feelings

Since 2005, Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire has been fusing the spiky and hyperkinetic dynamism of grindcore with death metal's unremitting darkness and sonic heaviness. Never content to settle on a mere sound, this Denver band challenges itself to create new depths in the expression of the ... More >>

Grindcore doomsayers Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire skip the fluffy nonsense and tell it like it is

Since 2005, Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire has been fusing the spiky and hyperkinetic dynamism of grindcore with death metal's unremitting darkness and sonic heaviness. Never content to settle on a mere sound, this Denver band challenges itself to create new depths in the expression of the ... More >>

Speedwolf

Denver 666/Hell and Back 7-inch
Splattered! Records

Think you kick ass at Rock Band? Bet this Cephalic Carnage song would kick YOUR ass.

"crazy fast difficult hardest custom song ever on drums cephalic carnage death metal guitar hero rock band fun double bass." Those are the tags listed on YouTube in association with the custom drum chart for this Cephalic Carnage song, "Divination & Volition." But those same words ... More >>

This just in: Slayer drops off KBPI's Midwinter Melee

Update: Just received word from Live Nation that the entire show/tour has been postponed. No word on when it will be rescheduled, but tickets will be honored. ​Bad news if you had your heart set on being deafened by this wall of amps in a few weeks. The American Carnage tour, due at Magness A ... More >>

Q&A with Joe Johnson of Moore and Wild Game

​Although Moore has been together for over a decade, it has garnered very little press, mainstream or otherwise, despite being something of an institution in the local metal scene and having put out a handful of albums during its time together. In the last year and a half or so, Moore has been evo ... More >>

Metal Monday: Converge in Springs and Cannibal Corpse at the Ogden tonight

​Metal fans rejoice, for you have much to be thankful for this week, especially tonight! In case you happened to miss it last week, we published two in-depth Q&As with two of metal's most revered acts, both of which just happen to be playing our great state tonight. Down south, Converge is du ... More >>

Q&A with Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse

Alex Solca​Cannibal Corpse didn't invent death metal, but it has become one of the genre's definitive bands. Forming in Buffalo, New York in 1988, Cannibal Corpse quickly came to prominence due to its decidedly brutal music and horrifically detailed lyrics to match. From the beginning, Cannibal's ... More >>

Heavy Rotation, our top spins for the week of October 26, 2009

​As music critics, the most common question we get asked (and ask each other, for that matter) is, "What are you listening to?" The pervasiveness of this query is precisely what inspired Heavy Rotation, our latest feature. For the benefit of those who happen to be curious, we've compiled a list of ... More >>

Over the weekend: Dethklok at the Fillmore

Dethklok (Aaron Thackeray)​Dethklok, Mastodon, Converge and High on Fire Saturday, October 10, 2009 Fillmore Auditorium Better than: Seeing the Archies, Alvin and the Chipmunks or any other cartoon rock band "There sure are a lot of nerds here for a heavy metal show," said a friend while overlook ... More >>

Last night: Sunn O))) at the Bluebird

Sunn O))) rise (Tom Murphy)​SunnO))), Eagle Twin and The AccüsedBluebird TheaterThursday, August 13th, 2009Better Than: Some commentators on SunnO))) would have you believe. The two-piece Eagle Twin kicked off the show in high spirits. Although mining similar artistic territory as Isis, Twin b ... More >>

Ronnie James Dio made a fine replacement for Ozzy in Sabbath. Who are some other notable surrogates?

Sunn O))) rise (Tom Murphy)​SunnO))), Eagle Twin and The AccüsedBluebird TheaterThursday, August 13th, 2009Better Than: Some commentators on SunnO))) would have you believe. The two-piece Eagle Twin kicked off the show in high spirits. Although mining similar artistic territory as Isis, Twin b ... More >>

Sunn O)))

Thursday, August 13, Bluebird Theater, 303-830-8497.

The band retains the name

​In the world of heavy metal, lead singers are as indispensible as riffs and distortion--that is, except for when they get used up and thrown away like yesterday's drumsticks. While frontmen are the face and voice of many bands, they seem particularly prone to quitting, dying or getting fired, lea ... More >>

Ascaris considers itself a punk band that plays metal

​In the world of heavy metal, lead singers are as indispensible as riffs and distortion--that is, except for when they get used up and thrown away like yesterday's drumsticks. While frontmen are the face and voice of many bands, they seem particularly prone to quitting, dying or getting fired, lea ... More >>

Suffocation is still deadly after all these years

​In the world of heavy metal, lead singers are as indispensible as riffs and distortion--that is, except for when they get used up and thrown away like yesterday's drumsticks. While frontmen are the face and voice of many bands, they seem particularly prone to quitting, dying or getting fired, lea ... More >>

Q&A with Terrance Hobbs of Suffocation

The Suffocation piece running in this week's paper was culled from Phil Freeman's recent conversation with Terrance Hobbs of Suffocation. As with many of our other Rough Mixes features, there's far more to the story of this stalwart New York-based death metal band than there was space. As such, afte ... More >>

Westword Music Showcase reviewed: Broadways

Aaron ThackerayHavok led things off at Broadways. See more photos from Broadways at westword.com/slideshow. Havok, 12 p.m. This four-piece band sounded like classic Bay Area thrash, stuff reminiscent of Testament and Exodus with a splash of Anthrax. The guitar work owed a clear debt to a death met ... More >>