Metal Allegiance Pays Tribute To Fallen Heroes In Anaheim


Metal Allegiance promised that their “Fallen Heroes” show would be something to see, and they weren’t lying. Continue reading


Metal Allegiance Begin Writing Second Album, All-Star Tribute Show Nears


Metal supergroup Metal Allegiance have shared a tweet to report writing for their second album is underway.Continue reading


Metal Allegiance Adds More Big Names For Major Concert Event In Los Angeles


Metal Allegiance, by Omar Cordy/OJC Pics

Metal Allegiance, by Omar Cordy/OJC Pics

Metal Allegiance, the all-star band of metal legends led by Mark Menghi, will take over City National Grove of Anaheim during NAMM on January 20th for a monumental tribute to our fallen musical heroes. Hosted by Jackson, Charvel & EVH, with Loudwire, and Musician’s Institute and Monster Energy joining as co-sponsors of the event. Mikkey Dee (Motorhead), Eddie Hermida (Suicide Silence), Arejay Hale (Halestorm) and Carla Harvey (Butcher Babies) are now added to the line-up. Continue reading


Metal Allegiance To Pay Tribute To Our Fallen Heroes In Anaheim


metal-allegiance-band

Metal Allegiance will be assembling early next year to pay tribute to our fallen heroes with a special show at City National Grove of Anaheim. Continue reading


Working With The Best – Mark Menghi Of Metal Allegiance


Metal Allegiance Fallen Heroes EP cover ghostcultmagIn part 2 of our interview with Mark Menghi of Metal Allegiance we discussed the recording sessions for the recent Fallen Heroes EP (Nuclear Blast). Mark went into details the choice of tracks and the singers they worked with.Continue reading


We Can Be Heroes: Mark Menghi And Metal Allegiance


Metal Allegiance, by Omar Cordy/OJC Pics

Metal Allegiance, by Omar Cordy/OJC Pics


We caught up with Mark Menghi of Metal Allegiance, in the middle of hellishly busy week for him. He was rehearsing for a tribute performance to Deep Purple’s Made In Japan album at Saint Vitus Bar, in Brooklyn. We has also rehearsing for their first UK performance ever, at Bloodstock Open Air 2016. So when Mark squeezed us in for a chat, we were pleasantly supposed by his calm, humble demeanor. Mark talked a lot about the profound losses to the music world that led the band to create their new EP, Fallen Heroes (Nuclear Blast).

Continue reading


Bloodstock Open Air 2016 Part 2: Live At Catton Hall- Walton-on-Trent UK


Bloodstock Open Air 2016 ghostcultmag

 

Part 2

After a wobbly Saturday morning start, Akercocke carried on from where they left off a few years ago, improving and gaining/regaining fans as they went along. Rotting Christ sounded fantastic, The King is Blind completely owned the second stage for forty brutal minutes, and Fear Factory treated the crowd to all of 1995’s Demanufacture album while singer Burton C Bell tried his best to keep his voice from cracking. Paradise Lost played a set filled with heavier material, and Gojira stunned the majority of the audience with a set that not even headliners Mastodon could come close to touching. A typically eclectic set, the Atlantan four-piece struggled to get any momentum going, and even with the aid of some fancy video screens, only occasionally showed signs of being genuine headliners. A new version of old UK thrashers Acid Reign also managed to steal Mastodon’s thunder all the way from the second stage, playing one of the fastest and most enjoyable thrash sets of the festival while singer, ‘H’, looked resplendent in his shocking pink suit and top hat.

Gojira, photo credit Bloodstock Open Air on Facebook

Gojira, photo credit Bloodstock Open Air on Facebook

And so to Sunday, and to the wonders of Ghost Bath. Only possessing the vaguest of knowledge about this band, I was simply unprepared for the next forty highly confusing (and occasionally eye-wateringly funny) minutes. Imagine a Black Metal band fronted by the shrieking goat from YouTube and you’d have a good idea of what I witnessed that morning.

Although the pedigree of the members of Metal Allegiance is not in question, I’m afraid the same cannot be said of their collective efforts. Cover version after horrible cover version was mauled and discarded, as people turned to each other in disbelief and disappointment. Playing all of 1996 album Nemesis Divina in full, Black Metallers Satyricon put in one of the performances of the weekend, even in the blazing sunshine. Finland’s Whispered took to the stage in their Japanese costumes and make-up and proceeded to win over an entire tent of confused onlookers. Technical Thrashers Vektor followed and even more people left with smiling faces. Symphony X gave everyone on the main stage plenty to sing along to, but Anthrax obliterated their memory in seconds. The last time the New York outfit played here in 2013, it was all fairly average, maybe even disappointing. But not this time. They were on fire from the second they launched into ‘You Gotta Believe’ until they left the stage to ‘Indians’. Nobody even cared that they dropped a couple of favourites in order to showcase newer material.

Anthrax, photo credit Gary Alcock

Anthrax, photo credit Gary Alcock

Even headliners Slayer struggled to keep up. Again, like Anthrax, it was a much improved performance from 2013, but things seemed to go a little awry in the latter stages of their set. For some reason, ‘Hell Awaits’ became an instrumental after the first chorus, and Tom’s demeanour changed from happy and smiling to fairly disinterested around the same time. Still, when they came back out for the encore of ‘South of Heaven’, ‘Raining Blood’, and ‘Angel of Death’ everything was quickly forgiven and forgotten. It was left up to New Orleans band Goatwhore to close the weekend on the second stage, and they did so imperiously with one of the loudest, heaviest hours of the festival.

Slayer, photo credit Gary Alcock

Slayer, photo credit Gary Alcock

From the almost comical amount of crowd surfers (Acid Reign alone clocked 263 in one hour – an average of over four per minute) to the spontaneous chant of “MAN IN YELLOW”, directed to one of the security staff stood on the scaffolding before Slayer, to the glorious weather and generally contagious good feeling of everyone in attendance (even a lot of the campsite toilets were still usable by the Monday morning!), there was only one place to be last week.

There were a few odd little problems, of course. Since the festival ended, a story has emerged that a girl was sexually assaulted in her tent, and the amount of moshpit idiocy seems to be on the increase again. Not, this time, from the shirtless circle-pitters and kung-fu merchants, but this time from the people who stand on the barrier all day, doing their best to punch and deliberately tear clumps of hair from any crowd surfer (male and female) unlucky enough to invade their personal space as they get dragged over the front. Making sure at all times, of course, that security have a firm hold of their target first so that they can’t retaliate.

The worst thing this year though was the repeated loop of the same bloody music videos on the big screen all weekend. When I arrived in the main arena on the Friday, I said “hey, this new Wormrot song’s great. I’ll definitely be getting the album”. By the time Saturday evening came around, I never wanted to hear fucking thing again. And as for the constant exposure to the videos of Wakrat and Blackberry Smoke, let’s just say that if I ever meet either of those bands in person, then it won’t end pleasantly for either of them.

Overall though, and yet again, Bloodstock Open Air was a roaring success.

Roll on next year.

BLOODSTOCK 2016 REVIEW PART I

WORDS BY GARY ALCOCK


Video: Metal Allegiance With All-Star Guests Pay Tribute To Lemmy, Other Legends


metalallegiancelemmytribute

Metal Allegiance played their scheduled hollywood show last night and took part in the celebration of Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead’s life, since his funeral was earlier in the day and the public memorial was happening all around them on the Sunset Strip. The band which themselves is made up of stars from other bands like Mark Menghi, Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater), Alex Skolnick of Testament, and David Ellefson of Megadeth; were joined by Corey Taylor of Slipknot, Andreas Kisser of Sepultura, Dave Lombardo (ex-Slayer), John Tempesta of The Cult and formally White Zombie, Mark Osgueda of Death Angel, Mikkey Dee of Motorhead, Phil Demmel of Machine Head at The Whiskey A Go – Go. The Whiskey is next door to The Rainbow Bar and Grill, Lemmy’s favorite hangout on the strip. Watch videos below of the assembled all-stars covering Motorhead,

 

 

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