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Unearthing the Metal Underground: The New York City Scene

Band Photo: Severed (?)

This week on Unearthing the Metal Underground I am delving into the New York City scene. All bands are currently unsigned and are making a real name for themselves in the underground.

Starting with the female fronted industrial gothic metal band Septemeber Mourning, who are currently on tour with Marilyn Manson, we can see that unsigned bands can get places even without a label. The band's music is composed of heavy riffs topped by catchy vocal melodies with simple drum beats and atmospheric keyboard parts. The vocalist, Emily "M" Lazar, has a unique tone in her voice that has a sweet soft poppy feel to it. What will take you by surprise is that it will change into an angry growl or loud scream. The guitar riffs make you wanna bang your head and the clean vocals make you wanna sing along. The songs are well written and have all the qualities I enjoy about music. For those who like gothic/industrial metal feel free to check September Mourning out at this location.

At first listen the brooklyn/queens based band Severed will sound like a metalcore band, but the band combines elements of death metal, thrash, and black metal into their music which sets them outside of the metalcore genre. The band's vocalist, Christian Geraldino, mainly does growls and has an incredible range and could probably go up against Randy of Lamb of God. The lead guitarist, Justin Wang, provides catchy riffs and melodic lead passages. The band seamlessly blend the breakdowns of metalcore into their music with thrashy gang vocal parts. Further more their riffs are sometimes more black and death metal than typical metalcore bands. Their songs also have a progressive structure. Their new songs that I've seen live, which are currently being recorded as their second album, push the band's boundaries further than their last EP, which can be heard on the band's MySpace page. I'd recommend this band for anyone into thrash, death metal, or metalcore.

Lastly i'd like to talk about Beyond Shadows, who are a melodic death/black metal band from New York. The band recorded some tunes last year at Studio Fredman. Previously all their songs were recorded by vocalist/guitarist Khalid in his home studio with a drum machine. Though primarily a black/death metal sound, they have a lot of thrash influence, ala Carcass. You can expect good riffs, blast beats, and lots of double bass. The catchy guitar melodies and solos are straight out of Swedish melodic death metal, which makes me think if they are illegal aliens from Sweden. The only downfall would be their epic song structure, it can feel drawn out, but then again 6-7 minute songs are hardly epics when compared to Opeth. The epic song structure isn't necessarily a bad thing as it gives a bit of a progressive element to the music. For fans of melodic death metal check out Beyond Shadows at this location.