BRING ME THE HORIZON, ARCHITECTS, DEEZ NUTS, AND OF LEGENDS BROUGHT LOTS OF MOSH AND LOW BAR TABS TO THE FILLMORE IN SF ON SATRUDAY!

Bring Me The Horizon frontman Oly Sykes says "Sup" to legions of kids from the 'burbs.

For a band that often gets picked on for haircuts or style, Bring Me The Horizon are actually pretty brutal, and unfairly get shit from a lot of the metal world for reasons not understood by people who regularly engage in sexual activity. They write catchy mosh parts, frontman Oly Sykes is a rather interesting frontman to watch bounce around a stage, and their air of controversy (drug use, alcoholism, sketchy stories) make them sound like they're great dudes to party with. In fact...they even got booted offstage at Wembley Arena for bringing the mosh too hard:


Apparently shit got too "out of hand". Apparently Wembley Arena doesn't know what "out of hand" actually is.

The Sheffield boys brought their general regard for crowd safety, as well as Architects UK, Deez Nuts, Of Legends, and consequently a bunch of dumpy teenagers to the Fillmore in San Francisco Saturday night in what ended up being the end of summer blow out for Bay Area metalcore youth (Parkway Drive was supposed to be on the bill but someone who works for their management didn't get the work visas together and is probably on unemployment now). It remains unknown if some underdog, protagonist, young dude finally kissed the crush he had all summer while throes of awkward high schoolers epileptically moshed around them to "The Sadness Will Never End", but the short lines at the bar and questionable fashion choices improved our mood so much that we're going to assume that little Johnny Fauxhawk finally got a piece. But enough about the crowd, lets talk about the bands...

Of Legends


Slamming the mic stand into the stage is always a hard stage move.

To be honest, there wasn't much expected from any of the openers on this tour, so when we rolled up the stairs at the Fillmore hearing what sounded like a "not quite as European Meshuggah" blasting through the the doors of the main room, we were piqued with intrigue. Of Legends are apparently a side project of one of the guys in The Secret Handshake who has recently decided to go off the heavy deep end and take his show on the road. After checking out The Secret Handshake (you can do so here), we at Freelance Fiend would like to say "GOOD JOB DUDE". Of Legends pummelled kids for thirty minutes with bouncy, off time breakdowns and the confidence and enthusiam of frontman Louis Dubuc, who's time in The Secret Handshake clearly made him feel more at home onstage opening a big tour than a lot of other bands that have been in that position. Dubuc was able to get the crowd to do whatever he yelled at them to do, which is something newer bands struggle at. Couple that with music that was surprisingly heavy and interesting and we had one of the highlights of the show. We are going to investigate these guys some more, but we highly recommend checking them out if they roll through your town.


Is the "O" for Of Legends? Ya suspect, kid.


Deez Nuts


Insert corny 90's hip hop quote vocal part.

We usually try to stay away from negative reviews (because they're a drag), but sometimes you can't avoid it. Deez Nuts play heavy, New York style hardcore with a corny hip hop influence that could be considered the absolute polar opposite of what Cold World do. Instead of subtle homages to Public Enemy or Wu-Tang Clan blended with a unique mix of NYHC and late-80s crossover thrash, Deez Nuts pull every corny, psuedo-violent and unfunny woman-hating line from every played out Tupac or Biggie single and spew them over riffs Madball or Throwdown retired seven or eight years ago. The only thing worse than watching them was their small yet enthusiastic group of people who were there to see them. Thanks but no thanks, guys.


Architects UK


The fuck is up with this monitor?

After Deez Nuts, we were ready for anything else musically to happen on that stage. Literally anything. So if for no other reason, Architects UK sounded fucking SWEET. Musically, these British dudes brought forth the better than average metal hardcore, and motherfuckers were WAITING to get loose during their set. They weren't the second coming of Buried Alive or anything (however they did have a few parts that reminded me of them), and we probably wouldn't bump their record in the car, but they were a decent live band who were definitely interesting to watch, and if you like the mosh metal, they are definitely worth checking out (that sort of thing just isn't our bag for the most part).


EEEVVVEEEEENNFFFFLLLLOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW...THOUGHTS ARIVE LIKE...I MEAN BLARRGGGHHH


I WHIP MY HAIR BACK AND FORTH


WATCH OUT FOR THAT CHANDELIER BRO


Bring Me The Horizon


FUCK A STAGE, SON

By the time Bring Me The Horizon came on, the Fillmore had filled up and it was very apparent that this is why the kids crawled out of the woodwork. The house lights dropped and singer Oly Sykes started the set standing on the barricade, inciting a stream of very well mannered and organized crowd-surfing for the mic. They opened with "Diamonds Aren't Forever", which if you haven't heard it, is one of those songs that was made to open a set with. The band set the energy bar high, and the crowd kicked into such high gear that they kicked all of us photographers out from behind the barricade before the first song even ended due to the steady stream of teens flopping over the barricade. The band spent the next hour churning out tracks from both 2008's Suicide Season as well as their newest record, There Is A Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It, There Is A Heaven, Let's Keep It A Secret, assault the crowd both sonically as well as with a rather impressive lighting set up and a well timed balloon drop from the ceiling. Oly Sykes is an impressive frontman, but guitarist Jona Weinhofen (ex Bleeding Through, I Killed The Prom Queen) brought his own unique panache to the band's live show, often taking some of the focus off of Sykes while showing the crowd that he's more than just a dude who can shred on guitar. It wasn't the most ravaging set we've seen Bring Me The Horizon bring to Northern California, but it was still one of the most blazing shows we saw this summer. This tour runs through October across a lot of North America, and is well worth the $20 if you like shows where plenty of mosh is brought.


SUP LADIES


INSERT OBVIOUS MORRISSEY HAIR JOKE


COME AT ME, BRO


JONA...MORE THAN A GUITAR PLAYER


ITS NOT EASY BEING GREEN

REIGN SUPREME: Not Only the Name of the Band, but Also What They Do!

Cliches exist because there is some truth to them. We've all heard about how "you can take the boy out of the hood, but you can't take the hood out of the boy", and that's because it's true. How do I know? I'm living proof. I am not the angry, mosh-oriented youth I once was, and more often than not, if you were to yank the earbuds out of my ears and listen to my iPod you'd be prone to hear hilarious radio rap or some riffy, Sabbathy sounding band. However, even at 31, sometimes all it takes for me to be happy is an irate, heavy as fuck hardcore band whose record is not so much a record as much as it is an exercise in using instruments and vocals to drive late teens/early twenty-somethings to mosh pit violence. I guarantee that when I'm 80 years old and shitting my pants as I push my walker around the 4PM Early Bird Dinner Buffet at Fresh Choice I will still be a sucker for heavy hardcore bands.

That being said, Reign Supreme could be the greatest heavy hardcore band currently in existence. Their ability to take angry, brutal, no frills hardcore (which has been done to death since oh, I dunno, whenever Cro-Mags dropped Age of Quarrel) and breathe life back into it by adding subtle yet unique songwriting elements, stellar guitarwork, and what could be the most important piece of the puzzle, the unadulterated, roared vocals of frontman Jay Pepito, really sets Reign Supreme apart not only from other bands in their specific subgenre of hardcore, but from most other extreme bands in general. Check out this brutal jam, "Mother Superior":



Don't act like you weren't NOT smashing your fist against your desk. It's cool. I nearly broke my laptop listening to this the other day. We caught up with Reign Supreme frontman Jay Pepito and got the scoop on the band's recent lull in activty, their upcoming new record as well as their new label.

FF: What has the band been up to as of late?

JP: We are writing an EP, it's called Sky Burial, and it's 6, possibly 7, songs that sort of preview our new stylistic approach to music. We've outgrown our interest in playing contrived mosh-oriented hardcore, and it's time to let our influences shine a little bit more. That said, there will still be plenty of mosh, because we are good at that.

FF: How did the band come together?

JP: Kind of accidentally. I had some friends together jamming after I got kicked out of Blacklisted, and we just evolved into Reign Supreme. Fast forward a few lineup changes, and you have the current incarnation.

FF: You have a beastly voice. How did you learn to use your throat in that manner? Is that hard to maintain on tour?

JP: Thank you! I just emulated Andrew from Figure Four/Comeback Kid and Phil from Pantera as much as I could. I'm not a gifted vocalist, so it required a LOT of experimentation. It's easy to maintain now because I've sort of figured out how to do it. At first I used to lose my voice all the time.

FF: How did you hook up with Deathwish?

JP: We were on a small hardcore label called Malfunction Records. They went bankrupt and Deathwish purchased them. We sort of were an acquisition.

FF: It seemed like you guys had all sorts of momentum going between the release of the American Violence EP and "Testing the Limits of Infinite". In fact, you guys had a sort of "last minute" line up when I saw you at Fun Fun Fun Fest in 2009. What happened between those two releases?

JP: I don't even know. It's all a blur at this point. We did a lot of crazy shit. There was a lot of trouble with certain members of the band (and there still is), and sometimes we have to replace those buttheads with friends who can play our songs and tour. I don't know that we'll ever have a real steady lineup, but that's definitely something I'd like to have happen. There's no longevity or beauty in scab lineups.

FF: What was the best show you ever played with Reign Supreme?

JP: Probably Tokyo with Converge, This is Hardcore 2009, or Sound & Fury 2008. Some of the early shows with Trapped Under Ice and Advent will always be favorites of mine, even though there were like five kids at those shows.

FF: What was the worst show you have ever played with Reign Supreme?

JP: Probably the tour we did with Let Down. That whole tour sucked (THANKS ANDY RICE). The one show was in Kansas, the promoter didn't promote it, the venue was an empty warehouse with a broken PA, no waters (in July in Kansas), and literally three kids came. We shot off Roman Candles with Let Down until the venue kicked us out. Fuck that place.

FF: How did you hook up with the Four Year Strong guys for your appearance on "What The Hell is a Gigawatt?" off their Enemy Of The World record? Were you concerned with sounding out of place on their record?

JP: I know some of those guys. They're a good band. I like them. They record at the same place we do, so our producers just kind of I guess thought it would be a cool collaboration. I knew that my part was going to be a stereotypical mosh part, so I figured it would sound perfect given my stereotypical mosh voice.

FF: How was writing the newest material? How are you planning on releasing it?

JP: It's going to be our first release on our new label, Mediaskare. The new stuff is by far my favorite Reign Supreme material, it's so much harder without trying to fit into a certain sound. There's elements of Converge, Motorhead, Mastodon, Deftones, Advent, Isis, Neurosis, Tragedy, and other bands that we love, but could never really integrate into our sound. We are glad to be able to find a place where we can play heavy music, and feel OK with it not necessarily being derivative of other hardcore bands.

FF: What were the reasons that lead to the band leaving Deathwish?

JP: Deathwish was a great label for us, but the truth is, we never really felt like we fit in with the label and with a lot of the bands on the label. The kids who like Cold World and Blacklisted don't really like Reign Supreme, and sometimes, vice versa. I don't care if you like those bands, or don't like them, because that has nothing to do with it. All that has ever mattered to us as a band is the kids who like our band, and playing our music to those kids. So to us, Mediaskare made a lot more sense, because they will expose our sound to a lot of kids who will probably like it, and we will be able to share our music with more people. From day one, that has always been our mission. We have no illusions of headlining Madison Square Garden, all that we are after is writing the heaviest music that is as distinctly ours as possible and playing that to 300 kids in a VFW hall somewhere in rural America. We did as much as we could with Deathwish, but in the end, it makes sense for them to focus more on stuff like Touche Amore and it makes more sense for us to try to play to kids who want to hear stuff like us and who aren't already over our type of sound.

FF: What are the bands plans for the remainder of 2011? Can the West Coast expect to see you guys anytime in even the distant future?

JP: Record the new record. Do some touring here or there. Hopefully a fest or two in Europe. You can definitely expect to see us in the West Coast before 2012. We plan on flying out and doing some SoCal/NorCal shows.

FF: Any shout outs/thank yous/disses/final words?

JP: Be yourself, don't be one of these fools that gets caught up in all the trends. Hardcore is a wonderful thing, but it's full of liars and fakes. Thanks Erick, and all the people out there creating something new and genuine. We are grateful for the opportunity to share this with you.

Reign Supreme will be dropping Sky Burial in the Fall on Mediaskare. From the little we've heard, it's a banger and you will be moshing in your room. Thanks again to Jay and the rest of Reign Supreme. We will leave with an awesome clip of Reign Supreme playing for the 40 or so people that weren't too hungover to make it to the early day two start time of Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin back in 2009. In addition to some stellar moshing, yours truly is headbanging like an asshole onstage in an Econochrist t shirt. Ballin'.

Holy Shit the new Unearth Record is Heavy....

2004 was the breakout year for hardcore-oriented metal. Poison The Well, Killswitch Engage, and Shadows Fall, and the almighty Hatebreed blazed the trail, but 2004 was the summer that saw As I Lay Dying, Atreyu, Every Time I Die, Bleeding Through, Darkest Hour, Throwdown, God Forbid, and Unearth really break into the car stereos, iPods, and bedroom stereos of the average American metal kid. It was interesting to see bands I had grown up with and my own band had played selling out 1000 seat venues in towns they didn't live in. It may sound corny, but "it was a time so full of promise..."

Now its 2011, and a lot of those aforementioned bands have fallen back down the metal food chain, replaced by bands either younger and heavier or older and more "hipster" oriented. Over the last seven years, I hadn't kept up with a lot of bands I knew in that "class of '04", mostly because I stopped touring, tastes change, and life happens, but Sunday I reunited with Unearth at the Mountain View stop of the Rockstar Mayhem tour (also featuring Megadeth, Testament, Suicide Silence, Kingdom of Sorrow, and Red Fang) for an afternoon of beer bonging, shots, horrible statements, trips down memory lane, and brutal riffs. Needless to say, I still have a headache and looking at beer makes me queasy.

While I managed to leave a lot of my money and some of my dignity at the Shoreline on Sunday, I didn't leave the copy of Darkness In The Light, Unearth's latest record, there (I'm honestly shocked it didn't get left in the golf cart that was hijacked nor in the VIP box seats we watched Megadeth and Machinehead from...Thanks Doug!). I have to be honest, I totally missed The March as I record, so the last thing I heard from the band was In The Eyes of Fire, which was definitely a lot more pissed than their breakout record, The Oncoming Storm. In fact, I had been so out of touch with the band and their world, that I wasn't really even sure of what to expect for them reaction-wise at Mayhem Fest on Sunday. About 40 seconds into their set Sunday, I realized that while I may have fallen out of touch with Unearth for a record, metal at large definitely had not based on the few thousand people going completely apeshit for them the moment they kicked off their thirty minute set. It wasn't really that much of a surprise; I've seen this band get a room of thirty people to erupt in violence. Clearly it was my bad for thinking their crowd response would be anything less in 2011.

Darkness In The Light is by far Unearth's heaviest work. The band has that rare ability to write a riff that makes floors open up in all out bloodshed while being catchy enough for heavy metal radio or Headbanger's Ball. The ability to pummel people with something that can get stuck in their heads is a trait many bands chase after for years but never quite hone to perfection. Unearth have more or less written the handbook in it via this album. Guitarists Ken Susi and Buz McGrath have really set themselves apart from a lot of their peers not only via their ability to keep things heavy AND catchy, but as excellent shredders. The solos and leads on "Watch It Burn" and "Shadows in the Light" are both lightning fast and well thought out, and avoid sounding like a two nerdy dudes testing out gear at Guitar Center. Their ability to work melody into their songs, be it via subtle notes in guitar parts or Ken Susi's clean vocals (which at times are reminiscent of ex-Underoath/The Almost singer Aaron Gillespie) are just another way that puts Unearth in a different class of band than their peers and argueably one of the few remaining relevant bands from that initial wave of bands that broke in 2004. I knew that Darkness in the Light would be a good listen, but had no idea it would be this powerful and standard setting, especially coming from a band who has been at it for as long as Unearth

The band is on the Rockstar Mayhem Tour for the rest of the summer before heading off to Europe with Bane and Evergreen Terrace. Darkness in the Light came out last week on Metal Blade, and is well worth the money. If you want your hair blown back and to potentially get a full beer tossed your way, check out Unearth live this summmer. They are proof that bands don't always fade into obscurity as time goes on.