The Metal Files

Austin’s metal scene was a bit lacking when I moved here 5 years ago.  San Antonio has always been the metal capital of Texas but I think Austin has been picking it up a bit in the last few years.  While we’re still not getting Maiden, Priest, Scorpions and other big headliners like that, we’re still getting a steady stream of smaller acts.  Megadeth has come regularly and Motorhead always comes.  Luckily I get to see them together this coming weekend for Gigantour 2012.

Emo’s has been pretty consistent for bringing good metal since I’ve been here.  Now that they’ve moved to a bigger venue on the east side, they’ve been doing their due diligence and booking decent shows.

Last night was Symphony X/Iced Earth/Warbringer.

Warbringer opened up and I am indifferent about them.  Solid retro-thrash, but not bringing anything new to the table.  Like I said last night, “they’re just ripping off Testament.”

I once was a huge Iced Earth fan, then they released Something Wicked This Way Comes and I was out.  I’ve tried listening to all of their albums and they’ve never got me back.   I saw them in 1999 and filmed it.  You can see the entire show on Youtube. They picked up another singer recently, Stu Block, who used to be in Into Eternity.  The band was solid, as expected.  Jon Schaffer makes sure he’s got good players in his band.  They played 3 or 4 older songs and sounded good and the new stuff they played sounded fine.  Stu has a really good and clean high range, but his “normal” voice is a bit too much like Matt Barlow, minus the Hetfield-ah! tendencies that Matt had.  Whoever their lead player is these days is pretty good.  One annoying note, I really hate the crowd participation songs and they did it in over hald their set.  “hey hey hey hey!”  Ugh.

I saw Symphony X in 2000 at L’Amours in New York when they opened for Halford.  I thought they were good, but just not my cup of tea.  I like a handful of tracks from their first 3 records, but prefer to hear them on CD than live.  All very talented guys.  I left after their first song.

Iced Earth