Details.
103.3 The Edge Presents: In This Moment with special guests Upon A Burning Body and Butcher Babies
- DateFriday, May 15, 2015
- Time6:00pm
- Address1711 Main Street Niagara Falls, NY 14305
- Tickets
- Tel.716.205.8925
Description.
Nature counts the black widow spider amongst its most fascinating and dangerous anomalies. The female arachnid often devours its mate after copulation. It’s both a delicate and dangerous predator. In This Moment isn’t all that different from this enigmatic beast. Led by frontwoman Maria Brink, the Los Angeles hard rock outfit strikes with a seductive metallic bite on their aptly titled fifth full-length album, Black Widow.
“Black Widow is a metaphor for this innocent young girl whogets infected with life, traumas, experiences, and the balance of light and darkness,” explains Maria. “She becomes this poised and powerful creature. That’s the album.”
“We went into this with the title Black Widow,” says lead guitarist Chris Howorth. “It fits the image of Maria as this powerful heroine. If you think of the boys in the audience watching our stage show, she’s like the black widow pulling them all in.”
The record, the first for the band on Atlantic Records, picks up where the group’s 2012 breakthrough, Blood, left off. That album saw In This Moment debut at #15 on the Billboard Top 200, their highest chart position to date, and eventually sold over 250,000 units in the U.S. alone. It also spawned the single “Blood,” which rose to #9 on the Mainstream Rock and Active Rock Songs charts. A sold out headline tour,HELLPOP, followed, as well as appearances at the Uproar FestivalandRock On The Range, and jaunts with Shinedown and Papa Roach. After the whirlwind of Blood subsided, Maria and Chris retreated to Las Vegas in February 2014 to begin working on what would become Black Widow with longtime producer Kevin Churko [Ozzy Osbourne, Five Finger Death Punch].
While writing and recording in the studio, Maria and Chris both tapped into the fearless ethos that characterized Blood, inciting their next creative evolution in the process.
“It’s almost like I was growing up in this industry,” Maria admits. “I swear I went from a girl to a woman. I used to hold myself back, and I had all of these fears. I woke up one day and realized it doesn’t matter what anybody thinks. We have to do what we want to do. When I did that, I was freed. We could do this big grandiose show, and we could make the music we wanted. It began with Blood. That’s where we started to come alive and figure out who we really are. We let go of any walls and limitations. Black Widow is us doing what’s in our hearts.”
“Black Widow is a progression from the last record,” Chris affirms. “That opened up the floodgates for us. There were no boundaries. We could just go for it. We weren’t afraid of any ideas. We didn’t worry about anyone’s opinion. We approached the music with that attitude.”
Their boundless approach shines through in album opener “Sex Metal Barbie.” Tempering an industrial crunch and sexually charged synths with gnashing riffs and hauntingly hypnotic vocal delivery, the track instantly transfixes, calling out haters who hide behind keyboards.
“People can be so cruel on the Internet,” she sighs. “I actually don’t read anything negative about me or the band anymore. I don’t let myself get sucked into that. In the end, music comes down to someone’s personal perception of what they love. It’s not meant for everyone. I wanted to empower myself with that online negativity somehow. I literally went on these sites and read mean things and rumors about me. I wrote them down and transformed them into lyrics for the song. I turned it all around.”
“That was the second song we did,” the guitarist recalls. “It came from Maria saying, ‘What about building a metal song around a cool hip-hop beat?’ Everything was constructed piece by piece, and it was very experimental. Once we finished the song, we felt like we had something special. It was a catalyst for more music.”
Meanwhile, “Sick Like Me” begins with an eerie buzz before snapping into muscular distortion and a propulsive guitar gallop. Everything explodes on ananthemic sing-a-long hook.
“It’s about when somebody loves you for everything you are,” she states. “They love you evenfor what you consider flaws. It’s that vision of people who are super eccentric and twisted, but they’re perfect like that because that’s who they are. They’re meant to be.”
Then there’s “Big Bad Wolf,” which bares its teeth with a bludgeoning riff, keyboard swell, and piercing scream. “It was destined to be a faster song,” adds Chris. “Maria did this choppy, cool Mike Patton-style verse. It became really intense.”
Maria smiles, “I like to say I have the Big Bad Wolf in me and this Little Piggy in me. In my perception, the Big Bad Wolf is the enlightened and loving part of myself, whereas the Little Piggy is the dark side. I have a natural pull towards darker things. It’s the internal struggle of those two animals in me, but I realize both are very necessary for all of us. I need to embrace that fire, be wild and primal. That’s important too.”
In This Moment also teamed up with Shinedown’s Brent Smith for the stunning duet “Sexual Hallucination.” It’s an elegant electronic-infused piece that drips sexuality and darkness.
“We love Brent and Shinedown,” Chris continues. “We didn’t think we’d have a shot at getting him, but he instantly said yes. The song is a little different for him, and he jumped at the chance to do it.”
One of the album’s most powerful moments comes on the piano-driven rumination “The Fighter.” Contrasted with the resounding stark keys, Maria’s voice proves especially potent. She goes on, “It’s embracing and accepting who I am. I used to think something was wrong with me. I’ve come to learn I’m perfect in how fucked up I am. I wouldn’t have these songs to sing or be able to connect with people without that.”
Ultimately, that connection with fans is what drives the band. “Their loyalty is incredible,” declares Maria. “It comes down to us doing this for ourselves and our fans. We owe it all to them, and we’re excited for everybody to experience this. This is who we are, and it’s for them.”
Prepare yourself for a brutal, unrelenting array of unabashed aggression and sheer ferocity that will beat you to oblivion. This is what UPON A BURNING BODY delivers each and every time. The San Antonio based group’s debut offering, The World Is Ours, caught the metal scene by storm with its crushing Pantera-esque grooves, dynamic riffing and captivating hooks. Their live performance is unmatched, which quickly had their name being spread by the masses throughout the scene.
Their highly acclaimed latest offering RED.WHITE.GREEN. was tracked, mixed and mastered with renowned producer Will Putney (For Today) at The Machine Shop in NJ. This album showed the band truly coming into their own unique sound.
With a clear vision for their identity and an immeasurable level of determination, UPON A BURNING BODY are now touring full-time throughout the world spreading their message of dedication, self-belief and relentless competitive greatness. Sumerian founder Ash Avildsen commented “Upon a Burning Body frontman Danny Leal has one of the most distinguishable and decipherable voices I have heard in years. With the perfect soundtrack of riffs and beats backing him and an explosive live show, there is no question what the very near future will hold for this band.”
UPON A BURNING BODY’s unrelenting touring schedule was highlighted by performances on the massive Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival and The Vans Warped Tour. Expect the group’s third full-length album this summer.
Taken at face value, GOLIATH is the monstrous debut from one of the most exciting bands to emerge from the Los Angeles metal scene since System Of A Down turned the city on end nearly twenty years ago. But scratch beneath the surface and the haunting story behind GOLIATH blurs in and out of horrific focus, examining the ruins of an American culture obsessed with apocalyptic carnage. GOLIATH was born in the bleak wasteland where the more savage your act, the more celebrated you become - and in a world where the miserable feel obliged to retaliate, the BUTCHER BABIES shatter the dementia with molten fury and unbridled sonic bliss.
Hailing from the City Of Angels, the BUTCHER BABIES offer redemption from the overplayed underground, exorcising demons with a visceral sound matched only in scope by their explosive stage show. Frontwomen Carla Harvey and Heidi Shepherd, guitarist Henry Flury [Amen], bassist Jason Klein [Azdachao] and drummer Chris Warner [Scars of Tomorrow] juxtapose brutal, aggressive riffs with beautiful melodies that wail with anguish and hope for redemption.
The band signed a worldwide deal with Century Media Records in December 2012, and a month later hit the road with Marilyn Manson on what proved to be one of the new year’s most talked about tours. The run was a return to form for Manson and a call to arms for the BUTCHER BABIES, who honed their razor-sharp riffs and soul-searing vocals in front of live audiences as a source of manic pre-production. Only days after wrapping the tour in the City Of Sin, the band was in an L.A. studio with producer Josh Wilbur [Gojira, Lamb Of God, Hatebreed] recording the debut album that has the metal community buzzing.
The eleven-track opus chronicles the story of the forsaken as they transform into GOLIATH - monsters that society has built, and monsters that turn to society for retribution. Suddenly opening track “I Smell A Massacre” is more than just shock rock, casting a cautionary tale to anyone in screaming distance. And once it sinks in that GOLIATH is more than just a figment of our imagination, the rest of the album becomes all the more real.
“Magnolia Blvd” is about the demons that coexist around us all, while “Grim Sleeper” is unsettling and haunting, an angelic intro quickly pulverized by a repressed memory so real we feel the victim’s cries. “In Denial” couples blood-curdling angst with more of the melodies that showcase the BUTCHER BABIES unique, two-frontwoman lineup at its most profound - singing and screaming trading hope and rage like caged souls fighting for freedom. “Give Me Reason” bounces hard and fast with hell-bent fury, “The Mirror Never Lies” assaults our reflection with an ominous and catchy chorus, and “The Deathsurround” showcases the band at perhaps its most intense with a song as heavy and brutal as the title suggests.
BUTCHER BABIES celebrate the July 9 release of GOLIATH as part of the 2013 Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, where they are a mainstay on the Jagermeister stage and spend the summer alongside heavyweights including Rob Zombie, Five Finger Death Punch, Machine Head, Mastodon and Amon Amarth.
With an unrelenting delivery and uncompromising intent to melt faces, GOLIATH is more than just a record - it is the growing enemy that angers, drives and inspires the BUTCHER BABIES. GOLIATH is our common enemy, and BUTCHER BABIES have arrived to deliver the soundtrack that will lead us into battle…
GOLIATH
01. I Smell A Massacre
02. Magnolia Blvd
03. C8H18 (Gasoline)
04. Grim Sleeper
05. Goliath
06. In Denial
07. Give Me Reason
08. The Mirror Never Lies
09. DeadPoet
10. The Deathsurround
11. Axe Wound