Jason Roche

5. Venom Inc. Thursday, June 23 Whisky a Go-Go It's not uncommon for long-running bands to split into dueling entities. Last year, drummer Abaddon, guitarist Mantas, and bassist Demolition Man — all of whom have been gone from the Venom fold for many years — formed Venom Inc., a touring......

The very first Megadeth song I ever heard was “Symphony of Destruction,” from their 1992 release Countdown to Extinction. I was 13 years old and had become entranced with heavy metal music in the months prior thanks to Metallica’s “Black Album” and MTV’s Headbangers Ball program. The song does not......

Singer-guitarist Alex Estrada sports a Selena T-shirt as he walks into El Compadre in Echo Park. Mariachis perform as patrons consume their margaritas and enchiladas. It’s the fifth anniversary of the formation of Estrada’s band, Silver Snakes. Estrada is a sixth-generation musician. His grandfather performed at the Million Dollar Theatre......

Every month in L.A. brings a whole host of metal shows worth checking out. But if you can only see five, make it these five. 5. Fear Factory, Soilwork Saturday, May 7 Fonda Theatre Fear Factory broke out of the Los Angeles metal scene in the mid-‘90s thanks to their marriage......

Friday, April 1 Power From Hell Complex This Brazilian outfit — making their U.S. debut on this tour — has spent the last decade slinging dirty, lo-fi thrash metal that straddles the line between Slayer’s incubatory Haunting the Chapel phase and classic Venom black metal. Their 2004 debut, The True Metal,......

Tuesday, March 8 Cannibal Corpse The Mayan This Buffalo death metal band was the bane of Christian soccer moms in the early ‘90s thanks to the gore-obsessed chaos perpetrated on early works such as 1991’s Butchered at Birth. Over 20 years later, the shock value has worn off, but the......

Southern California has long had a reputation for nurturing the art of shred guitar. Eddie Van Halen exploded out of the Pasadena backyard scene and blew minds worldwide on Van Halen’s 1978 self-titled debut with “Eruption.” Randy Rhoads furthered the practice with his work on Ozzy Osbourne’s 1980 debut, Blizzard......

Guitarist/vocalist Justin Smith — previously featured in L.A. Weekly’s People issue in 2013 — gets straight to the point when discussing the inspiration behind his grindcore outfit Graf Orlock’s new album, Crime Traveler. “The idea of a Canadian assassin traveling back in time to assassinate key American figures so that Canada......

Tuesday, Feb. 2 Nile Whisky A Go-Go It’s a testament to the vision of Nile leader Karl Sanders that the group remains one of the most reliable forces in death metal two decades into their career. Forsaking stereotypical metal tropes such as Satanism and gore for the more esoteric inspiration......

At the first Show Your Scars metal festival this Saturday, Jan. 9 at the Regent Theater, L.A.’s underground metal community will be out in full force. Virginia beer-thrashers Municipal Waste headline and a bounty of rising L.A. metal acts will fill the first part of the day. But what has......