Local thrash-metal heroes Death Angel hold sold-out holiday shows at Great American
Bay Area thrash favorites Death Angel return to the Great American in San Francisco for the band's eighth annual "Another Death Angel Xmas Show" on Dec. 21-22 featuring reunited contemporaries Forbidden as special guests.
With roots dating back to the primordial days of the Bay Area thrash-metal revolution during the early '80s, local heroes Death Angel have long been representatives of one of San Francisco's most indelible musical movements. Formed in 1982 by a group of Filipino cousins living in Daly City, the band featuring Rob Cavestany (lead guitar, backing vocals), Dennis Pepa (lead vocals, bass), Gus Pepa (rhythm guitar), and Andy Galeon (drums) initially drew influence on Iron Maiden and other newer British metal bands just rising to prominence.
By the time cousin Mark Osegueda had taken over as lead singer in 1984, the young musicians were devout followers of the new thrash-metal sound championed by Bay Area icons Metallica and Exodus as well as SoCal counterparts Slayer and Megadeth (who Death Angel opened for with a show that marked Osegueda's debut stage appearance). A demo produced by Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett would garner the quintet local radio airplay and a much wider fan base thanks to tape trading among rabid thrash-metal fans looking for the latest sounds.
Death Angel would score a deal with Enigma Records and released their pulverizing 1987 debut album The Ultra-Violence that exhibited a complex sound that belied the young band's relative inexperience (Galeon was only 14 when they recorded the effort). A second album -- Frolic in the Park -- followed before the leading lights of the second wave of thrash metal had their contract acquired by Geffen Records. The highly polished 1990 album Act III and major touring plans as the opening act on the huge Clash of the Titans Tour with Slayer, Megadeth and Exodus had the band poised for bigger things, but a touring van accident critically injured Galeon and left the band in limbo as he took a full year to recover. After Osegueda left to pursue a career outside of music, the band was dropped by the label and imploded.
The remaining members would continue making music, first working in a more alternative-rock direction as The Organization before bringing Osegueda back into the fold in 1998 to front the new group The Swarm. It wasn't until Death Angel reunited for Thrash of the Titans, the legendary 2001 benefit concert for Testament singer Chuck Billy that also featured historic reunion performances by Bay Area bands Exodus, Heathen, Forbidden Evil and Vio-lence, that the group returned to full-time activity.
Releasing its first new effort in 14 years with The Art of Dying in 2004, Death Angel has remained a consistent presence on the international touring circuit ever since. While founding members Dennis Pepa and Galeon would depart near the end of the decade, the current line-up filled out by veteran drummer Will Carroll (formerly with Old Grandad, Hammers of Misfortune and Vicious Rumors) and bassist Damien Sisson (ex Scarecrow and Potential Threat) continues to tour heavily as one of the Bay Area's leading ambassadors of thrash metal while putting out compelling new recordings to this day.
While the band limited touring activity in 2018 year to focus on writing and recording their forthcoming ninth studio album, they still managed to play a number of summer festivals and join fellow Bay Area greats Exodus and German thrashers Sodom for a run of winter dates. Death Angel also collaborated on a different kind of release, working with Oakland brewery Ale Industries to craft the band's Caster of Shame IPA, the first of several collaborations with the brewer that has sadly announced it will be closing permanently on Dec. 17.
The group hit the road in the U.S. in 2019, playing a series of headlining shows with fellow thrash veterans Overkill and previewing some of the ferocious material from their newest Nuclear Blast offering Humanicide that came out at the end of May. Brimming with intense thrash workouts like the title tune, the brutal "I Came For Blood," and the anthemic singalong tribute to their loyal fanbase "The Pack," the latest effort shows Osegueda, Cavestany and company are still creating thrash metal of the highest order. That same year, the band was nominated for the first Grammy Award of its long career in recognition for the album.
During the European leg of The Bay Strikes Back Tour with fellow thrash greats Testament and Exodus in spring of 2020, members of all three bands and their crews were exposed to the coronavirus. Many testing positive upon their return and Death Angel drummer Carroll ending up hospitalized during a terrifying brush with mortality.
The extended time it took for Carroll to recover from his near-death bout with COVID hasn't slowed the band's productivity. Already working on new material for their next effort, Death Angel also played several live-streamed shows during the pandemic (including their annual holiday show) and released the stripped-down, mostly acoustic digital EP Under Pressure that included a cover of the Queen classic along with a new song and re-recordings of a couple of earlier tunes. The band also released The Bastard Tracks, a live show recorded and filmed at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco as an audio recording and BluRay that features rarely performed deep cuts from across the band's career.
The band is still working on their follow-up to Humanicide, partly because Death Angel's touring activity ramped up over the past two years to make up for COVID cancellations. The Bay Strikes Back Tour would have multiple legs in Europe, North America and Asia, while Death Angel also teamed with fellow metal greats Kreator, Sepultura and Sacred Reich on tours in 2023. The beloved SF band presents its eighth annual "Another Death Angel Xmas Show" at the Great American Music Hall for two sold-out nights on Dec. 21-22, this time joined by reunited Bay Area thrash legends Forbidden.
Formed in the wake of the early '80s thrash explosion in 1985 by guitarists Craig Locicero and Robb Flynn (later of Vio-lence and Machine Head) and singer Russ Anderson under the name Forbidden Evil, the band quickly developed a reputation for brutal, complex riffs and intense live performances. Flynn and the band's original rhythm section would depart the following year, but not before recording several demos and contributing a song to The Eastern Front - Live At Ruthie's Inn compilation on Restless Records.
The addition of new drummer Paul Bostaph (who would later replace Dave Lombardo in Slayer), bassist Matt Camacho and guitarist Glen Alvelais preceded the band shortening its name to simply Forbidden as the rising group weighed offers from multiple record labels, eventually signing to Combat Records. Their debut album Forbidden Evil came out in 1988, a furious assault of speed and precision that is still hailed as a high point among recordings released by the Bay Area's second wave of thrash bands. The group toured extensively to promote the effort, sharing stages with local metal brethren Exodus, Testament and Death Angel as well as such international contemporaries as Sepultura, Voivod and Holy Moses, earning the band a global fan base.
The band's songwriting and execution moved in a more progressive direction for their sophomore album Twisted Into Form in 1990, featuring guitarist Tim Calvert replacing Alvelais, more acoustic interludes and a highly technical guitar attack that approached level of sophistication heard on Megadeth's Rust In Peace that came out the same year. While the band's reputation and following continued to grow after the album's release, Forbidden would face some challenges. The group split with Combat Records and lost Bostaph to Slayer, leading to the addition of new drummer Steve Jacobs.
Forbidden would find a new label, signing a deal with GUN Records for the release of the band's third album Distortion in 1994. That effort maintained the quintet's trademark thrash aggression, but by the time they released their next record Green three years later, Forbidden had moved towards a more alternative/groove metal sound. A short time after its release, the band broke up. Locicero would continue to work with Jacobs in Manmade God, a new project that hewed closer to classic hard rock and the alternative sounds of early '90s Seattle bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. That band was signed to Rick Rubin's American Recordings and released a well-received self-titled album in 2003, but got bogged down in label delays that led to the group dissolving. Locicero would then team with Systematic singer Tim Narducci in Spiralarms, a band that would eventually include noted drummer Chris Kontos (Attitude Adjustment and Machine Head among many others).
Forbidden reconvened in 2007, touring extensively and returning to the summer European festival circuit the following year. The band released their fifth album Omega Wave in 2010, their first new recording in 13 years that was hailed by fans as a return to their earlier thrash-metal roots. The band continued performing for two more years, but when Anderson and Camacho wanted to take an extended break from music, Forbidden once again went on hiatus.
Locicero stayed busy in rising metal band Dress the Dead while also joining Kontos in a revived line-up of Bay Area crossover/skate-punk band the Boneless Ones, who released their first new album in 36 years in 2022. He also was a principal player behind Bay Area Interthrashional, an all-star collective of local players that took the stage at Dynamo Metalfest in Holland, playing classic thrash songs by Metallica, Slayer, Exodus, Forbidden and more. The group would also play an epic show at the Great American Music Hall in the fall of 2022 that featured a marathon set of nearly 40 songs performed by a rotating cast of musicians.
That experience prodded Locicero to put together a new line-up of Forbidden with Camacho on bass, latter-era guitarist Steve Smyth, Kontos playing drums and new singer Norman Skinner (Imagika, Nivane) -- who had literally proven his metal onstage at the Bay Area Interthrashional shows. After a secret warm-up show at Baltic Kiss in Richmond last summer, the latest version of Forbidden played a volcanic set at the Alcatraz Festival in Belgium. These two shows with Death Angel will mark the first time the band has played San Francisco in over a decade. Also on board for the Xmas party are opening bands Frolic, an explosive East Bay band of neo-thrash upstarts who perform Thursday, and youthful Orange County thrashers Tornadic, who kick off the proceedings Friday. Because the shows are sold out (and because both Death Angel and Forbidden have a substantial international fan base), both shows will be available to livestream. More information on how to purchase livestream tickets is available on the Death Angel website.
Eighth Annual Another Death Angel Xmas Show
Thursday-Friday, Dec. 21-22, 7 p.m. $35 (both shows sold out)
Great American Music Hall