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 Music Hall in San Francisco for the band's ninth annual "Another Death Angel Xmas Show" on Dec. 13-14.
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 group also toured South America with Anthrax earlier this year. Osegueda also made his debut as the vocalist for another band, fronting former Slayer guitarist Kerry King's new all-star outfit that features a hefty contingent of Bay Area musicians including ex-Slayer drummer Paul Bostaph and former Vio-lence and Machine Head guitarist Phil Demmel, (Hellyeah bassist Kyle Sanders rounds out the group). The outfit's album From Hell I Rise was released to solid reviews earlier this year.
The beloved SF band presents its ninth annual "Another Death Angel Xmas Show" at the Great American Music Hall for two sold-out nights on Dec. 13-14. On Friday, the band is supported by rising Oakland metal trio Necrot. The band started in seven years ago in Oakland by talented Bay Area death metal players Luca Indrio (the band's bassist who also plays in Acephalix and Vastum) and Chad Gailey (who also plays drums in noted local outfits Mortuous and Atrament), with guitarist Sonny Reinhardt (Saviours, Vorlust, Watch Them Die) joining the following year.
The trio recorded several demo tapes and built up a loyal Bay Area fan base with its raw, blackened songs and the blast furnace intensity of its live shows, eventually getting signed to Oakland-based punk/metal imprint. Tankcrimes would compile the tunes from the band's demos for the 2016 release The Labyrinth.
In 2017, Necrot released it's proper debut album Blood Offering on the label, garnering widespread critical praise for the corrosive collection of punk-tinged death metal. Since then, Necrot has only raised it's profile with appearances at major festivals like the Northwest Terror Fest and Psycho Las Vegas as well as a five-week tour of Europe. The band has since released two more efforts: the punishing Mortal in 2020 and this year's Lifeless Birth, which finds the trio moving into more progressive and experimental territory without losing an iota of its apocalyptic fury. San Jose thrashers Taunted open the Friday show.
On Saturday, Death Angel are joined by another latter-era Bay Area thrash band of note, Vio-lence. From the mid-1980s through to their dissolution in 1993, Vio-Lence was one of the Bay Area's new standard bearers for thrash metal. The band's best-known line-up featured guitarist Robb Flynn (who had played in Forbidden and would later found Machine Head), alongside Phil Demmel and singer Sean Killian. Over the course of two albums and an EP issued on MCA metal subsidiary Mechanix and Megaforce Records, the group rose to international fame until infighting led to the departure of Flynn in 1992 and a split the following year.
Vio-Lence would return to activity after reuniting for the legendary Thrash of the Titans benefit for Testament singer Chuck Billy and Death founder Chuck Schuldiner as both men were undergoing cancer treatment. The band stayed together two years, reissuing two of it's albums and releasing a limited edition 7-inch single featuring early demos before splitting again. Members of the group came together again in 2018 for Killian On Command: An Evening of Vio-Lence, a benefit to raise funds for singer Killian who was diagnosed with fourth-stage cirrhosis of the liver and needed of an organ transplant.
Since his recovery Killian has performed with the reunited band in a number of line-ups in addition to signing with Metal Blade Records. In 2022, Vio-lence released its first new music in over three decades with the EP Let the World Burn. Though the singer's main songwriting partner Demmel left the band earlier this year, Killian has been touring extensively with the current version of the group that has bassist Christian Olde Wolbers (Fear Factory) and drummer Nick Souza. Also on board for Saturday's Xmas party is SoCal progressive-metal band Dianthvs. While both shows are sold out, they will once gain be available for fans to livestream. More information on how to purchase livestream tickets is available on the Death Angel website.
Ninth Annual Another Death Angel Xmas Show
Friday-Saturday, Dec. 13-14, 7 p.m. $35 (both shows sold out)
Great American Music Hall