Metal veterans Cirith Ungol bring farewell tour to DNA Lounge
SoCal metal heroes Cirith Ungol come to San Francisco on their current farewell tour Friday, sharing the stage at the DNA Lounge with headbanging San Francisco outfit Slough Feg and prog-metal outfit Owl.
While the J.R.R. Tolkien-inspired band from Ventura wouldn't put out their first album until 1981, Cirith Ungol's roots date back to the early '70s when then bassist Greg Lindstrom, guitarists Jerry Fogle and Pat Galligan (who later played in punk band the Angry Samoans) and drummer Robert Garven played together in hard-rock band Titanic when the members were still teenagers. That band leaned into the sounds of Mountain and Grand Funk Railroad, but moved into a heavier direction when they named themselves after a treacherous mountain pass in "The Lord of the Rings." Covers of Cream and Jimi Hendrix changed to versions of songs by Thin Lizzy, Budgie, Trapeze and Blue Öyster Cult before they began writing their own original songs.
After going through some line-up changes and recording several demos, core band members Lindstrom (who played both bass and guitar in addition to becoming the group's main songwriter), Fogle and Garvan were joined by distinctive lead singer Tim Baker and bassist Michael "Flint" Vujea, who allowed Lindstrom to switch to guitar full time. The band's self-released debut Frost and Fire on their Liquid Flames Records imprint in 1981 showcased Cirith Ungol's unique style of fantasy-influenced power metal that was far closer in sound to what British and European groups were playing at the time.
Despite being an outlier from the rising glam-metal Los Angeles acts of the era like Quiet Riot and Mötley Crüe, Cirith Ungol found an audience and eventually got signed to Enigma Records. The band would soldier on as a quartet when Lindstrom left to pursue other interests, putting out its sophomore album King of the Dead in 1984. Neither that album nor its follow up -- One Foot in Hell for Metal Blade Records in 1986 -- achieved any great commercial success at the time, but like the band's debut, they have become hailed as lost classics by fans who embraced Cirith Ungol's mix of power metal and crushing doom riffs.
The band's 1991 album Paradise Lost earned the group some of its best reviews yet, but despite having developed a cult following, Cirith Ungol called it quits the following year. It would be a quarter of a century before the band would take the stage again. Reissues of their early albums and a 2001 Metal Blade compilation of early demos and live recordings entitled Servants of Chaos helped stoke the interest of modern metal fans who only learned of the group's music years after they split up.
In 2016, Baker, Lindstrom, Garven and latter era-guitarist Jim Barraza reunited, tapping Night Demon leader and fellow Ventura metalhead Jarvis Leatherby to handle bass. Since then, they have become a fixture of metal festivals on both sides of the Atlantic and have released a pair of acclaimed albums -- 2020's Forever Black, Cirith Ungol's first new effort in nearly three decades, and last year's acclaimed collection Dark Parade. A few months ago, the group announced that it would be embarking on a final world tour before retiring from stage performance. The tour that stops at the DNA Lounge Friday night pairs the band with a group they have played at multiple European festivals with in the past: Bay Area metal stalwarts Slough Feg.
Though founded in central Pennsylvania in the late 1980s, the Lord Weird Slough Feg (as the band was known initially) had relocated to San Francisco by 1990. Fronted by guitarist/singer and principle songwriter Michael Scalzi, the group crafted a sound that was true to it's unusual name reportedly taken from a Celtic myth. Drawing sonic influences from the twin-guitar attack of Thin Lizzy and Iron Maiden with occasional touches of Irish folk, the band made a name for itself with its theatrical presentation featuring flaming torches and war paint to go with their galloping metal anthems.
Several demo tapes were followed by the band's self-released, eponymous debut in 1996. That effort attracted the attention of European imprint Dragonheart Records, who would release the next several albums starting with 1999's Twilight of the Idols. By the time the group recorded their celebrated follow-up album Down Among the Dead Men, Scalzi had been joined by noted San Francisco metal guitarist John Cobbett, who had already established himself with the bands Osgood Slaughter and Unholy Cadavar. That latter group also featured Scalzi as a member and would morph into the group Hammers of Misfortune.
Scalzi and Cobbett would earn a higher profile with both outfits after the release of their respective conceptual albums -- Hammers of Misfortune's breakout debut The Bastard in 2001 and the Lord Weird Slough Feg's sci-fi opus Traveller, that was based on a late '70s role-playing game similar to Dungeons and Dragons. With the two talented players and songwriters contributing to each other's bands, both groups put out a string of acclaimed releases that further spread their notoriety.
Scalzi would depart Hammers of Misfortune by the mid-2000s to focus his attention on Slough Feg, with the guitarist leading new configurations of the band through more sci-fi epics like Hardworlder and Ape Uprising! Slough Feg put out its first new album since 2014's Digital Resistance. Issued in 2019 by the group's current label Cruz Del Sur Music, New Organon finds Scalzi and company unleashing another batch of tunes spotlighting their familiar twin-guitar attack and the band leader's concept-driven songwriting (the title tune refers to a book on the scientific method published in 1620 by English philosopher Francis Bacon).
The Friday night show at the DNA Lounge will kick off with an opening set from East Bay prog/psych-metal outfit Owl. The group features the three Baechle brothers -- guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Axell, guitarist/vocalist Alexander (A.K.) and drummer Clint, who also plays in noted blackened metal outfit Deathgrave and stoner-metal crew Hazzard's Cure -- and is filled out by bassist and onetime member of Annihilation Time Jamie Sanitate. Together since the late 2000s, the band has been refining its complex style of Iron Maiden-influenced prog-metal over the course of three full-length albums. The quartet's latest effort Geomancy finds Owl producing its most ambitious, epic music yet that draws equally from the riff-powered sounds of classic British metal and the knotty dissonance of '70s era King Crimson. Local fixture DJ Bleeding Priest (aka Death Angel and Old Granddad drummer Will Carroll) will be spinning metal records before and between bands.
Cirith Ungol with Slough Feg and Owl
Friday, April 5, 7 p.m. $25-$32
DNA Lounge
