Metal Monday came early this week with Sunday evening's show, August 2, at Czar's Imperial Palace featuring Torche, House of Lightning and Averkiou. Death Metal, one of Tampa's more unqiue claims to fame, has influenced a plethora of subgenres including the hardcore scene I grew up in. It was awesome to see how many old school hardcore kids made it out along with a whole new group of metal afficiandos on a Sunday night.

Torche

Hailing from Miami, Torche has a rabid fan base hooked on their unique sound – it's part thrash with a twist of melodic hardcore, and dare I say a bit of twang, all on a solid metal base. Decibel Magazine called Torche's music a "whole new beast built from the DNA up." Since Torche's Meanderthal (Hydrahead Records) took the #1 spot on Decibel's 2008 Top 40 Extreme Albums list, their fan base is rapidly expanding but thankfully their intensity remains intact.

Live the band exceeds expectations drawing in the audience until everyone is at least nodding along if not full on head banging. You can see that these musicians love what they do and are having a party on stage to which the whole crowd is invited. As a gift to the fans from back in the Floor days, the crowd went nuts when Scimitar was played. When the audience demanded an encore, the band requested a bit of patience while Rick reassembled his drums that had come undone in the intensity of their last song and the audience happily waited late on a Sunday night to squeeze in just a couple more songs.

Their energetic stage presence had me capturing Steve and Jonathan nonchalantly hanging out in mid-air repetitively:

To really experience the mid-air nonchalance, click on the photo to view them in a larger size.

Torche's 2009 EP (with DVD) Healer / Across the Shields (Hydrahead Records) is out now for your home enjoyment.

Torche is Steve Brooks (Guitars/Vocals), Jonathan Nuñez (Bass), and Rick Smith (Drums)

House of Lightning

The elusive and mysterious House of Lightning (ex-Dove) made one of their too rare appearances opening up for Torche. The crowd reveled as the waves of thrash crashed down upon them.

As a music photographer, few things are as entertaining to capture as the myriad faces of metal framed by hair swirling around in awful red lighting. As you can see during House of Lightning's set, the opportunities for capture were endless.

Word on the street is that House of Lightning has been recording so hopefully a record will be coming soon!

Averkiou

In spite of being the only non-metal band of the evening, Gainesville's Averikou did a good job of holding the attention of the mostly metal mania audience. Averkiou is on the one hand a prototypical shoegazer band (frequent comparisons to Swervedriver, Guided By Voices and, of course, My Bloody Valentine) producing a delicious sound that is nearly tactile and on the other hand is a straight up indie pop band. Check out their new album, Throwing Sparks (Clairecords/Barracuda Sound) which has received universal praise with the most common complaint from reviewers being that it is too short!