Discordia, Sacred Skull and Crucifixion at Metal Kingdom

The day before school was about to start, me and my friend Dave went down to Metal Kingdom (read the article a couple of months back) to catch some local acts. Right before that, I purchased Tofurky, the soy-based poultry substitute, because it was on sale. Therefore, I was carrying my Tofurky. Luckily, Edwin (one of the Gnosis guys) let me store it in the closet.

An hour or so before the show started, we saw some thrash kids. They had tight pants, big hair, patchy jackets, and high top sneakers that were definitely left over from the '80s. No "retro chic" here- these guys must've just come out of a time capsule. One of them appeared to be no more than 14 years old, and must've been related to the thrash kids in some way or another. I think he was raised by thrash parents, because his hair was down to his ass already.

We met Denise, who was making a movie about Metal Kingdom. It was pretty cool that other rock journalist sorts were also around, but as the night drew on, Denise and her straight-laced film school friends began to adhere to one corner of the bar, away from the predominantly Latino crowd of leather-clad metal dudes. I remember sucking on a lot of limes because, well, they had limes.

We also met some metalheads. Duane was the most metal of them all, in a rather self-parodic way. His jacket was so encrusted in spikes, patches and suchlike, some of them random (a Dokken patch on a black metal fan? come on) and he responded joyously when I informed him that a Dark Funeral song he liked was about anal sex followed by oral sex. Later on, Duane and a very long haired Spanish hessian started a 2 person mosh pit, where the 5'3", 250 lb pair butted heads. Dave joined in for a moment and pushed them around.

Crucifixion were on first. They fell into the all-too-common category of fat guys in horrible corpsepaint playing decent raw BM. They played some songs in English and some in Spanish, emphasizing the bicultural feel of the whole show. I could swear that their makeup appeared to be watercolor or Magic Marker based.

The next band was Sacred Skull, a deathrash band consisting half of the thrashers in the audience. Thrash folk are an interesting, endangered tribe. Some intrepid soul needs to venture deep into thrasher country and record their curious way of life for posterity. The remaining tribesmen stood in front of the stage. They would form a circle, sing, run around in a sort of circle dance, windmill while clinging to the edge of the stage, and run around whilst carrying smaller conspecifics over their shoulders.

Sometime after that, I met Steve and Adam from the local band Sacristy. I checked them out, and they were pretty fucking good. Reminiscent of a thrashier Emperor, with flowing, epic interludes and absolutely no bullshit, Sacristy are one local band that deserve more recognition.

The evening's headliner was Discordia, an epic Mexican-American band with amazing drumming, a strong death metal influence, and rather strange vocals that alternated between a Gollumesque hiss and death metal growls. They remind me a bit of Dissection en Espanol.

It was an amazing night, though I was falling asleep because it ended around 4. Whether you're thrash, BM, DM, or just somebody looking for a good time, Metal Kingdom is the place to be.