Hatebreed celebrated their 30th anniversary as a band in Wallingford, Connecticut at the Toyota Oakdale Theatre on St Patty’s Day 2024 with The March Metal Matinee. This show was extra special as it was the band’s biggest “hometown show” in the band’s amazing history and also guitarist Wayne Lozinak birthday. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Brian Fair
Roadrunner United Release Celebrating The Iconic Label to See a Rerelease in 2023
Roadrunner United was a project organized by iconic hard rock record label Roadrunner Records to celebrate its 25th anniversary, culminating in the U.S. Billboard Top 200, UK Albums, and Australian ARIA Albums-charting original The All Star Sessions. Four “team captains” (Slipknot’s Joey Jordison (RIP), Machine Head’s Robb Flynn, Fear Factory’s Dino Cazares, and Trivium’s Matthew K. Heafy) were chosen to lead 57 artists from 45 past and present Roadrunner bands. On December 15, 2005, a concert celebrating the project, album, and anniversary took place at the Nokia Theater in New York City. That star-studded event featured multiple musicians, both past and present, from Roadrunner bands — as well as musicians that did not originally perform on the All-Star Sessions album. Now that album is getting a release in 2023 on multiple formats. Watch the live performance video of “The End (Live)” featuring Fear Factory’s Dino Cazares, and Trivium’s Matthew K. Heafy – right now!
Brian Fair Reflects on 20 Years of Shadows Fall’s Second Album “Of One Blood”
Brian Fair of Shadows Fall took to his Instagram today to reminisce about their second band, Of One Blood (Century Media), released 20 years ago today (4/42000). It was Brian’s first album with the band, after replacing Sober Eyes To the Sky album vocalist Phil Labonte, who went on with All That Remains. Of One Blood helped coalesce the style of the band and featured superior production from the debut from Chris “Zeuss” Harris (Rob Zombie, Dee Snider, Hatebreed, Overkill), for whom this was the second album he ever produced. There have been rumors that Shadows Fall would make a return in the future, and Brian said in another post there would be new Shads merch soon. Continue reading
Downpour Release New Track, New Album Due Next Month
Downpour, the metalcore supergroup featuring members of Shadows Fall and Unearth, have dropped a new single, ‘Truth In Suffering’. September 7th will see the release of their self-titled debut album, and the band is offering pre-order packages via Pledge Music. Check out the single now. Continue reading
Hell Night, Featuring Brian Fair Of Shadows Fall Releases New Music
Hell Night, which features Brian Fair of Shadows Fall, has released two new singles. ‘Cancercize’ and ‘The Sequel’ are both available to stream or download from the bands’ Bandcamp page. Jam them out below! Continue reading
Shadows Fall To Headline Big Kahuna Festival In Rhode Island
Recently inactive Boston metallers Shadows Fall will headline The Big Kaunha Festival in August. Taking place at Fêtemusic Hall in Providence, Rhode Island on 8/22, the bill will also feature regional acts such as End Time Illusion, Anaria, Carnivora, Oath over three stages, with many other bands yet to be announced.
The band commented on the show:
“We may add a few more shows around this date and these could possibly be the only Shadows Fall dates of the year.”
The band released a statement last August stating of the intentions of the band to take at least a long open-ended hiatus:
“Touring full time in a band these days has never been more difficult financially. When you have to ensure the future comfort of your family, difficult decisions have to be made. Another reason is the fact that our lead guitarist (Jon Donais) is now in Anthrax, which makes it hard for us to do any extensive touring with our full lineup.
“This has been a real hard decision for all of us to make, but we feel at this time this is the right thing to do. We don’t hate each other, we’re not bitter,;we, in fact, still have a really great time together, but the ride has slowed down and it’s time for the next chapters in our lives, whatever that may be.
“For the past decade and a half, we have been able to create the music we have always wanted to hear and share it with music fans everywhere. That being said, you still may see us at a festival or two over the next few years… If they ask, we will come!”
In addition to Donais’ work touring and recording a new Anthrax album, Brian Fair has performed with Overcast, Matt Bachand has launched a management company called Manshark Entertainment and joined Act of Defiance on bass, and Jason Bittner has joined Flotsam And Jetsam. Shadows Fall’s last album release was 2012’s Fire From The Sky on the Razor & Tie label
Podcast: Brian Fair of Shadows Fall On The Jasta Show
Brian Fair (Shadows Fall, Overcast, Death Ray Vision, Downpour, Transient) appeared on The Jasta Show featuring Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed, Jasta, Kingdom of Sorrow). He speaks about his history with the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival, the state of Shadows Fall, where he stands today and being a dad.
Shadows Fall Announce Hiatus, Final Tours
Long running New Wave of American Metal Act Shadows Fall have announced that their upcoming fall tours of Europe and a soon to be announced USA run of dates will be their last for the foreseeable future, and the band will “take a hiatus”. They begin a tour of Europe later this week with “Hell On Earth” trek, which also features Unearth, The Acacia Strain and War Of Ages, will begin in Frankfurt, Germany on August 29 and run until September 14.
The band has released a statement
“Touring full time in a band these days has never been more difficult financially. When you have to ensure the future comfort of your family, difficult decisions have to be made. Another reason is the fact that our lead guitarist (Jon Donais) is now in Anthrax, which makes it hard for us to do any extensive touring with our full lineup. Due to his obligations with Anthrax, he will not be able to join us on this European tour. Felipe Roa (Acaro) will once again fill Jon’s position and we are thankful to him for joining us on this run. Also returning for this tour is original bassist Paul Romanko, who has sat out from touring for the last two years to raise his son.
“This has been a real hard decision for all of us to make, but we feel at this time this is the right thing to do. We don’t hate each other, we’re not bitter, we, in fact, still have a really great time together, but the ride has slowed down and it’s time for the next chapters in our lives, whatever that may be.
“We can’t thank the fans that have supported Shadows Fall since the beginning enough. Without you, none of this would have been possible.
“For the past decade and a half, we have been able to create the music we have always wanted to hear and share it with music fans everywhere. That being said, you still may see us at a festival or two over the next few years… If they ask, we will come! In the meantime, please check out the dates for the last European go-around and we will see you out there!”
Shadows Fall came out of a burgeoning scene in Massachusetts playing a combination of thrash, hardcore, and melodic death metal influences coalescing into the form of American Metalcore. Although they shared many early shows with the likes of Unearth and Diecast locally, they moved on to become one of the most prominent bands of the NWOAM in the early 00’s along with Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage and Hatebreed. Albums such as The Art of Balance and The War Within are modern classics from the last decade.
Death Ray Vision – We Ain’t Leavin’ til You’re Bleedin’
Fancy a bit of thrash, NYHC, Boston HC, Hard rock and American (proper) punk all balled into one and spat out via 12 no-nonsense songs in 29 minutes? Then We Ain’t Leavin’ til You’re Bleedin’ (Bullet Tooth) by Death Ray Vision could well be right up your darkened alley.
Led by Shadows Fall front man Brian Fair and backed by Killswitch Engage bassist Mike D’Antonio amongst a cast of long-term brothers in arms, WALTYB has the balls and confidence of a band who know what they’re doing but are doing it with the injection of energy of people with a passion and a love for the type of music they’re producing.
Influences are worn high on the sleeve, but rather than there being one or two reference points for example ‘Over My Dead Body’ whirls by with nods to Discharge, Sick Of It All, Skid Row and Anthrax, while ‘Live Fast… Never Die’ tornados a punked up take on ‘Helpless’ (Metallica Garage Days version) and ‘Poison Was The Cure’ (Megadeth, but with the polish well and truly blowtorched off) before hitting a Pantera groove. Elsewhere Agnostic Front, Poison Idea and Terror spring to mind.
The thing is, though, this is no homage to a list of bands, or no retro-thrash/HC bandwagon jumpers, the above are just snippets of some of the influences to give you a flavour. ‘This is Progre$$’ stomps to the Boston beat, ‘Barfly’ kicks off with a rumbling bass before launching into a mid-paced thrash lesson in violence and ‘Forest (of Kegs)’ brings things to a close with an Overkill doom-intro before letting loose the old skool thrash.
Riffs, breakdowns (the mid-section of ‘Your Shallow Grave’ is massive) and mosh-sections fly by in a flurry, with each track, despite their average 2 minute length, containing 3 or 4 strong parts. Fair’s vocals are aggressively delivered, but the right side of shouting rather than screaming, and backed up with a smattering of gang-vocal choruses.
This thrash/HC mutant is nothing new or innovative but is blisteringly collated and delivered and foretells live mosh-pit carnage.
7.5/10
Steve Tovey