Of the few heavy music oriented festivals embarking during this summer season, the Sounds of the Underground tour seems to be the one that mirrors the Vans Warped Tour;it has a good variety of the genres’ best bands and decent ticket prices. Also being sponsored by Hot Topic is obviously helpful as well. On this third installment, they chose Dallas as the opening city to begin the metal onslaught across the country.
While there were many bands on the bill throughout the day, here are just a few of the great (and not so great) the tour had to offer.
The Devil Wears Prada — Very energetic live show. Soundwise, they are very much in the vein of Underoath. A bit generic but they definitely had the kids dancing and singing along for sure.
Darkest Hour — While the metalcore tag is played out due to so many cookie-cutter bands out there, DH manages to exceed that and really bring out the brutality of each style. DH put on a great live show indeed, so be on the lookout for their newest release Deliver Us on Victory Records.
Amon Amarth — The Swedish quintet was definitely one of the bands folks were looking forward to watching. Their brand of Viking-influenced death metal had the crowd raising their horns in victory. I was impressed since I hadn’t paid them much mind before but their musicianship could not be denied.
Job For A Cowboy — All I can say is wow. The Arizona-based metal band of the moment brought their A-game for sure, seeing how there is a lot of hype surrounding their current release Genesis on Metal Blade Records. They definitely proved themselves with a head-pounding 30 minute set. You can almost call them the Cannibal Corpse for the MySpace generation.
Necro — I had read up on this hip hop artist who loves to use his metal influences on his records and when I heard he got added to this, I was a bit skeptical but willing to give him a shot. Unfortunately, his live show was lackluster and the crowd didn’t seem too thrilled to get into his music. While he did give a shout out to Dimebag Darrell, Cliff Burton, and Randy Rhodes; it wasn’t enough but not even that could help him win over this crowd.
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