Aug 042011
 

Adrian and Daniel Erlandsson are brothers, both of whom started playing drums at an early age in their home in Malmö, Sweden. Adrian went on to become the drummer for bands such as At the Gates, The Haunted, and Cradle of Filth, and currently plays for Brujeria and Paradise Lost. Daniel has been almost as prolific. His work includes drum duties on In FlamesSubterranean album, and he’s been the drummer for Arch Enemy since 1998.

By all accounts, both are considered very good at what they do. I’ve admitted before that I’m not a good judge of technical ability; I tend to fall into a state of slack-jawed wonder when I watch almost any capable extreme-metal drummer performing live. I can’t wrap my mind around the stamina, the physical coordination, and the memory skills required to play such intricate rhythms at such high speed for such a long time. But I do know what I like to hear, and I like to hear the Erlandsson brothers at work.

Not long ago, we featured drum-cam footage of Fredrik Andersson of Amon Amarth playing at the recent Tuska music festival in Finland. Now we’ve got drum-cam video of the Erlandsson brothers at the same festival — Adrian performing with the legendary At the Gates, and Daniel with Arch Enemy. I had fun watching these clips, and only a couple of flies entered my open mouth while I watched. I thought you might like this shit, too, so after the jump you can check out the brothers Erlandsson doing what they do best. Continue reading »

Feb 082010
 

Arch Enemy comes to town and your NCS Authors turn into moths drawn to a candle flame.

On February 6, 2010, the TYRANTS OF EVIL tour stopped at The Showbox in Seattle and two of us plus our entourage were there to take in the tyranny of evility. We file this report (along with a big batch of our regrettably amateurish photo images at the end of the post).

MUTINY WITHIN

This band first drew our attention through a YouTube video of their transplant-from-England vocalist Chris Clancy singing an operatic aria called “Nessum Dorma.” So, okay, the dude’s got some pipes. But does he belong in a metal band, and is the band itself worth a damn? Someone thinks so, because they’re signed to Roadrunner Records, they’ve got a debut album coming out on February 23, they’re touring with Arch Enemy, and they clearly had a bunch of appreciative fans in the Showbox audience.

But this is power metal, with mostly clean singing, and you know that’s not our thing (see the name of this site). Anything we might say would come off as a put-down, but that wouldn’t be our intent. We’re just not into this kind of metal. So, we’ll pass on the review and move to the next band . . . . (after the jump) Continue reading »