DELAIN and HAMMERFALL play The Whiskey A Go Go May 9 and The Grove of Anaheim May 10; promo photo
For all the melodic-symphonic and power-metal-heads out there in SoCal, the Delain and HammerFall tour will make stops at The Whiskey-A-Go-Go May 9 and The Grove of Anaheim May 10. The remainder of the U.S. tour encompasses 12 states and two tour dates in British Colombia.
Delain is a musical exploration into the realms of pain, sorrow, yearning and love. Many of the songs are graced by the elegant female vocal performances of Charlotte Wessels who ascended quickly within the Dutch group. She was basically an unknown when joining, but evolved to become a song and lyric writer for the band alongside founder and keyboardist Martijn Westerholt. Now she has 5 full-length releases under her belt and what was meant only to be a studio-band is now on tour.
The overall sound of Delain will appeal to both metal and mainstream fans due the well-blended collage of heavy guitars, synths and choruses. There is almost a new-age feel to the music that at the same time retains an edge and classy sense of aggression. That edge and aggression is created by the two axes in the band: Timo Somers and Merel Bechtold
HAMMERFALL; press photo
Hailing from Sweden, power metallurgists HammerFall tell a tale of perseverance. From their debut creation Glory To The Brave in 1997 and up until the band’s most recent full-length release Built to Last in 2016, the band has suffered a series of serious set-backs. Sickness and affliction have beset their rock and roll path: Shortly after the release of their 1998 album Legacy of Kings, vocalist Joacim Cans came down with a throat-infection so dire that he could no longer sing for most of the remaining tour dates that year.
Ironically, Cans was a “one-night-stand” vocalist replacing Mikael Stanne who was unavailable to sing for The Swedish Rockslaget contest in 1997. Cans’ performance helped to bring them into the semi-finals and that must have been enough to attract the attention of the German label Nuclear Blast which offered the band a four-record deal that same year. But alongside this success, Cans’ throat-infection then spread to the bassist, Magnus Rosen and then the whole of the band’s support crew.
The group was also subjected to more commonplace and less severe trials: Members quit and new members joined. Yet in 2002, another hammer fell on HammerFall: After the release of Crimson Thunder and while on tour, song-writer, guitarist, back-up vocalist and keyboardist Oscar Dronjak was injured in a motorcycle accident. Dronjak sustained minor injuries. But such impacted him enough to where he was forced to take a break that led to the inevitable cancellation of further tour dates.
With a band like HammerFall, the lyric: “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll” could easily come to mind. And here we are in 2017, 20-years later, 15-band-members later, 10 full-length-releases and 27 ep’s/singles later and they are on tour again. These are some impressive achievements for a band that was intended only to be a side-project.
So, prepare yourselves for an intense wave of melodic-symphonic metal and a falling hammer of mid-paced, high-toned, folksy and ballad-rich five-star power metal! For fans of these genres, these are shows you don’t want to miss!