Review: Maidens of Metal

Review of "Maidens of Metal"
by Darren

Girl power rocked Sam's Burger Joint on Saturday night. The four-band onslaught was the "Maidens of Metal," an event featuring rock bands with at least one female member. The experimental and versatile trio Monkeysoop threw the first punch at 9:05. Monkeysoop is comprised of a guitarist, his bassist/girlfriend (who can also play trumpet and French horn) and a drummer.

The Monkeysoop blend includes furious, polyrhythmic, progressive metal and a more appetizing version of "new age." Their apparent influences are Rush, Jeff Beck, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Mahavishnu Orchestra, sci-fi--and maybe adult--film scores, fusion, classical, death metal and funk. Their set included Hole's "Celebrity Skin" and their own "Monkeysoop" and "Jacob's Ladder." The former is what you might imagine people passing a bong around and vegetating to, and parts of the latter have waltz-like drum beats and dissonance reminiscent of heavy metal circus music. For a better description of Monkeysoop's music, listen for yourself: www.monkeysoop.com

Act II was the all-girl Austin band Adrian & The Sickness. The band's opening number sounded like a crossbreeding of Led Zeppelin, Ten Years After and punk rock. The guitarist/lead singer often bounced around like AC-DC guitarist Angus Young, and the band even did an AC-DC song. Their set also included punkabilly, a cover of Ozzy Osbourne's "Bark At The Moon," and a guitar rendition of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of The Bumblebee" introducing one of their songs. Now, is that sick or what?

One of Sixx followed with speed/thrash metal displaying neo-classical metal guitar and bass virtuoso, Iron Maiden (How appropriate), Judas Priest, Queensryche and, possibly, Overkill influences. The six-piece band contained a husband and wife vocal team, two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer. Their set included a cover of Iron Maiden's "Trooper" with this band's maiden singing lead. Sorry, fellas, as her other half reminded you on stage, she's spoken for.

The final act was the four-piece Austin band Shelly Knight & The Livin' Dead. They rocked in classic fashion and gave new life to Deep Purple's "Space Trucking" and Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart.” They have one of the stranger logos around: a little-girl skulls head with short pigtails. It looks like something from a demented Day of The Dead art exhibit. I thought their front woman/second guitarist slightly resembled Gwen Stefani.

No doubt, girl power certainly rocked the joint on Saturday night.