The crowd at the Pre-Atticus Metal Tour 2 show with Unearth, Veil of Maya, Early Graves, Ascend the Fallen, and Hollowpoint is what I wish the crowd would have been like at Haste the Day (see our Haste the Day Concert Review).

As you can see by the tour flyer above, Armed for Apocalypse was supposed to be on the bill – I have no idea what happened there.

The first two bands – Hollowpoint and Ascend the Fallen – are both local bands. I wouldn’t compare Hollowpoint to Haste the Day overall, but I would compare them to HTD in the sense that they were a metal band that did harmonize.

Ascend the Fallen reminded me of All Shall Perish. The lead singer’s appearance, his hand motions and overall on stage presence, the songs’s vocals…all very similar to ASP when I saw them over the summer with Blessthefall and August Burns Red.

I don’t really know to say about Early Graves. If you are into that whole thrash metal/grindcore/whatever genre, give them a spin. Personally they weren’t really my style. That being said, if you are a fan of heavy music don’t count them out immediately – maybe I am just behind the learning curve.

The first band to whip the crowd into a frenzy was Veil of Maya. Personally, I had not heard of them before the show (the bands I had heard of on the Atticus Metal Tour 2 aside from Unearth were all – ironically – not on the pre-tour dates) but I was definitely in the minority on that; there were plenty of people there wearing Veil of Maya gear.

They are described as a hybrid between metal, death metal, and metalcore – a blend that is much more my style than a band like Chesea Grin; who are just straight up brutal death metal. Hailing from Chicago, they definitely knew how to work the crowd and didn’t hesitate in getting plenty of circle pits going throughout their set.

Overall, they weren’t necessarily anything ground-breaking (is any new band in this scene?) but – as my buddy who attended the concert with me pointed out – it was easy to see why people into that style of music would be fans of Veil of Maya.

Speaking of working the crowd, Unearth was in a league of their own. As you can see by the video I embedded below, the crowd was absolutely insane for their entire set. The madness you see below at the start of their set never relented for the full hour they played.

Their set consisted of a mix of newer and older songs, everything from The March‘s ‘My Will Be Done’ back to ‘My Heart Bleeds No Longer’ off of their 2001 album, The Stings of Conscience. The Atticus Metal 2 Tour has a ton of dates across the country, so when they come around your area I highly suggest you check them out. Alongside sets performed by All That Remains, they put on the best metal performance I have seen in quite some time.

Before Unearth even took the stage, my buddy said that if Trevor Phipps (Unearth’s lead singer) had any kind of stage presence, he was going to be able to bring the roof down with this crowd. The roof stayed in one piece above our heads throughout their set…barely.

To check out photos from the show and see Veil of Maya perform their new song, ‘Unbreakable’, go to the Outsider Vocals Facebook Fan Page

***Note: You do not have to have a Facebook account to be able to browse that page and view the photos and videos.

For more information on Hollowpoint, visit the Hollowpoint MySpace page

For more information on Ascend the Fallen, visit the Ascend the Fallen MySpace page

For more information on Early Graves, visit the Early Graves MySpace page

For more information on Veil of Maya, visit the Veil of Maya MySpace page

For more information on Unearth, visit the Unearth MySpace page or the New Unearth Website

Special thanks goes out to Opus One Productions for giving us tickets to the show.

All photos, music, and videos copyright of their respective owners. Used only for promotional purposes and to gain notoriety for the artists featured.

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