Destruction & Warbringer
June 11, 2017
Regent Theater- Los Angeles, CA
Warbringer is a thrash metal band from Los Angeles, California. On March 31st, they released their fifth studio album, Woe to the Vanquished. It was no surprise to see plenty of metal fanatics wearing merch from the band at this show. Warbringer came out and started the show with the first track from the new album, Silhouettes. Warbringer plays classic thrash metal with fast guitars, fast drumming, and thrashy vocals from frontman John Kevill. Fans immediately started moshing to the music in true metal fashion. The second song played was the next track and title track from the new album, Woe to the Vanquished. The band has a very energetic stage presence as the members would bang their head to their own music and would regularly interact with fans. Fans kept the mosh pit alive and well during the entire performance. Kevill made note that the show was a hometown show and was glad to see the metal scene alive and well. Near the end of the show, Kevill let the audience that he wanted to see the biggest mosh pit of the night, from one end of the floor to the other. Warbringer played Living in a Whirlwind, a fitting song for asking for the biggest mosh pit of the night and what a sight it was to witness it. Warbringer finished the show with Total War to keep the energy of the show going. There wasn’t a single dull moment during the band’s performance and fans can’t 
wait for them to return to cause chaos once again.
Destruction is a thrash metal band from Germany that have been active since the mid 80’s. They are considered to be one of the “Big 3” of Teutonic thrash metal (Teutonic being a medieval term used to describe the Germanic people) alongside Kreator and Sodom. In 2016, Destruction released their fourteenth studio album titled, Under Attack. Whenever Destruction plays in Los Angeles, it’s usually at the smaller venues on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood so it was nice to see the band playing a larger venue and it turned out to have a really good turnout of fans. The thrash metal trio Destruction came out and started the show with the first track from the newest album, Under Attack. Even after fourteen albums, Destruction has done a great job of maintaining their classic thrash metal sound. With that, fans once again started the mosh pit and even crowd surfers started showing up and kept security up front busy. The second track played was Curse the Gods which is one of their more popular old school tracks. Nailed to the Cross is one of the band’s best songs so having it played early on got the crowd going wild with mosh pits and crowd surfers. Other Destruction classics included: Mad Butcher, Total Desaster, Antichrist, and the instrumental Thrash Attack. Frontman Marcel “Schmier” Schirmer thanked the crowd for coming out and letting everyone know that he was happy as to how crazy the audience have been and how they have been the best audience of the tour. Destruction finished with The Butcher Strikes Back and left the stage. The fans weren’t ready to leave yet and chanted the band’s name to get them to come back out. The band listened and came back out for some more tunes. The first encore was Thrash Till Death and the band wrapped up their show with Bestial Invasion. The fans went crazy and let out any remaining energy they had as mosh pits and crowd surfers were seen everywhere. The show ended and Destruction left the stage for the final time. It was a great night for metal and further proof that metal is alive and well.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
Destruction
Warbringer
