The News Review:

- ‘Anvil: The Story of Anvil’ review: Metal on metal
- ’80s music fuels 2-day Rock Fest
- For The Inquirer
- Iraqi band’s mettle survived heaviest tests of all
- ‘Travel Tips for Aztlan’ rides cutting-edge of Latin radio
- Using ‘music as a weapon’

‘Anvil: The Story of Anvil’ review: Metal on metal
Examiner.com
In one hilarious scene Lips appears on a Canadian talk show that warns against the corruptive danger of metal music. As Spinal Tap would say what’s wrong with being sexy? Although the band members sometimes engage in unintentionally funny antics and cringeworthy interactions the film isn’t condescending or mean-spirited. n the contrary the warts-and-all approach coupled with the band’s irony-free outlook lends the film and its subjects an authenticity that separates them from the saccharine fabricated feel of reality TV and its fame-grubbing denizens. Watching Lips and Robb interact with their families you can’t help but root for these guys. And it helps that they rock.
Related from Lactose-quervo: Anvil’s alternative Brits party

’80s music fuels 2-day Rock Fest
San Antonio Express
Dismissed by critics but loved by anyone who owned a Quiet Riot cassette the so-called hair-metal genre keeps rocking like a hurricane. "I don’t feel the need to defend ’80s music" said McMaster who toured with Judas Priest the Cult and Faster Pussycat when the Toys were in regular rotation on radio and MTV. "It’s not about the ’80s or ’90s or whatever; it’s about making kick-ass in-your-face hard rock or metal music. Same thing with Motorhead Slayer and Pantera. Look at newer bands like Danko Jones and Airbourne who carry the old-school torch but are very much current and reaching a new generation. "While Saxon and Queensryche have remained active beyond their presumed expiration dates most of the names at South Texas Rock Fest have been off the radar off the rails (see Steven Adler) or otherwise preoccupied with day jobs family and lower-key musical projects.

For The Inquirer
Philadelphia Inquirer
She browses the paintings and photographs jewelry and baskets ceramics and glassworks lining State College’s South Allen Street and the roads and walkways of the picturesque Penn State campus. With her husband Ed Galus patiently tagging along she checks out every booth – all 300 or so. An elegant wooden bowl might catch her eye or gigantic welded-metal sculptures. "They’re kind of otherworldly" she says of the metal works. The festival which will attract more than 125000 people July 9 to 12 will be one of dozens of fairs throughout Pennsylvania New Jersey and Delaware this summer.

Iraqi band’s mettle survived heaviest tests of all
Boston Globe
Tales of bands struggling through hard times and overcoming obstacles are as old as rock ‘n’ roll. But Acrassicauda named after a species of black scorpion has had a harder time than most. “A lot of heavy metal bands talk and sing about war and death and destruction but they haven’t experienced it” said bass player Firas al-Lateef. “After three years living as refugees in Syria and Turkey the band is in the United States. The members live in a small apartment with little more than some fold-out beds and a couple of chairs doing the things many wannabe rock stars do: looking for jobs and women not necessarily in that order. “We’re still in the process of figuring it all out” said drummer Marwan Riyadh 24.

‘Travel Tips for Aztlan’ rides cutting-edge of Latin radio
Los Angeles Times
He used his own microphones and sound-mixing console that he’d haul in from home. “People ended up calling it rocken español but this was before that term was even around” he said ticking off such groups as zomatli Los lvidados and Maria Fatal. Among his on-air guests around that time was Colombia’s Juanes — not yet the Colombian pop superstar who performed at this year’s NBA All-Star Game but at the time a guitar player with the metal band Ekhymosis. Torres continued to expand his show’s vision of what alternative Latin music could be introducing listeners to scores of new artists and helping some to get on stage in L. although not at the velvet-rope venues. “We weren’t going to wait for the Sunset pay-to-play clubs to invite us” he said.

Using ‘music as a weapon’
Hub
comFor most bands in the heavy music genre opening for Disturbed is no doubt a dream come true. Just ask Lansing-based metal group Bloodletting. They recently got that chance. You see Bloodletting won the Fusion Shows “Headbang for the Highway” Battle of the Bands to land a slot on the skull-cracking “Music as a Weapon Tour” which features metal acts Disturbed Killswitch Engage Chimaira and Lacuna Coil. Bloodletting opened the Battle Creek show on April 30.