Metal Monday: The Metal Fight For Middle Earth

posted in: Features

Believe it or not, A Band Of Orcs doesn’t actually hail from Middle Earth. Far from it in fact. The band currently resides in sunny Santa Cruz, California. As the story goes, “a group of young nerds playing Dungeons & Dragons inadvertently summoned the monstrous orcs into [their] realm by rolling dice on a ‘Random Encounter Table.’ Unfortunately for them, they encountered A Band of Orcs, who reacted with all of the inappropriate violence that you might expect from such savage warriors.”

As you may or may not guess, A Band Of Orcs chooses to play one of the more sinister styles of metal: good old fashioned death metal. At times they’re fast and unrelenting, at others they’re slow and brooding. Their sound is a very good mix of the standard death metal styles, but they’re never overly technical at any given moment. There’s also some heavy thrash elements at times”the track”Into The Maelstrom”, for instance, sounds as though it’s a nod to mid-80s Slayer.

As much as you may be inclined to think that the whole “orc thing” is just schtick, it’s not. A Band Of Orcs have some really solid music out in the world right now and are already catching the attention of some pretty important people in the metal world (when Bruce Dickinson chooses to play you on his radio show, you know you’re doing something right). They’re a very multi-dimensional band that branches out farther into the metal world with every new song, only getting better each time.

For the quintessential Band of Orcs track, check out the epic video for “Into The Maelstrom”: