Crossover Punk-Metal Band Comes To Bay Area

By Dave Pehling

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- One of the leading modern purveyors mixing classic thrash metal and hardcore punk sounds, Dallas-based outfit Power Trip brings their explosive live show to the Bay Area for concerts in San Francisco and San Jose this week.

Founded in 2008 by frontman Riley Gale and guitarist Blake Ibanez, the Texas quintet aimed to capture the metal-tinged sound of New York hardcore established in the '80s by bands like the Cro-Mags and Nuclear Assault, but openly embraced influences ranging from Brazilian thrashers Sepultura, Bay Area metal icons Exodus and fellow Texas crossover outfit Dirty Rotten Imbeciles. Building a local following with frequent unhinged performances at house parties and Dallas area clubs, the band released its debut recording Armageddon Blues in 2009 through Philly-based punk label Double Or Nothing Records.

The band would take a number of years before releasing it's proper first full-length record via noted metal imprint Southern Lord, but the songs on 2013's Manifest Decimation revealed a far more refined take on musical brutality honed by Power Trip's dogged touring regimen. The band got some of it's biggest exposure yet on a tour supporting more traditional thrash acts Anthrax and Lamb of God alongsideSF post-metal crew Deafheaven.

Last year, the group's most recent effort for Southern Lord entitled Nightmare Logic upped the ante once again with some of the most pulverizing, mosh-pit inducing anthems in recent memory over the course of 33 incendiary minutes. Songs like "Crucifixation," the title track and "Executioner's Tax (Swing of the Ax)" take square lyrical aim at both the wealthy conservatives in power and religious fundamentalists of all stripes over suitably brutal grooves.

Power Trip is celebrating ten years as a band with the release of the early singles and rarities compilation Opening Fire: 2008-2018 through the Dark Operatives label that makes some of the band's hard-to-find back catalog more readily available for fans. For it's current tour, the band is joined by tuneful Phlly trash-rockers Sheer Mag, old-school style SoCal punks Fury and like-minded D.C. crossover act Red Death  to the Great American Music Hall Thursday night. followed by a show at the Ritz in San Jose Friday.

Power Trip with Sheer Mag

Thursday, May 31, 8 p.m. $18-$20
Great American Music Hall

Friday, June 1, 8 p.m. $15-$16.50
The Ritz