ALL THAT REMAINS with LACUNA COIL's 'Disease of The Anima" tour at HARD ROCK LIVE

All That Remains and Lacuna Coil brought their Disease Of the Anima Tour to the Hard Rock LIVE on the Las Vegas Strip, and with doors opening up early at 5:30, even a few hours before that there was already a line outside. The Hard Rock Live is a three story complex with the venue on top floor, which gives way to an incredible view of the Las Vegas Strip, and you can go outside between bands and check out the view.

Kicking off the show was the band UNCURED, a progressive death metal band from NY led by brothers Rex and Zak Cox, and have been compared to Opeth and DreamTheater. The band released its debut EP, Spontaneous Generation, in 2016 with the brothers writing all the music and handling all guitar and bass duties, and the drums performed by Max Portnoy ( son of drumming legend Mike Portnoy former Dream Theater). Fast forward to this tour, and Uncured is out promoting their newest full-length album Epidemic from earlier this year, and see for yourself what this band is all about by watching their video “Death Valley” from Epidemic on youtube HERE.

TOOTHGRINDER from Asbury Park, NJ is touring in support of their upcoming CD I AM that will be released on Oct. 11th, along with the single “My Favorite Hurt”. Toothgrinder is a metal core band that has a melodic sound, and has been around since 2010 and features Wills Weller on drums, Justin Matthews on vocals, Matt Arensdorf on Bass, Jason Gross on guitar and Johnuel Hasney on Guitar.

BAD OMENS is another metal core band from Virginia has been compared to Bring Me the Horizon and sing mostly about addiction, despair and mental health struggles, all of which is evident on their song “Careful What You Wish For”. The band has generated over 30 million streams on Spotify and continues to grow and garner new fans from all over the world. This was my favorite band of the three openers, and they have a new album out, Finding God Before God Finds Me on Sumerian Records you can check out HERE

All the way from Milan, Italy LACUNA COIL finally returned to Vegas, a gothic metal band with two singers, Andrea Ferro and the amazing Cristina Scabbia, who have both been in this band for nearly 25 years. As the bassist, guitarist and drummer took to the stage with striking skeleton facepaint and started playing the song “Blood, Tears and Dust” the fans went wild, and a black hooded Scabbia came out, her haunting voice singing along with Ferro who work together masterfully onstage. The crowd surged forward as the band continued into "Trip the Darkness" and then "Our Truth", and continued with the epic sounding "Layers of Time" and "Downfall", which really shows off her beautiful voice. and by this time Scabbia was all over the stage, and putting one boot on the riser and leaning over teasing the fans in the front row. Lacuna Coil closed out their

set with “Reckless”, kicking on all cylinders with grinding guitars, pounding bass and Scabbia's piercing vocals to go along with the contrasting guttural voice from Ferro, and finished off with “Nothing Stands In Our Way”.

ALL THAT REMAINS brought the heavy to close out the evening - the band set the tone right out of the gate with the menacing song “This Calling” followed by “Chiron" and "This Probably Won’t End Well”. All That Remains is a band the crowd knew well, and they were singing along to every song, and packed up to the stage. This is the first time All That Remains has been back to Vegas since the unexpected death of guitarist Oli Herbert, and new guitarist Jason Richardson (Born of Osiris and Chelsea Grin) was a great choice for the band. All That Remains released their newest album, Victim of the New Disease, in late 2018, the final album featuring Herbert, and marked a return to the band's heavier metalcore roots. Halfway through the Vegas show the band played “Fuck Love” from the new LP, a brutal assessment of a relationship gone wrong, as well as "Blood I Spill" and "Wasteland". Vocalist Phil Labonte had the crowd in the palm of their hands as they closed out their set with “What If I Was Nothing" and then "Two Weeks”.