Apocalyptica + Nita Strauss At The Van Buren

In the lore of heavy metal only a handful of artists can claim to have changed history, and even fewer can say they’ve done so twice. Enter Apocalyptica and one of metal’s greatest, most unlikely success stories. By any account it’s the stuff of legend, and it’s about to come full circle. Formed in 1993 at the world-renowned Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, Apocalyptica began life as a loving, lo-fi nod to Metallica from four classically-trained musicians with no greater ambition than to explore their favourite band’s music with their chosen instrument. As founding band leader Eicca Toppinnen explains, the project would take on a life of its own when they finally released Plays Metallica By Four Cellos in 1996. More than a debut, it was a monster in waiting. “We played the full first album and it was so much more fun and exciting than we expected,” says Eicca, roughly 30 years later. “We got the idea to do something like the first album, but we couldn’t do it in exactly the same way – we needed to challenge ourselves and bring a totally new perspective to the original energy and emotion of Metallica.” The result was nothing short of a sonic love-letter – an album they’d simply, elegantly title Plays Metallica, Vol. 2, and the passion poured into the recording project by Eicca Toppinen, Perttu Kivilaakso, Paavo Lötjönen and Mikko Sirén – the band’s long-time drummer who after completion of this album leaves amicably on this unique high-note – is plain to hear and see.

Los Angeles born guitarist Nita Strauss has become a force to be reckoned with in the music world, dazzling audiences across the US, UK, Europe, South America, Asia, Australia and Africa. 2018 has been a banner year for Nita. In January she was officially announced as the first ever female Ibanez signature artist with her own model, the Ibanez JIVA. She also released her signature pickups, the DiMarzio Pandemonium. April saw Nita playing WWE Superstar Shinsuke Nakamura’s entrance music at Wrestlemania in New Orleans in front of an audience of 78,000 fans and millions streaming worldwide, and in the same month she launched a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign for her debut solo record Controlled Chaos. The campaign reached its goal in two hours, doubled it by the end of the day, tripled the following day and ended up over 800% funded. Nita produced the record herself and did the majority of the engineering, as well as playing all the guitars and bass on the record. After the record was competed, Nita signed with Sumerian Records to release and distribute the album worldwide. After finishing out the Alice Cooper tour cycle, Nita will immediately hit the road supporting Controlled Chaos alongside modern guitar virtuoso Angel Vivaldi. Nita’s debut solo album Controlled Chaos is out now through Sumerian Records.