Motionless In White + Ice Nine Kills + Black Veil Brides at Mesa Amphitheatre

While their hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania is mostly known in popular culture for being perfectly mundane, gothic metalcore band Motionless in White make music that’s anything but tame. Blending the raw fury of metalcore with the dramatic atmospherics of goth-metal and industrial, the band has cultivated a dark and moody sound that owes as much to Type O Negative as it does to Slayer. Emerging in 2010, the group entered the mainstream four years later with the release of their third studio LP Reincarnate, which debuted at number nine the Billboard Top 200.

Formed in 2005 while members Chris Cerulli (vocals), Angelo Parente (drums), Mike Costanza (guitar), and Frank Polumbo (bass) were still in high school, they become a quintet after the addition of keyboard player Josh Balz in 2007, the same year the band would release their debut EP, The Whorror, on Masquerade. In the years following that release, Polumbo and Costanza parted ways with Motionless in White, with Ryan Sitkowski and Ricky Olson coming on board to fill in the gaps, allowing the band to forge ahead after the release of their second EP, When Love Met Destruction, on Tragic Hero in 2009. The group signed to Fearless Records in 2010, and their first full-length album, Creatures, arrived that year, followed by their sophomore effort, Infamous, in 2012. A third album, Reincarnate, arrived in the summer of 2014. In June 2016, the band announced their signing to Roadrunner Records. They released the single “570” the same day.

At the beginning of 2017, Balz announced his departure from the band. His synth duties were taken over by Marie Christine-Allard for the recording of the band’s fourth set, Graveyard Shift. Issued in May 2017, the album featured the singles “Rats” and “Loud (Fuck It),” as well as an appearance by Korn‘s Jonathan Davis. The group headed back into the studio the following year, returning in 2019 with their fifth studio long-player Disguise. ~ Gregory Heaney, Rovi

Like the undead slashers celebrated in their songs, Ice Nine Kills return with The Silver Scream 2: Welcome To Horrorwood, a sequel of gruesome movie-sized proportion to The Silver Scream. The new album carves out a fresh, bloody homage to the VHS celluloid classics that possessed singer Spencer Charnas at an early age, with a devilish new twist.

Ice Nine Kills make music both timeless and timely, mixing metal, hardcore, and punk, with accessible power. New anthems like “Rainy Day” and “Hip To Be Scared” demonstrate Spencer’s fascination with fright, pop culture obsession, and his expertise with inescapably wicked melodic hooks and clever twists of phrase. Producer Drew Fulk returned for Welcome To Horrorwood which includes cameos from members of Papa Roach, Cannibal Corpse, Atreyu, Fit For A King, and Senses Fail.

Decadent, devious, and fiercely insane, Ice Nine Kills celebrate pop culture’s darkest edges, mining a cinephile library’s worth of iconic horror on The Silver Scream and its sequel. The creative marriage made in hell of music and fiction began in earnest with the Every Trick In The Book, which brought the previous three records’ themes to new levels.

The band’s synergy of music and lifestyle draws favorable comparisons to Slipknot and Rob Zombie. Visionary trailblazers and multimedia raconteurs, INK built a thrilling world for a growing legion of devoted true believers, with theatrical shows, high-concept videos, and inventive band-to-fan communion.

In an era when rock music is regularly declared “dead,” Black Veil Brides music videos have been viewed over a half a billion times. The band (and its members) Instagram and Twitter accounts command close to 10 million followers between them. Vale, the group’s most re- cent full-length album, went to No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Hard Rock Albums chart.

With a rightful reverence for the pop cultural icons of the past, the young outfit has never- theless fashioned their own collective future, with relentless fury. In the hearts and minds of their fans, Black Veil Brides represents an unwillingness to compromise and a resistance to critics (personal and professional), fueled by the same fire as the group’s own heroes, the iconoclasts whose creative output, once dismissed, is now canonized.

Lilith Czar arrives with the force of an otherworldly thunder, arising in visceral rebirth from an untimely grave of surrender and sacrifice. Her voice is the sound of supernatural determination, summoned with a confessional vulnerability and unapologetic authenticity. The girl who was Juliet Simms – her dreams discouraged and dismissed, her identity confined and controlled – is no more. In her place stands Lilith Czar, a new vessel forged in unbridled willpower and unashamed desire.

Her motivation is simple: if it’s truly a man’s world? She wants to be King.

Created from Filth and Dust, the debut album from Lilith Czar, is an evocative invitation into her bold new world. It’s aggressive music with warm accessibility; huge hooks with driving hard rock—the new larger-than-life icon channels the fierce combativeness of Fiona Apple and Stevie Nicks’ seductive witchery. Lilith Czar arms herself with sonic power, theatricality, and confidence. It’s a sound where the pulse of Nine Inch Nails, Halestorm’s songcraft, and the libertine spirit of David Bowie converge, all in service of a ritualistic ache for a more just and equitable world.