There’s a show at First Street Pool on May 29th that Loudwire isn’t writing about, Metal Injection isn’t previewing, and Blabbermouth won’t touch. Wrathprayer and Antichrist Siege Machine, with Libidinous Acts. 1906 E. 1st Street, Los Angeles. If you know, you know — and if you don’t, that’s exactly the problem.
I’ve been to 1720. I’ve been to the Moroccan Lounge. What’s happening in that corridor — East LA, the Arts District, Boyle Heights adjacent — is something most metal media is completely missing. The rooms are small, the bills are stacked with bands who have nothing to prove to a mainstream audience, and the people showing up actually know the music. First Street Pool has put Crowbar, Infest, and Dropdead through that room. That’s the context for what Wrathprayer and Antichrist Siege Machine are walking into on May 29.
Wrathprayer is Chilean war metal at its most suffocating — their 2024 record Enkoimeterion on Nuclear War Now! should have been on every year-end list worth reading. Antichrist Siege Machine out of Richmond is one of the most brutally focused black/death duos operating right now; Schism Perpetration turned heads for a reason and they haven’t let up since. This is a real show at a venue with a real track record, and the booking speaks for itself.
LA doesn’t get enough credit for this. The Observatory fills up for the big names. But First Street Pool, 1720, the Moroccan Lounge — that’s where the actual underground is moving right now, and it’s more active than most cities twice the size. Metal media is asleep on it. WKM isn’t.
I’m not at this one. But I’m writing about it because it matters, and someone should.