The Moroccan Lounge. 1720. June 18 and August 1. If you’ve been tracking underground metal in Los Angeles, you already know what those two rooms mean — and you already know these two shows matter. Anvil at the Moroccan Lounge, Sigh at 1720, weeks apart in the same DTLA corridor. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the scene working exactly the way it’s supposed to.
That stretch between downtown proper and the Arts District has become the most consistent underground metal zone in this city. Small rooms, serious curation, audiences that don’t need a festival announcement to get off the couch. The Moroccan and 1720 have put through bills that Blabbermouth wouldn’t write about and that Loudwire doesn’t know how to cover. Which means this summer, two of metal’s most stubbornly underground acts are about to play to the people who actually deserve to see them.
Anvil have been at this since 1978. Metal on Metal came out in 1982. They played Monsters of Rock the same year Metallica and Slayer were still figuring out how to record. They watched every band they influenced go on to sell stadium tickets while they kept grinding through club tours and self-financed records. The 2008 documentary gave them a second wave of recognition that, frankly, they should never have needed — the legacy was always there. I saw them years ago outside the Gibson Amphitheater at Universal Studios, warming up the crowd before an Iron Maiden show. A weird spot for a band with their history, and they didn’t care. They were heavy, and they meant it. That venue is gone now. Anvil are still here.
Sigh is a different kind of story. Mirai Kawashima has been making music under that name in Japan since 1990 — avant-garde black metal that pulls in orchestral arrangements, psychedelic detours, and a genuine disregard for what the genre is supposed to sound like. Japanese metal has been building real traction in the US over the last several years, and that’s overdue. Sigh’s records don’t sound like anything else in extreme metal, and 1720 is exactly the room where that kind of weirdness lands right.
Two shows. Two bands with decades of history and zero mainstream profile. Anvil at the Moroccan Lounge, June 18. Sigh at 1720, August 1. Mark both. The DTLA corridor is doing the work again.