[Women in Metal] Expellow - A Great Metalcore Act from Zurich, Switzerland

It's Sunday again... and here I am with the presentation of a underground band from Switzerland, which I had the lucky opportunity to watch live at the Met Bar, in Lenzburg, a small town in the outskirts of Zurich. The concert I attended to was in September of 2016.

By the way, Zurich is the band's hometown, so they play here at Lenzburg quite a few times.

When the show started, I had no idea who were Expellow and what kind of band it was. When the concert came to an end, I was a fan. 😎

Here's a shot I've taken during the show:

These guys are fast, furious and loud. Just as I like it!

In their own words: "the lyrics contain a solid dose of middle finger, insanity and rebellion, which might also leave you questioning things."

Their songs are varied, combining fast riffs and brutal breakdowns with melodic parts. In some of the songs Expellow use a good mix between clean and harsh vocals, as you can experience while listening to the Track Your Voice In My Head.

The footage is from a concert at Werk 21, in Zurich and the track is included in their previous album: Modern Age Credo, from 2015.

The vocalist Mik Dean actually uses three different styles of singing / screaming in this song. Here is the initial part of the lyrics, so you can scream along.

Pull the trigger, make my skull shatter under your three stripes
Hit me with your best shot, I can go all night
And I can never find peace again
I’m going insane with your voice in my head

I can feel your presence burn me
Every time I’m down here
But I keep coming back

I’m getting lost in this, damn I feel so alive
One step closer on my strive
No remorse, my all time low
Falls apart as I put on the show
But I feel observed by the voice within
You’re a ghost that stares from the edge of the room

Speak! Make your golden words storm towards me
Scream! I’ll take them on, ‘til it kills me
Please! Tell me if the path I chose was right, ‘cause I
I can’ t tell no longer what’s righteous

A raging war inside me, a shiver down my spine
With my weakest point exposed to you, my life ain’t worth a dime
This madness that I’m hiding, thrills a void beyond your spell
Every time I face my demons, I’m facing you as well

Before I introduce you with another track, here's a photo where you can feel a glimpse of her emotions, while Mik Dean is singing with clean vocals:

One of my favourite tracks from Expellow is Game Insane, it's the first track from their latest album: We Held the Line, published in 2018.

Beware, because there are fewer clean vocals on this one and plenty of furious screaming. The song starts in a gentle way... and then Mik Dean starts screaming. It quickly escalates to a very fast track, with intense and yet melodic riffs.

Mik Dean will bend herself like this, to make her voice come out as strong as possible:

The public goes crazy and hairs start flying all around you, so you better store your camera away and join the headbanging festival.

The album We Held the Line includes a really fast track named Hometown, where Mik Dean is assisted by the singers Sumo & TC, from the Swiss band Vale Tudo. The song has some moments were Mik Dean's clean vocals come out again... and quick transitions to parts where all three of them are singing together.

I wish to take you back to the previous album, Modern Age Credo (2015) and show you another very interesting song, with a perfect mix of styles, where Mik Dean keeps alternating between melodic parts with clean vocals and more hardcore material, with constant screams.

This song is called Purgatory Preacher and this time you don't need to go to their website for the lyrics, since this is a Lyric video:

Now, some of you might be asking...

Just exactly what genre of music is this? I guess the best term to describe it is Metalcore, even though some might disagree. Classifying bands with just one label is hard and usually kicks off a big discussion among the fans.

Some claim that Metalcore doesn't even exist... and that this is Hardcore, a sub-genre of Punk. Others claim that it's more close to Metal than Punk, hence the term: Metalcore.

Well, I leave that up to you to decide. But since the band consider themselves to be Metalcore, I'm happy to go along with it.

Meanwhile, here are the rest of the (halfway decent) photos I took at that show. Sorry, but my camera at the time wasn't good enough for these kind of shots. I tried my best... and this was the result:

This smiling guy at the center is Michael "Taz" Tamas, the bass player.

The guitar player on the foreground, on the photo below, is Nici Weissmann. He's in charging with the second guitar... leaving the spotlight for the lead guitarist, Daniel "Gudi" Gutweniger, which you can see having fun at the right side of the two shots above.

Catching the drum player on a photo was quite tricky... but I eventually managed to get a clear shot at him. His name is Moritz Blaser.

As you can see from the name in the drum kit, the bigger name of the night were playing last: Infected Rain, a very cool and crazy band from Moldova.

At the end of the show, all the members from Expellow hanged around with the crowd, happy to chat with every fan who appeared to greet them, to ask for photos and signatures... but also eager to watch Infected Rain.

And finally, here's a shot from a part of the Met Bar which I found quite interesting, as it was decorated with drum cymbals from several bands who performed at the place.

I hope you enjoyed this band... and if not, then at least I hope you liked my article and photos! 😜

Here are the sources I used to write this post:

• Expellow Official Site
• Wikipedia - Metalcore
• Wikipedia - Hardcore Punk

And lastly, in case you're interested, here's an English interview with the band at the Swedish site Skrutt Magazine.

If you're lucky enough to understand German, you can see this 12 minute interview instead - with the vocalist Mik Dean and the guitarist Nici Weissmann, after a concert at Met Bar, in 2017.