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Twang 101: Scotty Anderson’s Double-Stop Sorcery - Sep. '18 Ex. 4

Matt Pike, guitarist/frontman of Sleep and High on Fire, collaborates with Lace Music on unique humbucker pickups available as a set, neck only, and bridge only.

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From left to right: bassist Justin Pearson, vocalist Mike Patton, guitarist Michael Crain, and drummer Dave Lombardo.

Photo by Becky DiGiglio

The thrash-metal band returns with a sophomore release, where the battle-tested musicians deliver face-melting, eviscerating tunes on the heels of guitarist Michael Crain’s recovery from cancer.

Of all genres, thrash metal is one where the term “raw emotion” takes on a different meaning. It’s not, for example, raw like the voice of a folk singer baring their heart and soul in a vulnerable ballad, or raw like a live, low-fidelity recording of a blues-guitar legend’s twangs and bends. No, the rawness of thrash metal demands your attention with unflinching aggression—screams, growls, blistering guitar lines, and heart-attack-inducing drumming—and few groups in the modern heavy landscape capture that as well as supergroup Dead Cross, which consists of vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Justin Pearson, guitarist/vocalist Michael Crain, and drummer Dave Lombardo.

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Now the world’s best-known 6-string duo, Gabriela Quintero and Rodrigo Sánchez have long-reaching roots that extend from metal to Irish folk music and distill into their unique take on nylon-string-acoustic-guitar music.

Photo by Ebru Yildiz

On their new album, In Between Thoughts… A New World, the acoustic duo goes half-electric, plumbs programmed beats, adds slide guitar, and explores nondualism—following a creative path that opened due to the Covid shutdown.

Grammy Award-winning guitar virtuosi Rodrigo y Gabriela started recording what would become their latest album, In Between Thoughts… A New World, in February 2021. At the time, crafting a new album wasn’t the catalyst for making new music. They really just wanted to write, jam, and record without an agenda while locked down during the pandemic.

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