The Best Metal Concerts to See in L.A. This Month

Devin Townsend wants to forget all the bullshit and rock

Talk about a stacked lineup. Devin Townsend has calmed down since his days fronting angry industrial thrash titans Strapping Young Lad, but he still fucking rocks in the live solo setting. Swedish melodic doomsters Katatonia were the first metal band referenced in the Skyrim video game series, and Gothic doom pioneers Paradise Lost are coming off an album considered something of a return to form after their patience-testing experiments in synthrock around the turn of the century.

Korpiklaani plays More Songs About Finland and Beer

Metal is serious business to a lot of people, but even the most grim-faced metalhead in a long-sleeve death metal t-shirt still needs to relax and have some fun every now and then. Korpiklaani deliver the fun in spades, blending instruments such as violins and accordions into upbeat thrashers. (They're known for drinking and partying in Scandinavian forests.) Most of their songs are sung in the band's native Finnish, but you'll likely be too drunk by the end of their set to notice.

Yob plays riffs that make Tony Iommi say "Yeah, that's heavy."

For over a decade, Yob band leader Mike Scheidt has been leading a wave of lurching Sabbath-inspired stoner doom. Scheidt's vocals sound like vintage Ozzy getting the last gasps of air squeezed out of him by a bear, and his guitar riffs are as heavy in weight as...said bear. In the live setting, the riffs and heaviness rumble through your body. At the end, you feel like you've been through a vigorous workout without having moved a muscle.

Mournful Congregation during happier times.

This Australian quartet takes the blueprint for funeral-doom and infuses it with an air of elegance that lends extra weight to the proceedings. Mournful Congregation's music is very slow-paced, very melancholy, and can be an emotionally draining experience, but everything is done with a sense of care. This is the soundtrack for someone who is terminally ill, surrounded by folks doing everything they can to make the transition to the other side as painless as possible.