A HOME-grown Rugby metal band are celebrating the release of their first EP with a free gig on Saturday (December 5).
Wounded Cross will play at the Town and County Club in Henry Street to showcase tracks from their Bonecrusher EP, released the same day.
Fresh from being signed to independent label Blackened Death Records, the doom metal merchants have recorded three tracks for the EP.
Drummer Paul Revell said the band plans to do a hometown gig with a difference.
He said: “We have a few surprises planned and it’s definitely gonna have a strong Christmas theme – we may have written a cheesy Christmas song for the gig too.
“The Town & County Club have been really helpful to the band and this is our little way of saying thank you to them.”
The band, which fuses influences as disparate as classic rock, grindcore and doom into a sound in the vein of Saint Vitus and Black Sabbath, formed in 2013 and have been playing live shows ever since.
And singer Graham Bliss said the band gelled quickly after completing the line-up, which also comprises Tommy Love on guitar and Ian Atkinson on bass.
He said: “There’s a good chemistry when playing and it comes natural to bash out a new song. It just really works. So we played together and practised for about a year or so before we even played our first show.
“It comes out the way it comes out, and most of the time no song sounds the same as another.”
He adds getting gigs has been the biggest challenge for the band thus far.
“You have no idea how difficult it is to try and get people to listen to you,” he said. “We just want to be heard.
“We are hoping 2016 will be a big year for us. We are also going to continue recording during the year towards the album. We have a lot of material that hasn’t been heard and we want people to hear it.”
Search the Google Play Store to preorder the EP, or to hear previews of the tracks.
The gig, which features support from Mesch and These Strange Explosions, is free to enter.
