Hay Perro's Record Release is at Quenchers, Friday March 11. Thunderunderus and I Love Rich! are there too, starting at 9PM. A great chance to check out what The Illinois Entertainer called "the sound Hay Perro has crafted during its five-year existence: intricate heavy-metal — dual-guitar harmonies everywhere — played with madcap punk-rock ferocity." If you want to, you can look up some of our other stories on Hay Perro while you're waiting for the show to start.

Hay Perro's "Eastern Ideas of Death" is out now, and the word about it is starting to go around. Here's an excerpt from a great interview with Chris Grubbs, lead singer for Hay Perro, that just appeared in The Illinois Entertainer: "Hay Perro is unknown to most of you right now, but you’d be doing yourself an enormous favor by changing that and listening to the scorching Eastern Ideas Of Death ... the absolute essence of the sound Hay Perro has crafted during its five-year existence: intricate heavy-metal — dual-guitar harmonies everywhere — played with madcap punk-rock ferocity."

Divide-and-conquer compartments are perfect for large media organizations; they can take polls, confiscate private information, and hire focus groups, and then use all that data to make entertainment they own outright and can market to death --- but it's definitely not the best way to make music. Hay Perro may be a metal band that leans toward punk, or maybe they're a punk band that loves metal, but whatever they are, they play what they play because that's how it ended up when they made the music. Here are a couple of examples of the music they make, both from the just-released Eastern Ideas. First, more of a metal vibe, from the title track, "Eastern Ideas of Death":

Then, more on the punk side with this excerpt from "He's From Norway":

For a nine-song ride through Hay Perro's world of punk-metal genre defiance, check out "Eastern Ideas of Death", at Amazon or iTunes, or get a copy you can really own at the Release Party at Quenchers at 9PM on March 11. Besides seeing a great band, you can enjoy this part too: nothing defies the media dictatorship more successfully than being open-minded.

Hay Perro finished mixing and mastering their new album "Eastern Ideas of Death", a relentlessly unapologetic multi-stop tour through two different countries --- metal and punk. After completing guitar and vocal overdubs at Get Small, producer Dan Agosto mixed and mastered the album with the band at Heart & Soul. "Eastern Ideas of Death" captures Hay Perro in a perfectly timed series of we-play-what-we-want excursions. "Ride the Laser" feels like you could be in a packed-to-the-beams punk club, but then there are songs like the title track that are more metal, with drummer Emily Agosto laying down a big-kit (she doesn't actually play a big kit, she just plays it as if it was a big kit when they lean metal) tom groove under a series of harmony lead lines.

None of this sounds like different styles when they put it together --- it sounds like Hay Perro. Chris Grubbs puts a careful and powerful thought-picture into his lyrics and lead vocals, Brian Gonas' guitar adds perspective as much as raw drive. "Eastern Ideas of Death" is due out in the Spring, according to the the band's site (hayperro.com), but you shouldn't have to wait quite that long to hear some of this, we may have a track to post in the next week or so.

On the last Saturday of every month metal head's gather in north Roger's Park at the Redline Tap. Metal Up Your Tap is booked and organized by Trevor Fisher, who also writes up the metal scene for the Illinois Entertainer.