With new album, NJ shock rockers American Grim perform at Stage West in Scranton on Nov. 3
From a press release:
Soon after their Halloween record release show in their home state of New Jersey, shock rock band American Grim will perform at Stage West in Scranton this Sunday, Nov. 3. Local opening acts are TBA.
Doors at Stage West (301 N. Main Ave., Scranton) open at 7 p.m., and the 21+ show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets, which are $10 in advance or $12 the day of the show, are on sale now via Prekindle.
Challenge the status quo. Shake up the culture of fake outrage. Break free from the bonds of self-defeating ignorance. There’s no reason to despair within this dystopia; we have the power to escape mindless obedience. This is the primal punk-style message at the heart of American Grim, a heavy music battalion whose sinister “shock rock” is aimed squarely at conformity.
The band will release “Ultra Black” via eOne on Nov. 1. To herald their sophomore album, they dropped a music video for the first single “Nightmare” last month as the song premiered on SiriusXM’s Octane. The video currently has over one million views.
“‘Nightmare’ is about life and society breaking down but knowing and believing you can always prevail and rise above,” singer Ryan Grim said. “The video is a grueling display of being caught in a mind-altering nightmare that may leave you a changed being upon awakening.”
American Grim stands against those who would exploit our insecurities and exacerbate our social media-driven hunger for validation. The Hillsborough Township, New Jersey trio makes anthems for the downtrodden, the dismissed, and the dispossessed. They champion independent thought, individualism and, above all else, freedom of creative expression. Like Emma Goldman once famously said, “It’s not my revolution if I can’t dance to it.” Or in this case, smash shit to it. Music is their weapon. The stage is their battlefield.
“‘Ultra Black’ pushes the concept that evil persists through this world and universe, but you can always overcome and kill any demons that crawl inside your mind,” Grim said of the follow-up to the band’s 2017 debut, “Freakshow.”
American Grim conjures the rich history of theatricality found in cinematic horror and dark literature, with the unrelenting energy of traditional hardcore, the massive propulsive hooks of post-industrial, and the unashamed weirdness of classic nü-metal. Devotees of Slipknot, Korn, Rob Zombie, and Marilyn Manson have all found a home within American Grim’s music, while fans of groups like Hatebreed recognize something familiar about the delivery and aggression.
Writer Adam Waldman described their sound as “the industrial overtones of Marilyn Manson, the frenetic intensity of Rob Zombie, the swagger of Faith No More, the raw punk edge of The Ramones, and the sleaze rock vocal style of Faster Pussycat’s Taime Downe.”
