Great heavy New York metal! With an original sound that finds it's roots as much in all things avant garde as it does heavy metal, Lugosi's Needle stand alone as Dutchess County, New York's "Purveyors of the Avant Garde". Formed in early 2001 from the ashes of "experi-metal" unit Next Man Flip, Lugosi's Needle owes as much to the stylings of John Zorn , Faith No More, & Frank Zappa as they do Soilent Green, Nevermore, & Dream Theater.
An all genre affair that's best suited for listeners with open ears & open minds, "The Needle" attack from all directions, having evolved from a unit whose compositions were geared towards sound experimentation to the monolith of musicianship that catches even the most jaded of music aficianados off guard.
Comprised of Lunatic Fringe on guitars, vocalist J. Garrett Copeland, Mike Poplees on bass, and drummer Jeff Hollywood (his real name if you can believe that), the Needle are renowned for, an artistically relevant hybrid of influences that ranges from the heaviest of metal and it's many sub-genres while enveloping elements of jazz, ambient, sound experimentation, and progressive composition.
The 2004 release of "The Light that Failed" saw Lugosi's Needle take a brash step towards cementing their place amongst the elite musical acts of the Hudson Valley. Both technical & intellectual without being pretentious, each of the EP's five tracks represents a stunning backdrop of musical dynamics for the stories being told through the words of vocalist Copeland. With all members having stepped up their game for the recording, Copeland went out on a limb and used the cd's final four tracks as an adaptation for his 2002 novella "Repentance", a 90 page psychological chronicle of a young man whose personal misfortunes have led to his dereliction of moral responsibility. Recorded at the famed Millbrook Sound Studios, "The Light that Failed" is a veritable wall of sound that doesn't let up from the moment the opening strains of "Onward to Obliteration" take to the air until the outro of "Speak Not to Her...(for in those words temptation is born)".
"The Needle" have played nationally with a number of established underground musical acts including: Today is the Day, Burnt by the Sun, Deicide, Nile, Arch Enemy, Hate Eternal, Origin, Shadows Fall, All that Remains, Mortician, Cephalic Carnage, Kreator, December, Destruction, Soilent Green, Gizmachi, Meshuggah, God Forbid, Malamor, Premonitions of War, Macabre, Goatwhore, The Black Dahlia Murder, Therion, Watch Them Die, Into the Moat, Mastodon, and Type O Negative. In their short existence, they've been able to garner the respect of their peers, critics and fans alike, despite having a style unlike any other act in the underground. One listen is all that it takes. Lugosi's Needle has your fix and promises that you'll be hooked on the stuff in no time.
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