Smooth Sailing is both the calm before the storm and the raging torrential downpour of the hurricane that follows. Smooth Sailing is a six week climb to the top of the tallest mountain you can find, and in the moment of greatest triumph as you reach the top, you turn around to see a raging forest fire pursuing you. Then, as you hurriedly climb down the other side to escape, you are faced with a hungry, rabid pack of wolves. Smooth Sailing is the fight between yourself and those wolves. It is the fight to stay alive. Not many bands can sonically conjure up such vivid imagery. Using phrases of sheer ethereal beauty, followed immediately by ferocious low-ended riffs, then topped off with just enough (not too much) shredded guitar line, Smooth Sailing does exactly that. The Seattle-based sextuplet has been bringing their brand of sonic story telling around the great northwest and west coast since 2009, incapacitating the weak-willed and capturing the hearts of kindred spirits wherever they play. Too metal to be a punk band, and too punk to be a metal band, they fit happily some where in between the two, in a niche that is far more creative than either. Driven by the ferocious, precise and complex pounding rhythms supplied by the drums of Brandon “brando suave” Elizaga , this kind of power needs two basses to guide it home. Jake “stonewall” Vice and Ryan “Ryan” Adams are just the two brave souls to supply that artful, rumbling guidance. The high end of the auditory spectrum is caressed by nimble fingers on the sweat-blessed guitars of Tyler "Boy Wonder" Romo and Christopher “St. Romald Anferny” Elizaga, who also provides his Hawk-like screech of a battle cry to round out the auditory soundscape. Finally, to add just the right amount of visual ambiance to the live show, are the seizure inducing, colorful and smoky lights of effects whiz Tim “Timber” Keener. These six have spent the better part of their lives conditioning themselves for optimum performance and will deliver every time, without fail. heavy music from Seattle, WA www.smoothsailingtheband.com