Babilos rocking to keep spirit of metal alive

They smash almost as many faces as fellow Pinoy Manny Pacquiao. Time to get bruised with Vegas thrashers Babilos:

What does Babilos sound like?

"We sound like a band inspired by the '80s thrash metal pioneers, the music that impacted us the most in our lives."

You guys are of Filipino descent. Does your heritage manifest itself in your music much?

"A lot of people knew us as an all-Filipino thrash metal band since that's how we started. We are definitely proud of our ethnicity and it did have some influence in our music. We are also proud to be representatives of Las Vegas, especially the underground metal scene."

Is there much of a history of metal bands in the Filipino community?

"There has been quite a few metal bands in the Filipino community, but they just never had much support. Metal never really had a good reputation, especially in the eyes of the older generations in the Philippines. Here in the U.S., there's quite a handful of Filipino metal bands in different areas, you just have to look for them."

Thrash metal has undergone a major resurgence in recent years. To what do you attribute that to? 

"For some reason, people from all around the world decided that this is the music that they like, and that includes us. There are so many subgenres of metal now that some of them are so far from the spirit of what metal is about. We just want to make music that we want to hear and help in keeping it alive."

Check out Babilos at myspace.com/babilos.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@review journal.com or 702-383-0476.