Vegas metallers back with a vengeance

He can remember a time, not too long ago, when the scene was as barren as the desert outside, not too far from here.

As drummer and founder of Vegas metallers Avenger of Blood, Shannon Frye has been trading in head-down, high-velocity thrash since the band's formation in 2002, long before the music's current upswing, which has resulted in scads of young new bands with barely concealed Exodus fetishes, dressing like it's 1987 again in white high tops and painted on Levis.

"When we started, there wasn't many bands that were doing what we were doing," says Frye, a broad-shouldered Marine veteran with a shaved head, sitting at the bar at Cheyenne Saloon on a recent Wednesday afternoon. "There was no thrash scene at all. Now there's like 2,000 to 3,000 bands. It's insane."

But being ahead of the times didn't really benefit Avenger when those times finally caught up with the band.

Beginning in late 2008, Avenger took a two-year hiatus after a couple of tumultuous lineup changes, right when their style of war-torn, off-the-rails metal was reaching a renewed level of popularity in the metal underground.

"Every single time I would go to a show, somebody would always come up and say, 'What's going on with Avenger?' " Frye recalls of Avenger's downtime, during which he played with the more classic metal-leaning 7th Calling. "In my mind, it wasn't dead. We were never going to end it. We just needed a break."

Now Avenger is back, with Frye having recently convened a new lineup that he plans to debut soon with a heightened emphasis on extremity.

"When Avenger started, there was always a slight death metal influence," Frye says. "So we're going to throw more of that into it, and there's also the black metal side of things that I like a lot. The music has to be way more intense than it was."

And Frye says that Avenger's aesthetics will match the more brutal bent of the band's sonics.

"Updating the image, that's a big thing, because that's going to be off the wall," he says with a grin. "There's going to be more spikes, more bullet belts, more gauntlets, more leather."

More, more, more.

That's the recurring theme as Frye talks up Avenger's return: more of everything.

Including, ironically enough for a teeth-gnashing thrash troupe, more smiles.

"I'm doing this for fun now," Frye says. "I'm not doing this for business. I'm not doing this for anything other than fun. And that's ultimately what it comes down to."

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