By Shannon Neu, Staff Writer

Published in print Jan. 28, 2015

Women dominated the stage Friday night at Club Orion’s All Female Lineup event. The show featured only metal bands fronted by women. Bands included Endless Season, Black Plague, Cytokine Storm and Crimson Countess.

The show opened with an acoustic set featuring Mindy Jackson of Endless Season and guitarist Josh Underwood. The pair performed covers of songs by bands such as Nirvana, Oasis, and Radiohead. They also performed a version of The Eurythimics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” dedicating it to “the beautiful women who have busted their ass to get here.”

“This is my soft side,” Mindy confessed in between pieces. “I’m opening up to you.”

Black Plague, a melodic metal band hailing from Roanoke, V.A. put on an incredibly energetic second set. The lead vocalist, who introduced herself as “Steph Plaguemaiden,” performed with diverse vocal styles, including singing, growling and screaming.

After seeing Maria Brink from In This Moment perform at a Mayhem festival, Steph felt inspired to talk to her guitarist fiancé, Joseph Cassell, about starting a band together. Eventually they teamed up with bassist Ja-Ton Blaney and “King” on drums and have been a four-piece band ever since.

“We work really well together. It’s kind of like we’re one big family,” Steph said fondly of her bandmates. “It just kind of fell into place.”

The band’s music writing process is collaborative. Steph writes the lyrics and the other band members create the instrumental parts.  “Sometimes the guys get together without me and piece stuff together, and usually I come in last and I put my stuff over top of what they’ve written,” Steph said as she explained the band’s creative process.

When writing music, Black Plague incorporates musical elements from bands such as In This Moment and Arch Enemy into their own style of music. “I don’t think that we can really compare ourselves exactly to another band,” Steph mentioned proudly. Some of her personal influences include Randy Blythe from Lamb of God, Maria Brink from In This Moment, and Angela Gossow from Arch Enemy.

Black Plague’s Friday performance included the very first song they wrote together, “Anticipation of Death”, and new songs including “Through the Eyes of a Killer” and “Black Plague”. The band has released a concept album that follows the story of the Black Death pandemic that devastated Europe during the 14th century. Their music can be found on Facebook, ReverbNation, and the band’s website, http://www.blackplagueband.com.

The next band to perform was Cytokine Storm, a progressive metal band from Greensboro. Cytokine Storm is fronted by Jess Paul, who gave a moving performance with her powerful vocal style and engaging stage presence.

She met the band through a friend and went to some of their shows. “I was really disenchanted with the metal scene as it was,” Paul admitted. “I was really refreshed to see that they were bringing a lot to the table. It was very clean and very well thought out.”

Impressed by Cytokine Storm, she decided to audition when they posted online that they were in need of a new vocalist.

“Their previous vocalist was a dude, but I was like, ‘Haha! I’ll do it!’ I have a uterus, but whatever,” Paul recalled. Having only been in two metal bands previously (neither of which made it to the stage), she was nervous about auditioning but received encouragement from her other band, Slow and Lowdown. “I went and auditioned, and they gave me the spot right there.”

Paul has musical creativity that spans across a wide variety of genres of music. “I can write blues all day,” she revealed. “Blues is about things that happen to you.” She went on to explain that she does not always relate to content in metal music. She wrote one of the songs that is performed by Cytokine Storm, and added that most of their songs were written by their drummer, Dave, and previous band members.

“Most of the songwriting is done by the guys and then I make it mine,” Paul remarked. “Other projects, I write all the music and it comes easy. I can do a song in an afternoon or make it up while I’m on stage.”

When it comes to working in a band, Paul admitted, “It’s hard to work together on any project, but to achieve an entire song or entire album, it takes a lot of compromise and hard work.”

Paul cites Glen Danzig, Trent Resner of Nine Inch Nails, Maynard James Keenan of Tool, Nina Simone and Ronnie Radke as some of her musical influences.

Cytokine Storm has been rocking out since 2008 and their music can be found on iTunes, Spotify, Bandcamp, and their band’s webpage.

The last band to perform was Crimson Countess, an all-female group. They played an animated set with a sentimental undercurrent, as it was the band’s last local performance. For the last song, the band pulled the original vocalist onstage to perform. It was a fun and moving performance that wrapped up an overall outstanding show.