Big D's Customs website

Aside from my day job as a graphic designer and my guitarist alter-ego, I run a small business doing airbrushing and custom paint, called Big D's Customs. Here's a screenshot of the website i just designed for it:

Writing up the content took up most of the time, actually designing and building the site took about 1 hour compared to the days spent coming up with content. At least our Facebook page already had a small collection of pics of the work i've done. So putting together the airbrush artwork gallery was almost done before i started.

We are one of the few specialists in this industry in South Africa, and are seeing a boom in people wanting custom guitar painting done.

Dark Sovereign Official Website

Dark Sovereign's Official website is currently under construction and will be up soon.


The address will be www.darksovereign.co.za


For now, it will be a simple one page site, with downloads of all our tracks. That's one one page added to our already extensive web presence, which is:

http://www.facebook.com/DarkSovereign

http://www.myspace.com/dark-sovereign

http://signmeto.roadrunnerrecords.com/artists/dark-sovereign

http://gbob.com/profile/DarkSovereign

http://www.ilike.com/artist/Dark+Sovereign

http://www.reverbnation.com/darksovereign

http://www.alternativemusic.co.za/bands/dark-sovereign.php

http://www.last.fm/music/dark+sovereign

http://www.unsignedbandweb.com/music/bands/15794/

http://www.sovereignexpress.com/index.php?w=epk&b=2322

www.unsigned.com/darksovereign

http://darksovereign.bandcamp.com/

http://sandyguitar.blogspot.com/

http://dark-sovereign.restorm.com/

http://soundcloud.com/dark-sovereign

http://www.youtube.com/user/DarkSovereign1

www.purevolume.com/DarkSovereign

http://mindviz.com/dark_sovereign

http://www.mediafire.com/darksovereign

http://www.filefactory.com/f/140a348ed5ee02b2/

The Official website brings the tally up to 21 pages of pure South African Death Metal

Headbang Today's Underground Kings - Death Metal Tournament

Headbang Today is running the second Underground Kings tounament. This time its all about the death metal.

Naturally i entered Dark Sovereign into this death match. All we need to win round 1 is to get as many people as possible to "Like" the DS picture posted on Headbang Today's facebook page.

This is the image we need Likes for. Go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Headbang-Today/177961632225#!/photo.php?fbid=10150177087967226&set=pu.177961632225&type=1&theater and like it. Then if you're feeling generous, click on "share" too.

Help Dark Sovereign take their rightful place on the death metal throne.

Dark Sovereign - Welcome to Hell

This article is just a little bit of self-promotion.

This is the cover artwork which I designed myself for my band Dark Sovereign's first demo recording entitled Welcome to Hell.

An apt title as anyone who is a bit of a noob to recording will know. You's think that after month's of band practices you would know the songs backwards, but when the click track starts your skill level drops to that of a toddler's. So despite the epic failures and 200+ takes later we have a 4 track demo that we can be proud of.

The 4 tracks are:

1. Taunt

2. Punishment for Genocide

3. Corpses of the Brave

4. Welcome to Hell

Taunt

The track opens with my acoustic intro, layered with an elctric guitar track to give it a bit of an eery feel. Peter's opening vocals lead the song into a marching build-up that breaks into a groove that one of our fans says he hasn't heard since Bolt Thrower. Once the momentum has built the track continues to roll like a bulldozer, bringing across the theme - Taunting someone into a fight and them pummeling then without mercy.

We will be making a video for this song in the near future.

Punishment for Genocide

By far our most thrashy song - inspired by old Metallica, Megadeth etc. The lyrics are a social commentary on the modern world, drawing parallels to the ancient such as Sodom, Gomorah and the Mayan empire. The world has become a vile and immoral place, but social norms lead us to think otherwise and ignore what's right in front of us. The guitar work on this track plays like a Chromatics 101 lesson, forget the popular movement of melodic metal - this is what bands like Slayer construct riffs on.

Corpses of the Brave

For Metal we unite!!!! A song intended to get a mosh pit going, the intro invites people to chant along and then dive head-first into a wall of death. With a mix a thrash and death metal, this song is 3:11 of nothing but STEEL! A ton of respect to Chad for ripping up the bass guitar with some mad sweep picking and as always Peter for having lungs the size of the Goodyear blimp.

Welcome to Hell

Exactly as the name says, this track gave us endless nightmares in the studio, but the result is a mindblowing blackened death track. The intro is reminiscent of the legenday Black Sabbath. Not to say that the song is slow in any way. What else can be said -  it's about Hell. It'll tear your face off and throw it in a fire.

The tracks were recorded at Middle 8 studio in Benoni, Johannesburg by Daniel van der Merwe.

Go have a listen to them at our Myspace page. And of course like us on Facebook.