The Hive's getting heavy with metal show

By Katie Chicklinski-Cahill, Herald Arts & Entertainment editor

Thursday, Aug 17, 2023 2:41 PM Updated Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023 3:42 PM

Vile Aesthetic will take the stage this weekend at The Hive. (Courtesy of Vile Aesthetic)

Vile Aesthetic, Suicide Forest and Anarchy Hammer play Durango

It’s going to get loud in Durango this weekend.

Durango black metal band Vile Aesthetic returns to the stage Saturday night at The Hive, sharing a bill with Tucson, Arizona-based Suicide Forest and thrash metal band – and fellow Durangoans – Anarchy Hammer.

And for Vile Aesthetic, it’s a homecoming of sorts because the band – Colter Niendorf on guitar and vocals, Christian Kee on bass and Nathan Eric Sampson on drums – spent a chunk of last summer on the road touring.

“Lately we’ve just been kind of playing shows few and far in between,” Niendorf said, adding that currently, the band is working on a follow-up album to their 2021 release “To Bloom and Flourish from Utter Rot.” “Ever since (the tour), it’s just been kind of sparsely laid-out shows in various locations.”

Even though the band is working in new music, it’s hard to stay away from the allure of live performance, especially the intimate venues Durango has to offer.

If you go

What: Black metal at The Hive with Vile Aesthetic, Suicide Forest and Anarchy Hammer.

When: Doors open at 7 p.m. Saturday, show 7:30-10 p.m.

Where: The Hive, 1150 Main Ave.

Tickets: $5, all ages.

More information: Visit The Hive at www.thehivedgo.org.

“We’ve been itching to play more of a local low key kind of DIY place,” Niendorf said. “We’ve been playing kind of bigger venues in various locations. Every now and then we like to just do a real local kind of thing, something a little more close to home.”

Anarchy Hammer is a four-person band made up of Julian Dugas on drums; Madden Harlen on guitar and vocals; Steven Moore on bass; and Morbid Justice guitarist and backup vocalist Kyle Dalton on guitar and vocals. Dugas attends Animas High School while Harlen and Moore go to Durango High School.

Durango’s Anarchy Hammer will thrash The Hive this weekend. (Herald file)

Dalton is a founding member of the longtime local metal band Morbid Justice. He, along with Daniel Candler and Levi Stockton, formed the band, with Logan Gasdia and Phillip Robertson joining a couple of years later. The band is turning 16 years old this September. As a seasoned band member, Dalton took the other members of Anarchy Hammer under his wing, and these guys are hitting it hard and are veritable veterans of The Hive stage, having played the venue before.

At first, Dalton was filling in for a band member who quit right before their first show, he said in an April interview. After that, Anarchy Hammer and Dalton stayed in contact, eventually leading to him to offer to help the band produce and release their first song, “Judgement Day.”