Tuesday, August 26, 2008

IO takes Valley by storm

By Sarah Poulton

A new form of metal will take over the Valley.

They play with a force so powerful, century-old downtown structures may implode, leaving only the five-piece and their fans standing.

During a recent practice, chairs were shaking, ears were throbbing and spectators were left in awe.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet IO.

In the beginning, it was singer Ian Pethel’s father’s idea to name the band IO (pronounced eye-oh). Pethel said his dad’s a musician, and always wanted to use that as a name for one of his bands. The band said it named itself after the most volcanic moon in the solar system.

“It seemed kinda metal,” bassist Bob Boak said.

Guitarist Seth Kensinger said IO started as a side project for most of the band, but evolved into a serious endeavor.

“Seth wanted to do metal songs,” Pethel said. “My band broke up and K-Awake stopped playing, so we started doing this.”

Boak said K-Awake, his band, is currently on hiatus because a couple of their members are out of the area, but plan on playing a show in late December.

“You definitely have not heard the last of us,” Boak said. “We are definitely going to be doing some shows again.”

Kensinger said his band, Erins Vineyard, lost their singer, Daryl Daniels, but he recently came back and they have a show scheduled for Oct. 3 at Barleys. Kensinger said they’ve been writing new material as well.

Pethel’s band, Secondhand Suicide, broke up in early March, but they did a lot of stuff while they were together, like opening for national acts Mushroomhead and Drowning Pool. Even though they disbanded, Pethel said he successfully maintained fans and contacts for IO.

Pethel said each member comes from very different backgrounds: “We’re all picky and we all have different tastes. We put it all together, and it works really well.

They say their sound is derived from a mix of Euro-metal sound on guitar and contemporary metal that shines through on the drums and vocals. As for bass, Boak said he’s trying to do this one thing that technically shouldn’t fit in with what the rest of them are doing, but it does.

“It’s really diverse metal,” drummer CJ Wilcox said. “We’re like melodic metal with a lot of screaming.”

Boak added: “I don’t know what people are going to say about my [style of] bass in this band.”

For now, IO has six original songs, which is about a 40-minute set. Boak said their main focus at the moment is booking shows for IO to get the name out there.

They played their first show July 26 at The Cellar, and say they nearly sold out the venue. That was the first time on stage for guitarist Angelo Black, who describes himself as the band’s “wildcard” for never being in a performing band.

Since then, they have five more shows booked and have plans to record a demo at Ampreon Recorder in Youngstown in late September. They’ve also had the opportunity to host 93.3 The Wolf’s Homegrown Show.

If you’re ready for this, you can catch IO Friday with Album, Fascia and Obsydyan at Barleys or Sunday with Forever in Terror and Fascia at the Cellar.