[Fans of] post-goth, sub-metal… you've just struck gold! ~Metal Maniacs

"Zena McKelvy's vocals give me chills every time I listen to it. So much incredible musicianship and style packed into this one band." ~ExpessLane (ExpressJets' in-flight magazine)

BIO: Estrum is a progressive metal band from Austin, Texas, fronted by vocal virtuoso Zena McKelvy. Estrum draws fans of bands such as Pink Floyd, Opeth, Tool and Lacuna Coil. In just over a year Estrum has developed a rabid, global fan base and released an album recorded in their own world-class recording studio, Nebulost Productions. They've also recently produced a video for the song Abiosis with their in-house video team, NightRain Films. Estrum is determined to continue the growth of their self-promotion juggernaut and deliver a dynamic live show to the world.

* Drummer Brian McClain has toured for 4 years as drum tech for legend Terry Bozzio (Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, Fantomas)

* Zena and Jason toured North America as part of Giant Squid (The End Records) opening for The Gathering at sold out venues such as Foufounes Electriques in Montreal and the Knitting Factory in NYC. Members have shared the stage with Asia, Y&T, Pat Travers, Guitar Wolf, Marc Ribot, and Robbie Krieger of The Doors.

* Guitarist Jason Rufuss Sewell has produced over 100 albums including Giant Squid's "Metridium Fields" which was engineered by Billy Anderson (Mr. Bungle, Neurosis) and ended up on the Top Ten list of several influential rock and metal magazines for 2006. He has also earned an RIAA certified Gold Record for Alison Krauss's "So Long So Wrong."

* The music of Estrum has been featured in the Emmy nominated UFC documentary "Quest for the Belt" and the award winning 2007 independent film "The Waiter."

* With an acclaimed producer, professional studio, high-quality graphic designer/photographer and an award winning video team, Estrum is a complete package with the skills to tackle head-on the challenges of the new music industry.

Our new video for Abiosis has been released!

To celebrate were having a contest for the month of June.

GRAND PRIZE: One lucky Estrum fan will win a custom engraved 8GB iPod Touch loaded with all of our songs in 24 bit format, (256x the resolution of CD!) both of our videos on DVD, an Estrum T-Shirt, an Autographed CD, and 3 posters.

Second and Third place: An Autographed CD, an Estrum T-shirt 3 posters, and a DVD of the videos.

10 runners up will win an Autographed copy of our new album A Comforting Psychosis.

THE CONCEPT:

As an independent band, Estrum relies almost solely on our fans to spread the word about our music and videos. At least for now you won't be seeing our video on MTV or Fuse so we need your help to get the video seen by as many people as possible!

The fan who posts our video on the most websites within the month of June will receive the Grand Prize of an iPod Touch! These websites can be MySpace page comments, Facebook, forums, whatever!

THE RULES:

1. The contest will run from June 1st through June 30th 2008.

2. Websites will be given points from 1 to 5 based on their popularity at Estrum's discretion. Most postings including a comment on a MySpace page will equal 1 point. Placing the video on a popular Metal forum will be as much as 5 points. We'll give 50 bonus points for getting us on Headbanger's Ball! haha.

3. At the end of each day email a list of links to all of the pages that you posted the video on to EstrumJuneContest@Gmail.com. The video doesn't have to remain on the page for more than one day. But any given page will only be counted once during June! So please don't post on the same page multiple times.

4. Don't do anything dumb like Google our video and send us links to other people's postings. We will find out and disqualify you!

5. Please use caution and taste! Don't spam random people with the video. Try to send it to folks who might be interested in checking it out.

Any and all disputes will be handled at Estrum's discretion!

If you'd like some hints on how to get the video out to as many people as possible, please email me at:

RufussSewell@Gmail.com

Every day we'll post the results of the top fans so you can see what you're up against!

Thank you! We love you! With any luck this will help us to fund a tour and we'll be seeing you in your home town soon!!!



UPDATE:June is finally over and thus we have a winner for our June video contest! But first I just wanted to thank everyone who has helped us spread the word about our new video! As an independent band we truly rely on our wonderful fans to let the world know about Estrum! We couldn't do it without you!!!

So far in just one month we've already gotten over 4,000 plays on youtube!

--------------------------------

The GRAND PRIZE winner of an iPod Touch and lots of other Estrum goodies is....

Amber Simons from Saginaw Michigan by a long shot with 467 points!!!

The first runner up is Ronit from Colorado with 170 points. She'll also be getting a big box of stuff including a DVD and an Estrum T-Shirt.


The Second runner up is Mikey R with 148 points who will also get a bunch of stuff.


The top ten winners will be receiving an autographed copy of our new album "A Comforting Psychosis:"

Travis R 122
Chad 66
Stephanie N 58
Baby Moon 55
Wendy 55
Michael 50
Duder 35
Will 25
Kellie 24
Greg B 20

All of these contestants will be featured on our top friends list for a while so please send them a message to congratulate them!

~Love, Estrum


~Estrum

Come and support Estrum!  Friday, March 14th at the outdoor stage on 6th Street @ I-35!  We play early in the afternoon!!!  2pm!

FRIDAY MARCH 14th - DAYTIME: Bands from across the country; EVENING: Shriiimp.com "Grafitti on Girls" Showcase, Underground Hip Hop featuring Earatik Statik, Ostrich Head, Matlock, and more

1. 12:00pm - 12:45pm Chief Beef (Phoenix, AZ)
2. 1:00pm - 1:45pm Shaolin Death Squad (Denton, TX)

3. 2:00pm - 2:50pm: Estrum (Austin, TX)

4. 3:00pm - 3:50pm: Lauderdale (Canada)
5. 4:00pm - 4:50pm: Nematoads (Austin, TX)
6. 5:00pm -5:50pm: Viva Viva (Boston, MA)
7. 6:00pm - 6:50pm: Audible Mainframe (Long Beach, CA)
8. 8:00pm - 12am: Shriiimp.com presents Graffiti on girls showcase with DJ LL and DJ Tech Neek - $10.00 Cover
9. 10pm - 2am: Hip Hop Stage (Hosted by UndergoundHipHop, presented by Gravel Records) featuring
- Earatik Statik
- Ostrich Head
- Matlock
- Verbal Kent
- Pugs Atomz

Welp, it's that time of year again so we've decided to give our lovely friends an early Christmas present: an Estrumized version of Silent Night.This was actually the first song Zena and I ever recorded way back in 2004. We decided to make a Christmas CD for our family. I laid down a quaint little guitar part and then Zena stepped in the booth. I knew the girl could sing... but I had no idea the harmonies she had bottled up inside.12 vocal tracks later we had this...~Jason/EstrumP.S. It's available for free download on our page, but you can purchase a much better quality 320kbps MP3 from our snocap store if you'd prefer.

Hi, Jordan here.  I've avoided using Estrum's page for any causes and concerns that are  non-Estrum related, but I'm making an exception today for another band. The following is pasted from their myspace blog:Acrassicaudas

HELP SAVE OUR HEAVY METAL FRIENDS FROM AN UNCERTAIN FATE IN BAGHDAD

On October 10th, 2007, the visas of the members of Iraqi metal band Acrassicauda will start to expire. The Syrian government has made it clear that they will not renew them, meaning the band will be forced to return to Iraq. We don't need to stress just how dangerous this will be for them. It could very likely be a death sentence, and the time in which we can help them is quickly running out.

We are asking for donations to assist Acrassicauda in leaving Syria for a safer haven. The band has no bank accounts, and Paypal doesn't function in Syria, so we've setup a Paypal account on their behalf. No donation is too small. By giving as little as ten dollars, you can be a part of keeping the heavy metal dreams of four young Iraqi men alive.

Donate Here!

Born out of a basement rehearsal space in Baghdad, Acrassicauda (Latin for "black scorpion") is Iraq's only heavy metal band. Inspired by western bands like Metallica, Slayer and Slipknot, they began writing and playing metal in 2001. Their dream of performing live in Iraq soon became the struggle of their lives.

Original members Firas (bass), Tony (lead guitar), Marwan (drums), Faisal (rhythm guitar) and Waleed (lead vocals) were only able to play three shows before the war started in 2003. Soon after, Waleed retired from the band and fled the country, leaving Faisal to take over as lead singer. Due to increased security precautions throughout Iraq, it became difficult to practice-much less get through a show-without literally risking their lives. As the situation worsened in Baghdad they began receiving death threats from insurgents and religious fundamentalists accusing them of Satanism.

The war has now all but destroyed their dream of living in peace, growing their hair long, banging their heads and shredding as loud as they want. The members of Acrassicauda are currently refugees in Damascus, Syria. All of their visa applications to foreign countries have been denied.

Thank you for your support and your concern.

"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

-Oscar Wilde

 

We're really pleased that our 3 song demo "The Absence of Life EP" has been reviewed by Dave Brenner in the just-published issue of Metal Maniacs.  It's a brief write-up so I've included the whole thing verbatim, as their website is down today.

 

  If you're not sick of having a new post-goth, sub-metal, melodic crock of ProTools fodder with a  cute little Hot Topic Vampira number on vocals pop up every two seconds,  you just struck gold. The term "female fronted melodic metal" is as ever-present on everything the band uses in its line of self promotion as are the pics of the singer – obviously hoping to bag more MySpace friends than any metal points.  While all seemingly fairly talented musicians, they slog out these overdone bursts of melodic melancholy with no forward-thinking motives or any attempt at something original.  If you need to hear every band The Gathering encouraged, check out this EP and help kill real metal. Otherwise… well, otherwise you're already on the next review or listening to fuckin' Whiplash 6 tracks/16.22; $6.00 PPD via lame-ass MySpace

www.myspace.com/estrum

estrumban@gmail.com

 

I take every cheap shot above as a compliment.  Do you think getting our email address wrong (should be estrumband@gmail.com) was a typo?  It sure sounds like Dave would like an "Estrum-ban". Seems that guys like this are threatened by us somehow, maybe 'cause we're "like…helping to kill real metal".  I used to worry about stuff like that when I was going through puberty.   There's a lot of bitterness there, I wonder how many "cute little Hot Topic Vampira numbers" have shot this dude down.  Good thing we bother him so much that he has to spout off next to a pic of our sexy mugs in a globally distributed mag, we love the free publicity!

 

*****

 
Many have asked about the TRCOA contest.  If you weren't there, you missed out on a great gig.  It was all kinds of fun to play at Antone's during ACL weekend, one of Austin's biggest music festivals.  The line-up was extremely diverse and talented.  Right up until the judges announced the winner, I don't think anybody knew which way it was going to go.  Congratulations go to The Sean Callahan Band for winning first place, they played a strong set, and brought out a crew of enthusiastic supporters. 

 

*****

 

 Also in the news, we are finally wrapping up the full length cd!  We got together last night to go over the final mixes, and it sounds extremely nice! (I'm listening right now).  Tomorrow we're recording one more piece to tie it all together, and soon it will be off to the mastering lab.  Look forward to holding this disc in your hot little hands in the very near future!

Jordan/Estrum

Thanks to everyone for voting!

Because of your support we have moved on the the final round of the Recording Conservatory of Austin competition for best unsigned band. The top 4 bands will be competing in Austin this weekend.  Please come out to represent, this will be a great way to end the ACL festival weekend.

- Sunday, Sep. 16th at Antone's (213 West 5th St. @ Colorado, Downtown Austin)

$5.00 cover

- Doors open up at 8:00pm

- Showcase starts at 9:00pm.

- Each artist's set will be 30 minutes with 15 minute set changes.

 
Judges and Judging Criteria:

The judges for the event will be the TRCoA student body.

Each student will be able to cast one vote.

Their voting criteria will be weighted in the following format:

- Crowd Response and amount of fans (50%)

- Songwriting (15%)

- Performance (20%)

- Originality (15%)

 

Schedule:

9:00 - 9:30: The Sean Calahan Band

9:45 - 10:15: Erin Ivey

10:30 - 11:00: Estrum

11:15 - 11:45: John Pointer

Vote For ESTRUM

  We have been selected as one of the top 25 unsigned bands in Austin and we need your help to reach 1.  Please take just a couple of minutes and surf on over to http://www.trcoa.com/uac.html and cast your vote for ESTRUM!

Voting ends on September 10, 2007 and the final four bands chosen will perform @ Antone's in Austin on September 16, 2007.

Thank you so much for all of your support!  We hope to see you at Antone's!!!

-brian