TUNGSTEN could refer to a number of different artists including, most notably, an active progressive metal band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA and an inactive sludge metal band from Chalmette, Louisiana, USA. -------------- Hailing from Philadelphia, Tungsten has spent the last two years performing its own brand of progressive metal to captivated audiences in Philadelphia and New York City. Having honed their sound through explosive live performances, Tungsten took to the studio in Summer of 2013 to record their material. The result is The Reservoir, the band’s debut LP, an album that captures the band’s signature sound: progressive metal that is dark, innovative, and creative, but still bursting at the seams with classic metal attitude that makes you want to pump your fist in the air. Drawing on influences both timeless (Iron Maiden, Rush, Pink Floyd) and modern (Opeth, Mastodon), The Reservoir features inventive riffs, soaring guitar harmonies, bombastic drumming, and the commanding vocals of Philly’s most intense frontwoman. -------------- TUNGSTEN hail from Chalmette, Louisiana and have a history... Drummer Mark Talamo and Guitarist Al Hodge formed a band together in 1985 that they called SAM SNOT. The band recorded a few demos and played one show before changing the name to TUNGSTEN in late 1990. Mark Talamo is a seasoned engineer who has recorded some of the heavy hitters from New Orleans area including the second CROWBAR album in 1993 and the very first DOWN demo in 1992. This helped open the door for the band and got their music in the right hands. Pavement Music based out of Chicago picked up on the band and issued their first album "183.85" which features the songs "Born XY" and "I Feel Today" in 1993. The band remained a 2 piece until 1994 when Mark's brother Steve Talamo was added to the fold on bass and lead guitar. The band then went on to sign with Megrock Records out of Sweden for their second album entitled "74" released in 1995. The band played in and around the New Orleans area and found a following in the European market with the help of Gotz K., from Rock Hard Magazine in Germany and Onno Cromag at Aardschok Magazine in Holland. The band then signed with Lighttown Records based out of Holland for their 3rd album entitled "The Survival Kit" released in 1997. This was their strongest effort to date and as Al Hodge reflects, "It's when we really started to get our sound which was a mix of the NOLA stuff and the European scene". By 1999 TUNGSTEN retired from playing live and focused on becoming a studio band. "That's how we originally started was as a studio band. This is our hunting and fishing, it's our hobby. If making metal is wrong, then I don't want to be right" stated TUNGSTEN drummer/engineer Mark Talamo. The band then took off for a few years and then gathered back up again to record their 4th album called "The Abuse" released in 2003. TUNGSTEN gained alot of headlines with this release as this was the first one on their own indie imprint TUNGSTEN MUSIC RECORDS and the band were very first ones to encourage downloading of their entire back catalog. "I remember when we pulled that stunt, and it was to get attention, but it worked. At the time alot of bands were very against the idea of file sharing, but we ran the other way and it worked in our favor. After the dust settled on that alot of the other bands started to follow our lead. The main reason we did that was because we were on some independent labels and that some of our stuff was out of print so we wanted the friends and fans of the band to be able to get the songs with out shelling out a ton of cash to get an import version of the CD" commented Al Hodge. TUNGSTEN then worked on their next album entitled "If Death Doesn't Change You...Nothing Will" released 2005. "It was the hardest most introspective album I'd ever had to record" states TUNGSTEN frontman AL Hodge. "It was a time capsule of what I went through over the course of 3 years and dealing with the death of my Dad and a year later dealing with the Death of a girl that meant the world to me. But you have to keep moving forward and once we finished that record, that's what I've done" concludes Al Hodge. For more information about TUNGSTEN please visit the band's MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/tungstenmusic. Currently the band are taking a break. ------------- TUNGSTEN is also the name of a rockband located in Antwerp (Belgium). Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.