SEVEN)SUNS are a Brooklyn-based string quartet who play heavy metal and hardcore punk interpretations with classical instruments.
Featuring instrumentalists Earl Maneein on viola, cellist Jennifer DeVore and violinists Amanda Lo and Fung Chern-Hwei, the ensemble play a brand of contemporary classical music not for the faint of heart.
SEVEN)SUNS perform chamber music versions of popular hard rock and metal songs, while also writing their own material. Having played at numerous venues throughout the New York area, the quartet have also collaborated with classical artists like Daniel Bernard Roumain.
The band will be performing as part of the 2016 Tribeca New Music Festival in New York City next month. In their announcement for the show, TNM described the group as a fusion of disparate musical genera, producing bombastic yet tranquil results:
"They bring together two related music subcultures, Metal and Hardcore, into the classically oriented performing arts. The sound of SEVEN)SUNS is, by turns, driven, aggressive, dissonant, and hard-edged as well as contemplative, meditative, still, and serene."
SEVEN)SUNS have been gaining fans on the Internet with their ferocious covers of heavy music acts like Pantera and the Dillinger Escape Plan. Metal Injection praised the latter as a "heart-pounding, incredibly intense" take on "43% Burnt," saying, "Who knew how close Dillinger was to being modern composers?"
According to the band's website, the group's name derives from an apocalyptic prophecy in Buddhism, the "Sermon of the Seven Suns," a major point of Buddhist eschatology. A text from the Pāli Canon, the manuscripts pertinent to the Theravadan Buddhist practice, it was the Buddha's exhortation on armageddon.
The members of SEVEN)SUNS are also outreach-minded volunteers. The quartet regularly visit inmates at New York's Rikers Island Correctional Facility, even playing music for the prisoners. They accomplish this community service in partnership with the Rangjung Dharma Prison Project.
The Tribeca New Music performance of SEVEN)SUNS will take place at The Cell Theatre in Chelsea on Saturday, April 17 at 4:00 p.m.
Check out the below video of SEVEN)SUNS in action, and let us know what you think in the comments section.
