Entheos + Suicidal Tendencies + ex-The Faceless Members Team Up in New Band Lillake

You could be forgiven for a lack of familiarity with guitarist Nico Santora; he filled in on guitar for The Faceless briefly in 2014, and though he’s been the full-time second guitarist in Suicidal Tendencies since 2012, that band is full of outsize personalities that’ve been in the band waaaaay longer.

But, if the first song released by his new band Lillake is any indication, Santora is a young guitarist the metal world should be paying closer attention to. Santora has enlisted friends from his current and past projects to help in creating Lillake’s debut album, which the project’s Bandcamp page says is coming soon: Suicidal Tendencies drummer Eric Moore and current Entheos / former The Faceless bassist Evan Brewer.

Lillake currently has just one song posted, entitled “Killing Game.” But it’s a doozy! The style should appeal to fans of The Faceless more than Suicidal Tendencies (although you never know), which should indicate where Santora’s creative head is at; loosely speaking, it’s proggy death metal. But I’m hearing a heavy Opeth influence here more than anything; big, looping, deliberate riffs, a classical approach to harmony, and vaguely Akerfeldtian clean singing. Which is not to say that the music is derivative; it’s definitely got its own vibe, and I like it a lot! I look forward to hearing how that vibe shakes out over the length of a full album.

Stream “Killing Game” below. More info as we learn it.

As a side note, the press release we received credits Eric Moore, who is sitting out Suicidal Tendencies’ current tour while Dave Lombaro fills in, as a “former” member of that band; we’re not sure what that’s about, as no statement on his status had previously been released. Moore also played in T.R.A.M. with Animals as Leaders’ Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes.