Killswitch Engage

While Mastodon and several other groups are turning their focus to multi-layered metal epics, Killswitch Engage is still making music to mosh to.

There will be pit action aplenty when the Massachusetts five-piece makes its second stop in Kansas City this year as headliner of the Freaker’s Ball at the Midland on Oct. 24. Opening acts are Five Finger Death Punch, All That Remains, Shadows Fall and 2Cents.

The Midland likely will be packed when Killswitch Engage returns to KC. With a metalcore sound (hardcore punk-influenced metal) and crazy on-stage antics, the band has earned a reputation as a fun live act. In fact, bassist Mike D’Antonio says a Killswitch show is more like a party than your typical gloom-and-doom metal show.

“You’re allowed to laugh. You don’t have to be mean and put on mean faces. You’re allowed to clap and have fun and put up the horns and giggle along with us being idiots on stage,” D’Antonio says. “You’re either going to laugh your head off or probably storm out saying, ‘That’s not a metal band!’”

Killswitch Engage isn’t your typical metal band, and its newest self-titled album is evidence. The record may be the group’s most stripped-down and straightforward work to date. D’Antonio says the shift came while writing and recording with producer Brendan O’ Brien, who has worked with Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC, Pearl Jam, Incubus, Stone Temple Pilots and countless others.

“This was the most shaking up we’ve ever done on a record,” D’Antonio says.

The first single, “Starting Over,” highlights a galloping beat reminiscent of Iron Maiden accompanied by lead singer Howard Jones’ signature screams, but the song “Reckoning” is where the band tried a few new tricks with vocal lines, choruses and a super-fast drum breakdown a minute in.

“It’s just a spontaneous thing to keep the listeners’ attention — just to wake ‘em up a little bit,” D’Antonio says.

However, D’Antonio’s favorite song from the album is “The Return,” a song about a broken man in a terrible relationship. With brutal guitar and bass lines and Jones’ desperate whispers and angry rants, “The Return” shows flashes of Tool and Disturbed.

“It’s sort of a pure approach to metal,” D’Antonio says of the song. “It’s more spacious and spacey in general.”

D’Antonio says the band has received a great live response from “The Return,” and it will likely be one Killswitch Engage plays at the Freaker’s Ball. The Kansas City visit will be Killswitch Engage’s last American concert in 2009. In early November, the band will tour through five South American countries before rounding out the year in Europe.

The Freaker’s Ball starts at 6 p.m. For more information, visit www.midlandkc.com.