Review Text
About the record: The Anxiety Effect E.P. is the debut release of The Anxiety Effect. The band recorded the 6 track album at Speil Splash Studios (owned and operated by the band's front man John Lockwood). Pre-Production for the album began in April of 2011. After a drummer change and several writing sessions later, the band began the recording process in August 2011, playing the material out live at shows in between recording sessions. The original release date was planned for the fall of 2011, but several production set backs pushed the release date to February 14th, 2012. Once tracking was finished in early December of 2011, the band sent the tracks to the state of Washington where mixing engineer Mike Savinski would spend 3 weeks on the mixing process. Mike was introduced to front man John Lockwood via an online recording forum, generating a working relationship between the two for the E.P. On December 31st, 2011 the final mixes where shipped to Hollywood, Florida to be mastered by award winning mastering engineer CJ Jacobson. About The Anxiety Effect: The Anxiety Effect is a Bradford, PA based groove metal band made up of John Lockwood, Bill McDowell, Dane Hagg, Dan Kermick, and Geoff Greenman. The roots of 'The Anxiety Effect' date all the way back to 2000. Front man John Lockwood and drummer Geoff Greenman where touring regionally together in two separate bands at the time; 'Kriegspei'l and 'JUNKhead'. Lockwood's band Kriegspeil was the younger of the two groups (with all members still in high school), often jumping on JUNKhead's tour bus as the opening act. In January 2001, JUNKhead made regional headlines when their 5 song self titled E.P. landed them an entry in a Battle of the Bands contest at The Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland Ohio. With reps from Capital Records looking on, JUNKhead would go on to win the preliminary round, only to fall short with a second place finish in the finals. After touring regionally on a regular basis for the rest of the year, often taking Kriegspeil with them as the supporting act, JUNKhead disbanded in early 2002 before the release of their first full length 'Instincts'. Kriegspeil would follow suit only one month later, leaving two full bands worth of musicians looking for a new core group. In May of 2002, just weeks after the demise of both Kriegspeil and JUNKhead, Lockwood and Greenman would find themselves touring regionally again. Only this time, it would be together in a new band called ZeroPointOne. Using contacts and resources from the JUNKhead run, ZeroPointOne started out playing few local shows, and more regional dates on the road. It wasn't long after the band started establishing a name for itself, that Greenman would leave the band. ZeroPointOne would then go through drummer changes to fill the void left by Greenman, settling on drummer Jose Crespo. The band then recorded it's 6 track E.P. titled 'Driven By Disaster' and continued it's regional touring, picking up a Jagermeister Music sponsorship along the way in 2005. This lead to them playing several dates with national bands such as Bleed the Sky, Silent Civilian, Straight Line Stitch, Dope, Stemm, 5 Bolt Main, Allele, and several others. Bass player Dan Kermick was added into the mix for a short time, as the band started experimenting with additions of a second guitar player. This experimentation would lead to constant internal issues and key member changes, bringing a 5 year close to the band in early 2007. Guitarists Dane Hagg and Bill McDowell where local supporters of all 3 bands (JUNKhead, Kriegspeil, and ZeroPointOne) and have claimed that the bands all helped inspire them to become musicians themselves. They both started playing and writing in tandem for several years, following the local music scene and constantly looking for other musicians to start their own project with. Several attempts would leave them empty handed as lack of dedication and commitment was a constant issue, and nothing came together
