Pitchfork

Scions look like shoeboxes with wheels, and for some reason they're usually the exact same color as orange Tang. They're like Honda Elements except somehow less cool.

And yet the company must have at least a few incredibly cool people working for it. Because Scion, as a brand, has promoted something like a million really good rap shows over the past few years, and now they've managed to assemble basically every great underground metal band in America and a few from abroad for an Atlanta festival that I really wish I could attend. And this thing is free. So for the anonymous Scion marketing cogs about to rock, we salute you.

The Scion Rock Fest will happen on February 28 at Atlanta's Masquerade, and it's got a hell of a one-two punch at the top of the bill: hometown conquerors Mastodon and brutal Bay Area doom-sludge originators Neurosis, the latter of whom average something like two shows a year and who are so good onstage that they will make you cry.

But the Scion Rock bill goes way deeper than those two bands. Also near the top of the bill, we've got Matt Pike's thundering power trio High on Fire, Japanese shoegaze-metal mainstays Boris, and corpsepainted Norwegian black metal warriors 1349.

And if you like bands who play stoned, bluesy Southern rock the way Robert E. Howard's gods of the abyss would, then this festival is pretty much a must-see. In addition to Mastodon, the bill includes Baroness, Torche, Harvey Milk, Kylesa, and Rwake. That's a whole lot of uber-distorted bottleneck guitar right there.

Other fun stuff:

-- Chicago's Nachtmystium, who made Show No Mercy metal correspondent Brandon Stosuy's album of the year and who committed black metal heresy by adding saxophones and spaced-out Floyd homages to their atmospheric swamp.

-- Atlanta's own Zoroaster, who play so agonizingly slowly that it becomes an event every time the scary-looking drummer smashes his floor toms and who are sort of terrifying when you're high.

-- Brooklyn's Krallice, math-noise kingpin Mick Barr's black metal side project, which proves Barr's experimental shredding rules even harder when it's pressed into the service of something resembling structure.

-- Fresh-faced thrash revivalists Toxic Holocaust and Warbringer, who totally wear bullet belts.

-- Plus Wolves in the Throne Room, A Storm of Light, Cryptopsy, Withered, Skeletonwitch, Salome, Suidakra, Tyr, and Alestorm.

This is going to be so awesome. The only real question is: Where's Genghis Tron in all this?