Necrophobic - Death to All

20 years old, Necrophobic are stronger than ever. They have finally recovered from the departure of founding member David Parland. The guitarist wrote much of the band's classic first two records. Replacing him has had mixed results. The turn of the millennium saw a descent into mediocrity, while 2006's Hrimthursum flourished with color and atmosphere.

Revelation 666

Death to All (Regain, 2009) continues Hrimthursum's hot streak. The production remains dense yet clear, but the album is shorter and more focused. More importantly, the band's aggression remains intact. It amplifies Slayer-style thrash with majestic melodies — see the stirring close to "Revelation 666." The result feels uniquely Swedish. Necrophobic share sonic and personnel connections with Nifelheim, Dissection, and Dismember. But they straddle more firmly the line between black and death metal. Death to All wields the former's atmosphere and the latter's power with graceful heft.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Amazon (CD)
Regain (MP3)
Interpunk (CD)
Necrophobic (CD)

She's a maniac

I recently watched Flashdance for the first time. It is one of the greatest movies I have ever seen. Even though it is not very good, it is great. Never mind its two-dimensional characters, formulaic arc (a straight line), or that it would spawn Save the Last Dance with the addition of hip-hop and jungle fever. So many classic scenes! That kabuki/Paul Stanley dance was mind-blowing.

Maniac (Michael Sembello)

For some reason, Michael Sembello's "Maniac" on the soundtrack inspires, well, maniacal devotion. YouTube reveals dance tributes, karaoke tributes, piano and acoustic versions, even people uploading their takes on the guitar solo. It is a bitchin' solo. Ah, the '80s — when every pop hit had a shredding solo air-dropped into it, complete with two-handed tapping (thank you Eddie Van Halen).

Maniac (Evergreen Terrace)

Even metal has gotten "Maniac"al. The best such cover is by Florida metalcore outfit Evergreen Terrace, who make the song theirs. This is the only "Maniac" cover that I can listen to as actual music.

Maniac (Firewind)

For some reason, European metallers have really taken to "Maniac." Greece's Firewind deliver an impressively straight-faced power metal cover. It sounds exactly like one would expect.

Maniac (Carnival in Coal)

On the other hand, France's Carnival in Coal take the WTF route. They send up the song with hyperactive, almost breakcore-ish synths. I haven't been able to bring myself to hear it all the way through.

Maniac (Street Legal)

Less extreme are Norway's Street Legal. In fact, their cover is precisely in the middle. It is a feat to make music this boring. "Metal cover of 'Maniac'" — this is exactly what you think it would sound like.

If you've ever wanted to hear an Italian metalcore band cover "Maniac," you're in luck. Biosystem55 have done the honors. They do so in a way that requires watching, not listening. This is one of the worst music videos ever made. I can't stop watching it.

That's about it for metal. Even worse are the truckload of dance remixes that one can find on YouTube. But that's another post altogether. Don't go there, trust me. It's like watching multiple car crashes and clown conventions at the same time.

Maniac 2000 (Mark McCabe)

Ah, screw it. "Maniac 2000" was a pop-dance remix that evidently was a #1 hit in Ireland for 10 weeks. If so, Ireland is a f***ed-up place. If you dug those metal dance remixes I posted a while back, then this is for you. It may be the worst song I have ever heard.

- Cosmo Lee

Resurrection - Embalmed Existence (reissue)

The defining feature of Resurrection's Embalmed Existence (Nuclear Blast, 1993) was "The Storyteller." He was essentially an amateur voice actor who assumed an insane persona to tell an insane story. Voiceovers, which in sum formed the story, began every track but one. The result was a death metal record that felt like a twisted children's tale. Love them or hate them — Andrew from aversionline.com hated them so much that he made himself a version of the album with them edited out — the voiceovers were unique.

Embalmed Existence
Rage Within

Now Massacre has reissued the record with even more of The Storyteller. Along with remastered (i.e., louder) sound and two demos (unessential but interesting, as songs often take different forms), the reissue includes two takes of The Storyteller's entire story, as well as a "laugh track" (108 seconds of various flavors of "mwahaha"). The lavish liner notes feature historical photos and essays regarding the reissue, the demos, and the origin of The Storyteller. This reissue is the holy grail for his fans (are there any?).

Such distractions aside, the album is deservedly a minor classic. It might have become a major one had the band not split up after its release. Instead, it remains a sturdy memento of the Florida death metal sound — atonal, sometimes technical, without the bluesiness of its Swedish counterpart. Touches of musicality, like abstract chords and exotic solos, occasionally crop up. Alex Marquez of Malevolent Creation repute contributes lively drums. The melisma in Paul Degolyer's growl recalls that of Obituary's John Tardy. If Resurrection had had more time, Embalmed Existence might be mentioned today in the same sentence as Leprosy or Cause of Death.

That may yet change. The band has reunited, releasing a strong album, Mistaken for Dead, last year. It, too, features The Storyteller, though thankfully in much smaller doses. The Florida sound remains intact. In fact, the band sounds even more vicious than before — a Resurrection, indeed.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Amazon (CD)
Amazon (MP3)
eMusic (MP3)
The End (CD)

Black metal in video game soundtrack

Black metal has made it into video games. This first foray actually looks promising: Undead Knights, by Tecmo, out this fall. The player's objective is to build an army of zombies — the fast kind, evidently — to fight humans. How awesome is that? I am not familiar with video games, and promo animations are more high-powered than actual gameplay. However, the above trailer is enticing. It's hard to go wrong with armies of the undead. (See Army of Darkness.)

Lightning Swords of Death - Invoke the Desolate One
Valdur - Blodhevn / Vendetta

Even better, the game will have a metal soundtrack. It looks not to be the usual major label B-side snoozefest. The first two acts announced for it are über-kvlt: Lightning Swords of Death and Valdur. They put out an absolutely killer split last year. It's hard to believe these guys are from SoCal. This stuff is killer! Lightning Swords of Death bring a bestial attack, with jabbing and piercing guitars. Valdur are also delightfully ugly, but more atmospheric. Yet who listens to splits now? Licensing music is the way forward. So much media now needs soundtracks — films, video games, multimedia art. Moby licensed out every track from Play. It's time to fight back!

Buy:
Amazon
The End
Blackmetal.com

Katatonia no longer katatonic

Now master tapes are hard drives

At last, movement on Katatonia's front! After innumerable delays — their new record was on my most anticipated list last year — the band is actually recording. The first three studio updates are up at the band's MySpace blog. Katatonia is one of the few bands whose mere name can give me chills. 2003's Viva Emptiness, which I discovered through aversionline.com, changed my life. It showed me how bleak and beautiful metal could be. I used to listen to it before going to sleep. It gave me Kafka-esque visions of lost souls dotting grayscale cities. Here is "A Premonition" from Viva Emptiness.

A Premonition

My main takeaway from these studio diaries is more cheery. I love gear talk — brands of drum heads, descriptions of signal chains, even the materials of guitar picks. At any given time, certain brands are in vogue in metal. In the past few years, Caparison guitars and Krank and Engl amps have become popular. Now the new "it" brands seem to be Polish — Mayones guitars and Laboga amps. Each has a formidable roster of endorsees. Katatonia use both brands now. Not that it really matters. The music is what's important. But many of the band's fans are probably musicians who enjoy mechanical minutiae. At the heart of every true metalhead is a colossal nerd.

- Cosmo Lee

Katatonia's new album is due out in October on Peaceville.

AxCx giveaway

Flyer by Seldon H*nt

The Show No Mercy series of NYC metal shows has concocted its most intriguing (or at least strangest) lineup yet.

• Anal C*nt (needs no introduction)
• F*ck the Facts (Canadian grindcore, reviewed here)
• Locrian (Chicago noise, reviewed here)
• Copremesis (NY death metal, reviewed here)
• Gwynbleidd (Brooklyn melodic metal, reviewed here)

Some band needs to be called Roger Maris* or Barry Bonds*. The show is on July 5, at 8pm at Public Assembly (70 N. 6th St, Brooklyn).

F*ck the Facts - No Return

For a chance to win a pair of tickets to this show, email invisibleoranges at gmail dot com by midnight EST, Thursday July 2, with your full name and the subject header "Seth Putnam is ____" (fill in the blank). I will choose a winner randomly.

Complete Failure - Heal No Evil

When I interviewed Complete Failure drummer Mike Rosswog for a Decibel feature (#45, Opeth cover, order here), he was diplomatic about Steve Austin, Today Is the Day frontman and Supernova Records head. Austin had given Complete Failure's debut, Perversions of Guilt (Supernova, 2008), strange production, to say the least. It was fuzzy, messy, and drum-heavy. Many objected to the sound, but I didn't mind it. Rosswog is a whale of a drummer (at that time, he was playing two sets a night, one for Complete Failure and one for Today Is The Day, doing Derek Roddy's parts from Axis of Eden), and the scratchy sound befitted his band's harsh grindcore.

Church of the Self / The State of Impure Thoughts
Craft of Discontent

Rosswog is no longer diplomatic. Complete Failure recently self-recorded and self-released an album, Heal No Evil. In a statement (full text here), Rosswog said:

The tracks were recorded and mixed at my new home-based studio, and we achieved a sound that is incomparably more clear and powerful than our last one. Our bass player James Curl was the chief sound engineer and producer for these sessions and worked 16 hour workdays for 6 nights straight to accomplish our goal of putting out a "comeback" album that proves we cannot and will not be held back by anyone's lack of effort or poor business decisions. Simply put, we are beyond pissed off at the "record industry"...

The obvious subtext is a schism with Austin and Supernova. DIY has served the band well. Heal No Evil adds sludge, noise rock, and loads of hardcore to the band's trademark grindcore. These elements intertwine organically; songs gear up and down seamlessly. Joe Mack screams as if at the end of his rope. Rosswog's playing is organic and surprisingly subtle. These songs could have been tracked live. They have that energy, and the band has the chops for it.

On this album, sound is a strength, not a liability. It's raw yet clear, basic yet punchy. One bass, one guitar, one drumkit, one vocalist. Early '90s hardcore comes to mind. The drums have some compression, but even that sounds like old-school tape compression. So much hardcore today is produced like metal, with overbearing walls of sound. Heal No Evil bucks that trend. It highlights four talented individuals in one pissed-off aggregation. In its anger at the record industry, this record is Complete Failure's analogue to Nine Inch Nails' Broken. They've even pulled a Trent Reznor and made it available for free download. Labels still offer advantages of scale, like publicity resources and brand affiliation. But this is the future for bands — self-financing (see also here) and self-distribution via the Internet, the world's cheapest and widest distribution network.

- Cosmo Lee

Download the album for free here.
Buy the CD (hand-numbered, limited to 100) here.

ASG @ The Charleston

ASG's Win Us Over (reviewed here) was my favorite record last year. This was not due to its style, as stoner rock/metal is usually not my bag. Rather, it was because it had songs — strong, soulful, memorable ones. It was one of those records where the start of each song perks up one's ears with the promise of good times ahead.

Low End Insight

I was excited to see if ASG could recreate such magic live. They played last week at The Charleston in Brooklyn. The Charleston has a nondescript bar upstairs and a tiny performance space downstairs. Why was a band that combined the best parts of Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age, with a record on Volcom (ostensibly a moneybags label), playing to 30 people? Talk about a market failure!

If the band found this frustrating, it didn't show it. It set up quietly and confidently. One can learn a lot about a band before it plays a note. The hardest-hitting bands often speak the most softly. ASG eased into their set with a delay pedal workout by singer/guitarist Jason Shi. Sporting scruffy hair, a Kylesa shirt, and a baseball cap, he hardly seemed like a rock god. Yet after the soundman cut the lights, Shi became the Rat Dog Mage of Darkness.

Oddly, the band didn't play faster than on record, which is common live. If anything, songs dug in more deliberately. Scott Key regulated tempos with snares that opened and closed like valves. Shi's vocals were rawer than on record, which wasn't surprising. What was surprising was the songs' transformation from colorful anthems into electric storms. I am not a Les Paul man; I find the guitars bulky and muddy-sounding. But the chunk and sizzle in Shi's white axe evoked Appetite for Destruction. When he took off on leads, Andy Ellis' low end thundered unflaggingly. High voltage ensued. Solos spiraled skyward and riffs swarmed in unison. All this on what was probably an off night! ASG are touring the American South, East Coast, and Midwest. (See dates here.) Miss them at your peril.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Amazon (MP3)
ASG webstore (CD, LP)
All That Is Heavy (CD, LP)

Goatwhore - Carving Out the Eyes of God

Goatwhore are a band I should love. They've got black metal, death metal, thrash, and Nola grit. They have delightfully painful song titles like "Baptized in a Storm of Swords" and "My Eyes Are the Spears of Chaos." Guitarist Sammy Duet has one of the coolest beards in metal. But despite all this, the band's discography hasn't interested me. Too much sameness, too few highlights. I prefer vocalist Ben Falgoust's other band, Soilent Green.

Apocalyptic Havoc

Carving Out the Eyes of God (Metal Blade, 2009) is something else, though. The ingredients are basically the same as before, except for some hardcore-inflected chugging riffs. But they are of higher quality now. Zack Simmons' drumming is more varied and memorable. Duet has massively stepped up his riffing. Now one can tell the songs apart. Somehow, the band sounds even more vicious than before. Erik Rutan's rough and huge production is much to credit. It is a big improvement from the flat sound he gave 2006's The Haunting Curse. This record is a beast from start to finish. Its intangibles — aggression, cohesion, physical presence — are fully "on." "Apocalyptic Havoc" is one of the year's best metal songs, and Carving Out the Eyes of God is one of the year's best metal albums.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
eMusic (MP3)
Amazon (MP3)
Metal Blade (CD, MP3)

Micro-donations for metal

Here's an idea: get fans to pay for an album before it's made.

Traditionally, fans have rewarded artists after they release albums. Downloading has killed that model. Yet fans aren't any less fan-atical about artists now. If anything, downloading enables fans to find what they truly like, instead of making do with generalized filters like radio and TV. (See Chris Anderson's The Long Tail.) People still pay to see bands play live. They just don't buy music now. Why do so, when it's easily available for free? Perhaps artists should capitalize on fan support earlier in album cycles.

Maudlin of the Well exemplify one way to do so. To fund their latest record, they put up a PayPal donation button on their MySpace. Anyone who donated got a credit on the finished album. 87 fans did so. Only a month after donations began, one fan stepped up and donated enough to finance the entire album. The band recorded it and made it available for free download (here), as MP3's, WAV's, and FLAC's. They even encouraged fans to seed torrents with it. No doubt this album has better distribution than many released on labels.

Another way to recoup costs upfront is through SellaBand. Like PayPal, the site is a donation platform, but much more nuanced. Bands sign up for free, then attempt to reach either $50,000 or $100,000 donation targets. (Most go for $50,000, enough to record most albums nowadays.) Once the band reaches its target, SellaBand takes a 10% fee, gives 10% to the artist with no strings attached, and allocates 20% for manufacturing costs. The rest goes toward recording. Any time before the band reaches its target, fans are free to withdraw donations or move them to other bands. Donations occur in multiples of $10. The more fans (called "Believers") donate, the more they get. All donors receive the album for free, both as a CD and as a download. Additionally, for five years after the release of the album, bands must split revenues from sales 50/50 with donors. Donors receive in proportion to how much they donate. Large-scale donors even receive a proportion of publishing revenues, which mostly go to SellaBand. (See table of donor benefits here.) Essentially, fans become investors in an album.

Buy a band?

Both models have flaws. They each require having enough donor fans to make them worthwhile. Of the 735 metal bands on SellaBand, only a handful have reached donation targets. Larger bands are more likely to win the largesse of fans (see Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails). The PayPal button creates a free rider problem. People will be tempted to let others donate until the target is reached, then reap the rewards for free. As for SellaBand, artists may not want to give up publishing rights nor 50% of album sales. Then again, any operation with investors is beholden to them.

Still, these models point towards exciting possibilities. A band could finance an album with fan support, then use that album to sign to a label. Without dependence on a label to finance recording, the band is in a better negotiating position. Donations could allow bands to be less dependent on merch sales. Fans who don't need t-shirts, CD's, or other such tchotchkes could still support bands financially. This all relates to the concept of micro-donations. Japanese rock band Electric Eel Shock reached its $50,000 target on SellaBand with only 597 "Believers." On a smaller scale, after my computers and hard drives were burglarized in April, I put up a PayPal donation button. The resulting donations, which mostly came from strangers, were enough to buy the laptop on which I typed this post.

- Cosmo Lee

Musk Ox - Self-Titled

Back of liner notes

Musk Ox comes advertised as "neofolk." This throws me, as my admittedly limited understanding of the term runs to Current 93 and menacing stuff on Cold Spring Records. But Wikipedia includes Agalloch under "neofolk," and Musk Ox recalls that band's acoustic side. So, terminology aside, campfire singalongs aren't at issue. Instead, pristinely picked acoustic guitars (think Nick Drake) meander through settings of piano, cello, wind instruments, and nature sounds (e.g., chirping crickets). Vocal ooh's and aah's float in at times. Normally, music this tonally static — it mines bog-standard major and minor scales — does not interest me. But this record is undeniably soothing. I have found myself returning to it often. One cannot subsist solely on blastbeats and blasphemy. Sometimes one should hear acoustic instruments played deliberately and melodiously.

- Cosmo Lee

Lullaby for Ghosts

Buy:
Amazon
Recordstore.co.uk
Message Musk Ox via MySpace

Riffage: S.O.D. - "Pussy Whipped"

The Hall of Fame album for this month's Decibel (#57, Summer Slaughter tour cover) is S.O.D.'s Speak English or Die. As a kid, I was blown away by Scott Ian's tone on it. In the HoF feature, Ian recalls, "My philosophy with Alex [Perialas, co-producer] was, we're gonna have the sickest guitar tone that anyone's ever heard on an album." To this day, it remains one of the mightiest sounds ever recorded.

Pussy Whipped

Nowhere was it mightier than "Pussy Whipped," a song which adolescent me found hilarious. Below is the tab for the opening riff. For the latter halves of the first and second bars, Ian shifts up to fourth and third position, respectively. (Live videos on YouTube are great aids for transcription. Here I referred to the video from Live at Budokan.) Palm mute the riff at first, then let it ring for its last two iterations. Have fun with finger, er, fist banging mania!

Nifelheim reissues: Self-Titled, Devil's Force

Regain has reissued Nifelheim's out-of-print first two records, Nifelheim (1994) and Devil's Force (1997). This is a good thing. The reissues feature non-destructive remastering, historical photos, liner notes by Metalion of Slayer magazine, and bonus tracks — "Die in Fire" from the In Conspiracy with Satan Bathory tribute and "Witches Sabbat," a Vulcano cover from the Headbangers Against Disco Vol. 2 7". As these reissues show, Nifelheim have always kicked ass. Avoiding the Norwegian "blastbeats and bees in a bucket" sound, these Swedes channel thrash and traditional metal. Thus, they write actual songs, with hooky melodies and ripping solos. Now that Devin Townsend has shaved his head, the brothers Gustavsson own metal's best skullets, and some of its best tunes.

Satanic Sacrifice (from Nifelheim)
The Final Slaughter (from Devil's Force)

Buy:
Amazon
Relapse
Hells Headbangers

Voivod giveaway

Voivod's new record Infini comes out today in the US (on Relapse) and Canada (on Sonic Unyon). It's my favorite of Voivod's Jason Newsted-era records, mainly because it lets reverb into the mix this time. The album rounds up the rest of the tunes that guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour (RIP) left on his laptop when he died. (2006's Katorz housed the first batch.) Voivod's prime was in the 20th century, but this is a fine swan song. I'm giving away a promo CD of Infini. For a chance to win, email invisibleoranges at gmail dot com by midnight EST, Thursday, June 25, with the subject header "Viva Voivod" and your full name and address. I will randomly choose a winner.

Global Warning

Buy:
Amazon
Relapse
The End
Sonic Unyon

Helmet - Betty

Helmet's Betty, which turned 15 yesterday, commanded my youthful obsessions in a manner since unmatched. I had the CD, the "Biscuits for Smut" CD single, and the gatefold 2x10" — even though I had no turntable. That hung above my TV. I pored over interviews with Page Hamilton and hung his Guitar World cover on my wall. For a school class, I made an animated video for "Beautiful Love." My bass playing style comes almost entirely from Henry Bogdan's on Betty. When other teenagers drove around, they blasted G-funk. I bumped Betty.

I Know
Tic

Most cite Meantime as Helmet's apex. This is understandable — "Unsung," its video, the striking artwork. But for me, Betty holds up better over time. Meantime worked through a sound, Helmet's trademark dropped-D roar. Betty turned that sound into actual songs. Its production was also better than Meantime's — big and crisp. John Stanier's snare was gloriously and insanely pitched up. Ting! How strange Betty was. It had dropped-D crushers, roiling funk tuned to A7 ("Biscuits for Smut"), mauled jazz ("Beautiful Love"), bluesy banjo ("Sam Hell"), and a Zappa-goes-funk bit ("The Silver Hawaiian"). To top things off, it had a hip-hop producer, T-Ray (who sampled Sabbath on Cypress Hill's "I Ain't Goin' Out like That" — see here).

Betty's best asset was its big bottom. It is probably the bounciest metal record ever made. The drum intro to "I Know" harkens back to Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks." People cite Pantera and Machine Head for groove metal, but Helmet out-grooved them all. Metalheads are justifiably leery of groove, as it often comes saddled with stupidity (e.g., rap metal, nu-metal). But Hamilton sings in Lydian mode on "Speechless," for Pete's sake. Nu-metallers don't do wolf-howl skronk like in "Tic"'s rideout. I don't know how a jazz musician found the restraint to play economical, downtuned metal, but it was one of the best things ever to happen to me.

- Cosmo Lee

Faith No More - The Real Thing

Faith No More's The Real Thing turns 20 tomorrow. 11 year-old me couldn't get enough of it. I listened to it constantly for probably about a year. Then I left it behind. It's not a "deep" record. Faith No More isn't a "deep" band. I wonder what Faith No More means to people. It's good they didn't stoop to obvious themes like love and politics. But they were so "out there" that it's difficult to imagine a deep personal connection with them other than nostalgia. This band was in that place at that time. For some reason, people want to hold on to that. The videos of Faith No More's reunion shows are painful. Mike Patton sounds out of breath. He can't hit notes like he used to. Nostalgia is a deadly force. It clouds one's judgment and lightens one's wallet. Now it also clogs Internet bandwidth.

Zombie Eaters
Woodpecker from Mars

Better, then, to remember Patton as a 21 year-old. What a voice! Even when it goes nasal and annoying, it's irresistible. Patton had soul. It's not the easily definable kind on actual soul records. He's definitely emoting — but about what? ("You want it all, but you can't have it / It's in your face, but you can't grab it / What is it?" I bet this is about lap dances.) I haven't figured out what any Faith No More songs are about, and I doubt many of the band's fans have, either. Faith No More didn't seem to be about anything other than Faith No More. They filled up minutes with weirdness, skewed aggression, and catchiness — starting with The Real Thing, anyway. The stuff before doesn't even compare. Anyone who defends the Chuck Mosley years is doing "the demo was better" posturing.

It's a trip hearing The Real Thing after so many years away from it. The bright and clean sound takes getting used to. What I seek in music has almost completely changed after 20 years. What an innocent time, when I could tolerate slap bass, not to mention keyboards in metal. (I recently wheeled out Angel Dust and was repulsed by its keyboard-smothered muck.) It's cool, though, to hear a snare drum actually sound like a snare drum. Most drums now are horrific aggregrations of triggers and compression. It's cool, too, to find that I still know the songs almost by heart. Patton sure could write a catchy vocal pattern. This record has many "moments" for me. I loved "Epic" so much that I transcribed its piano outro by ear. The acoustic intro to "Zombie Eaters" was one of the first things I learned on guitar. What do kids learn guitar to these days???

My final takeaway from The Real Thing is how Sabbath-esque it is. The influence isn't obvious, like how stoner bands detune now and play bluesy riffs. It's more in how chords sustain and certain matters of timing. You feel it more than than you hear it. The guitar in "Woodpecker from Mars" is total Sabbath. When after 10 songs, the cover of "War Pigs" rolls around, it makes complete sense. Talk about owning a song! Faith No More made it theirs. It's apt that Mike Bordin is playing the song behind Ozzy now. But, man, nostalgia. Enough is enough. My first girlfriend was great. She was perfect for me then. But not now. Au revoir, Simone. Au revoir, Faith No More.

- Cosmo Lee

Logo design contest

Invisible Oranges needs a new logo. It will be part of a much-needed overall redesign of the site. Here are the details.

1. Seeking: Power, symmetry, legibility from a distance. Some examples along these lines: Metallica, Testament, Immortal, Mayhem, Deathspell Omega. I prefer logos where the first and last letters are bigger than the rest. Design something that would look good on a t-shirt.


2. The logo shall contain the text "Invisible Oranges" and no other text. The words may reside next to each other horizontally, or be stacked vertically. Each word has an odd number of letters, which aids symmetry.


3. No pentagrams or upside-down crosses or other such jazz.


4. Design can be by hand or using software. Submissions shall be white on black, or black on white, in a .psd or hi-res .jpg file. Email submissions to invisibleoranges at gmail dot com with the subject header "Logo submission". The deadline is midnight EST, July 7 (7/7).


5. The winner gets $50 (and immortality on this site). That is not much, I know, but Manhattan was bought for not much more. I may choose a runner-up design as well, which will earn $25. Receipt of prize payment shall constitute a sale outright of the logo and all intellectual property rights associated with it.

Please forward this on to artistic/design-oriented folks.

Doomriders, Unearthly Trance @ Europa

Doomriders

On June 14, Club Europa hosted the BrooklynVegan-BBG Showcase, curated by brooklynvegan.com's Black Bubblegum. It should have been called Sludge Fest. The lineup featured Doomriders, Clouds, Sourvein, Unearthly Trance (replacing the injured Zoroaster), Javelina, Cough, Howl, Wetnurse, and Liturgy. I arrived during Howl's set. They justified their recent signing to Relapse with big riff after big riff. Some have groused about the label's move towards "beard metal" away from death metal and grindcore. Really, though, Relapse is so big now that it houses loads of all of the above.

Doomriders - The Long Walk
Unearthly Trance - In the Red

Europa has two floors, which meant running up and down stairs to catch overlapping sets. After Howl, I went downstairs to find Cough killing it. Just one guitarist — and with the no-stage, band-on-the-floor setup, I glimpsed him just once — but he sounded massive. It was total Eyehategod worship; it felt so good to feel bad. The bottom floor sounded much better than the top floor main stage.

I could only catch a few minutes of Cough, though, as Javelina began on the main stage. They unveiled new material that showed growth with proggier structures and more complex guitars. In Howl and Javelina, it was charming to hear a sound much like Mastodon's beginnings — sludge with metallic accents (guitar harmonies, etc.). While those bands can't write songs like Mastodon, they have remained true to the riff, and thus remain more viscerally satisfying.

Javelina

Clouds annoyed me even in soundcheck, so I escaped downstairs. There, Unearthly Trance were moving mountains and torching oceans. I saw them recently at Cake Shop, in a competent but chilly performance. This time, they were on fire. The tones were huge, the room was hot, and the band was "on." Unearthly Trance depend on factors beyond mere notes — noise, feedback, timing. Tonight they had complete control, switching sound on and off like a giant noise gate. Ryan Lipynsky howled as if impaled; Darren Verni cracked his snare like an enemy skull. Finale "In the Red" heaved with drums, screams, and sweat. The set required time to recover afterwards.

Doomriders finished off the night. They weren't at their best — I once saw them tear down the Pound in SF, shooting Motörhead and Thin Lizzy licks over the heads of hardcore kids — but they were professionals, and they did their job. Despite technical problems (broken string, broken strap), the band worked through new and old material to the visible delight of many. Ben Koller, frontman Nate Newton's bandmate in Converge, was watching. It was strange to see him sipping drinks and not committing domestic violence on drums. Such beatings this time came from Cave In's JR Conners. Most know Nate Newton as bassist for Converge, but tonight we glimpsed his other side: reincarnating the MC5 with much, much dirtier sound. The night covered us in filth, and we were glad.

- Cosmo Lee

Riffage: Foscor - "Searching a Seal of Pain"

Normally I don't do pre-release hype, but I want the world to know about Foscor's Groans to the Guilty. I've gushed about Foscor here and here, and judging from the promo trailer above, I will likely love the new record as well. The song in the trailer is called "Searching a Seal of Pain." It starts with a lovely riff in 6/4, tabbed out below. I'm not sure what to call it, except "gorgeous." (Gootar calls it "E add9 aug5 w5 no3.") It has sort of an Oriental sound. Slide the shape up and down three frets for the rest of the intro. According to the label, Temple of Darkness, the record comes out worldwide on June 28. (Two tracks from it are up on the band's MySpace.) I don't know what the distribution situation will be, so if you know anyone with a distro, tell them to contact Temple of Darkness to stock this dark material!

- Cosmo Lee

Shackles - Traitors' Gate

Traitors' Gate (Hells Headbangers, 2009) has the makings of a classic. The first and only record by Shackles, who broke up after releasing it, it is one of the finest examples of Australian thrash to date. Shackles share the German edge of compatriots Hobbs' Angel of Death and Deströyer 666, but are more melodic. (See also fellow countrymen Armoured Angel, another one-album wonder.) The result is often epic, with soaring leads and harmonies. But the intensity never flags; dig those insane drum beats kicking off "Iron Crosses" and the breakneck speed of "Exorcised Remains." Acoustic guitars often enrich the buzzsaw attack. These additions are organic, and in general the record shows much forethought and vision. Too bad these ended, but they did so while on top. This is a record for the ages.

- Cosmo Lee

Iron Crosses
Exorcised Remains

Buy:
CD
Gatefold LP
Picture Disc

Absu tickets giveaway

Absu

Booking tours must be a bitch now. People have less to spend, so it takes more to get them to come out. Tours now are often traveling festivals, with huge, multi-band packages. Cancellation by even one act can be disastrous. If the contract between venue and booker specifies performers by name, and the booker fails to provide one of them, then the booker has breached the contract. The contract must then be renegotiated. At least that is the thesis behind this account of the recent Blackened Fest debacle involving Mayhem.

The Cognate House of Courtly Witches...

Absu's current tour has also experienced upheaval. Dubbed "CIII," it was to showcase some of Candlelight's finest in black metal — Absu (reviewed here), Averse Sefira (interviewed here, reviewed here), and Glorior Belli (reviewed here). Averse Sefira and Glorior Belli dropped off the bill for various reasons. Now Absu is touring with Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, a middling thrash band not even on Candlelight, and Sothis, a band whose live set once literally put me to sleep. This show begs for late arrival.

That is the cup half-empty. The cup half-full is (1) fewer bands means an earlier bedtime, and (2) the headliner still makes the show worthwhile — the way shows originally were. I am excited to see Proscriptor McGovern do his Phil Collins sing/drum routine behind the kit. Can he keep up vocals over the awesome clatter of songs from Tara? Reports from Maryland Deathfest say yes. The new Absu merch people have been sporting looks sweet also.

For a chance to win a pair of tickets to the Absu show this Sunday, 6/21, at B.B. King's in NYC, email invisibleoranges at gmail dot com by midnight EST on Thursday, 6/18, with the subject header "Six pack Absu" and your full name. I will choose a winner randomly.

Obituary - Slowly We Rot

Getting it right the first time means it's only downhill from there. On Slowly We Rot, which turned 20 yesterday, Obituary not only found their sound, but nailed it shut. The record answered the question of what Celtic Frost would sound like playing death metal. Grumbling trudges, thrashy rave-ups, and whammified solos formed half the album. John Tardy's vocals made up the rest. Only Martin van Drunen and early Chuck Schuldiner were as vicious. This record had it all - great riffs, great songs, great performances, great sound. Morrisound productions were hit or miss; this one was a bull's-eye. Sludge and speed made a beast with two backs. The title track's tolling bell evoked "Hells Bells." Touches of flange gave "'Til Death" extra morbidity. Since Slowly We Rot, Obituary have chased its holy grail with various lead guitarists and production approaches. The results have been reminders of how the first time was the best.

- Cosmo Lee

Slowly We Rot
'Til Death

1349 - Revelations of the Black Flame

What happened??? Revelations of the Black Flame (Candlelight, 2009) has nine tracks. Four are ambient interludes. One is a six-minute intro. One is a Pink Floyd cover. (Evidently Americans aren't the only black metallers indulging their "psychedelic influences.") The three remaining tracks are metal, but two mine a sort of blackened doom. ("Serpentine Sibilance" is basically a slow rewrite of "Nathicana" from Hellfire.) That leaves one track sounding like 1349. Once synonymous with balls out black metal, they have gone soft.

Serpentine Sibilance
Nathicana (from Hellfire)
Misanthropy

Exploration is fine. Hidebound music like black metal needs it. But 1349 don't even seem to like exploring. Mired in ambient fluff and sludginess, they sound tired. Black metal is music of dedication. However monochromatic earlier efforts might have been, they exuded dedication — to speed, intensity, and making the most of limited ingredients. As later Satyricon albums show, drummer Frost is more suited for high speeds than low ones. When he gears down, he plods, with little sense of groove.

The sad thing is, this record shines sometimes. The ambient interludes are sometimes interesting. Riffs are more memorable now, partly because there are so few of them. But this record seems thrown together with no regard for momentum. Intro, metal, interlude, metal, interlude, metal, Pink Floyd cover, interlude, interlude — this type of excess is normally reserved for hip hop. Was this record a contractual obligation? No songs from it are on the band's MySpace. Do they realize it's a dog? For an interesting take on the record by Tom G. Warrior, see here.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Amazon (CD)
Candlelight (CD)
Interpunk (CD, LP)

Suffocation is love

Can I just say how much I love metal right now? In the past 12 hours, I've watched a metal DVD, written three metal reviews, transcribed three metal interviews, and written two metal magazine features - and I still can't get enough. A big part of my renewed metallic vows is the new Suffocation record, Blood Oath. It doesn't come out until next month, but the band is already selling it on the Summer Slaughter tour, and I'm sure it's already leaked all over the Internet. One of my stereo speakers broke recently, and even through one speaker (i.e., with only one guitar), the record still kicks ass.

Cataclysmic Purification
Frank Mullen talks about his vocals

I hardly get fanboy-ish about bands anymore, but interviewing Suffocation for a feature still has me jelly-like inside. Never in my life did I imagine I would get to talk to Frank Mullen and Mike Smith, both heroes to me on their respective instruments. Mullen's voice is one of this earth's finest things. When we missed our original interview time and he left me a voicemail - I'll keep that thing on my phone until it dies. Above is "Cataclysmic Purification," the first "single" from the album, as well as a clip of Mullen talking about his vocal techniques (which are kind of like Martin van Drunen's - i.e., none). Hearing that Long Island accent practically makes me weep.

Blood Oath comes out July 14, and you can pre-order it with all sorts of goodies, including a t-shirt, poster, and frickin' trading cards. Remember RockCards? When I collected them as a kid, all I seemingly got were fucking Bon Jovi cards. Multiple Tico Torres trading cards = FAIL. Suffocation trading cards are infinitely cooler.

- Cosmo Lee

Pre-order "Limited Blood Red Edition" here.

Metal Blade reissues: Primordial, Amon Amarth

The recession seems not to have affected Metal Blade. In the first half of this year, the label had 29 releases, compared to 23 and 19 in the first halves of 2008 and 2007, respectively. Partnerships with Ironclad (label of Unearth's Trevor Phipps), Blackmarket Activities (label of The Red Chord's Guy Kozowyk), and Rise Above have swelled the label's roster. Metal Blade now also signs anything that moves and can play tightly. The result is a bewildering profusion in which Moss and I Killed the Prom Queen both carry the Metal Blade nameplate. Of course, the label still has blue chips like Cannibal Corpse and Goatwhore. But now it carries loads of metalcore dreck with limited shelf life. Will excessive growth dilute the Metal Blade brand?

Primordial - Infernal Summer
Amon Amarth - Metalwrath

The label has exercised restraint in one area, though: reissues. (It is probably too busy looking forward to look backward.) Metal Blade seems to release reissues only for occasions like anniversaries, or to reintroduce deleted classics. Two such reissues this year are Primordial's Imrama (1995) and Amon Amarth's The Avenger (1999). Imrama suffered a limited release on a small label, and will reach many for the first time this time. The debut found Primordial working its Celtic roots through a black metal framework. Primitive yet powerful, it was a fine start for one of the finest metal bands of today. (You can read a good interview with vocalist Alan Averill about Imrama here.) The Avenger is less obscure. A fine slab of Viking-themed death metal, it was the band's first record with its current lineup. The reissue comes with a second disc of the original album played live in its entirety — pointless but charming. Times are tough, and time is precious. If Metal Blade's blitz of new releases confuses you, these reissues should serve you well for a while.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Metal Blade (CD, MP3)
Primordial - Amazon (MP3)
Amon Amarth - Amazon (MP3)

The heaviest band on earth (almost)

Cazares, Hoglan, Stroud

When Fear Factory announced that guitarist Dino Cazares and singer Burton C. Bell had reunited alongside bassist Byron Stroud and drummer Gene Hoglan, the interwebs went apeshit. If Black Sabbath are the gold standard of intra-band drama, Fear Factory are C-list tabloid fodder. Personally, I am curious as to what this lineup will produce. Fear Factory's reputation has long been in the gutter, and Cazares and co. know this is probably the band's last gasp. In honor of this reunion, and also the new, not-that-good Terminator flick, here's "H-K (Hunter-Killer)" from 1995's Demanufacture.

H-K (Hunter-Killer)

What really excites me, though, is the sheer heaviness of this lineup. I once put together a fantasy all-star band that would be the heaviest band on earth. It would have Dino Cazares and Karl Sanders on guitars, Vrangsinn of Carpathian Forest on bass, Gene Hoglan on drums, and either Robert Smith or B.B. King on vocals. (Hoglan is famous for his size, but people don't realize how goddamn tall he is, too. When he walks into a room, it gets darker. He blocks that much light. It is amazing to behold.) Vrangsinn would never play with such a lineup, though. Stroud, a strapping young lad, would be a perfect replacement. Thus, Fear Factory are 3/5 of the way to being the heaviest band on earth. One wag on Blabbermouth remarked that on the band's upcoming tour, the Europeans would have to reinforce their stages. Let's hope Fear Factory get tour support, as they might have to pay baggage fees just to get on the plane.

- Cosmo Lee

Metal Price Watch

Here is a cool idea: Metal Price Watch, a site that compares prices across distros (41 currently). Enter, say, Amon Amarth's The Avenger into the search fields, and you get a listing of distros that carry it, along with their prices. There is also a small used album section. Right now the site is basically unusable, as it does not account for shipping costs, which can make or break a transaction. (eBay, by comparison, has this functionality.) Additionally, it does not list the locations of distros, a vital shipping detail. Finally, it lacks some key distros, like All That Is Heavy, FMP, Hells Headbangers, and Moribund Cult. However, the site promises to fix the first two problems, as well as add new distros. Market-wide price transparency can only help consumers, so this site is one to watch.

Glorior Belli - Meet Us at the Southern Sign

In 2005, Glorior Belli made a raw, promising debut in Ô Laudate Dominvs. Two years later, they polished their sound on the bland Manifesting the Raging Beast (reviewed here). Now the French outfit redeems itself with one of this year's more intriguing black metal records. The production is still precious, but vocalist/guitarist Infestvvs seems to be inspired by his other band, Obscurus Advocam. Thus, mid-paced trudges abound, with occasional blastbeat passages. Songs unfold carefully and patiently; the first track waits four minutes before tipping its blastbeat hand.

Swamp That Shame
In Every Grief-Stricken Blues

High-end information is also plentiful, and it favors blue notes, flatted thirds and fifths. As a result, songs are diabolically hooky. "Swamp That Shame" almost dances, it is so catchy. The heavy-lidded singing of "In Every Grief-Stricken Blues" could be Alice in Chains in corpsepaint. That seems like an awful prospect, but it somehow works.

Glorior Belli vs. Depeche Mode
Glorior Belli vs. Chuck Berry

Its title hints at one of this record's surprising influences. "There Is But One Light" opens with bluesy, bent notes; compare with another unexpected context, Depeche Mode's "I Feel You." (I've slowed down the latter to the same key.) The break in "Fires of the Sitra Ahra" evokes the intro to Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," of all things. It's a small gesture - ringing fourths on the top strings - and perhaps the reference is unintentional. But even so, it's further evidence that the blues are hardwired into metal. Even the album title suggests the blues motifs of the crossroads and the devil. But the best exploration of these themes is still 1986's Crossroads, featuring Steve Vai and Karate Kid Ralph Macchio. If necessary, YouTube or preferably Netflix should get you up to speed.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Amazon
Candlelight
Plastic Head

Anvil! The Story of Anvil (film)

Anvil! The Story of Anvil is sort of a metal version of Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler: '80s pop culture icon gives way to '90s irrelevance, which gives rise to an attempted comeback this century. It even has a service industry hairnet scene. Both movies are more than the heartwarming stories they are made out to be. Anvil's tale has even more bite, due to it being real life.

Metal on Metal

The documentary gets off to an unpromising start. It shows the band down and out, playing to tiny audiences, with fans that embody the worst of metalhead stereotypes. Thankfully, this is not a typical portrayal by outsiders that exoticizes or mocks metal. It is also not the uncritical, for-fans-only pap that fills many metal DVD's today. Rather, it is a film about people. Metal happens to be the context.

Anvil frontman "Lips" Ludlow is incredibly candid and honest throughout. In fact, he is much more compelling as a civilian than as a musician. (Granted, the filmmakers focus more on his person than his music.) While Anvil may have been influential in their prime, it's easy to see why they didn't enjoy the success of contemporaries like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Priest, too, had lyrics with seventh-grade sexual humor, but they also had Rob Halford's mighty pipes and an incomparable twin axe attack. Anvil had neither. They tried to compensate with hard work, but, as the film points out, bad management can ruin everything.

Photo by Brent J. Craig

For all of Anvil's shortcomings, their degree of misfortune is still shocking. Now that old-school metal is hip again, it's bewildering to see them get rejected by label after label as they try to stage a comeback. This Is Thirteen, the record they shopped around when the documentary was made, sounds like a million bucks, thanks to production by Chris Tsangarides (Judas Priest, Biomechanical). It actually cost 12 or 13,000 pounds; some of the movie's most heartbreaking moments come when the band members grapple with this expense. Interestingly, their families are not all supportive. Some believe in these men's right to pursue their dreams. Others view the matter with colder, more practical eyes.

Unlike Metallica in Some Kind of Monster, these men have little to lose and are thus easy to cheer for. But is "the right to rock" a constitutional right? These men have families and responsibilities, and they put themselves into situations where being in a band, especially one like Anvil, is potentially injurious not only to themselves but also others. The movies always tell us to pursue our dreams. Pursuing one's dreams is the best reason for getting up in the morning. But when is enough enough?

Ironically, Anvil have delayed that point for a while with this film. It is the best possible publicity for the band, with more reach than a hundred publicists could provide. Now anyone who walks into the right movie theater (which now is a higher probability than with a record store) can see and hear Anvil. Additionally, Anvil's inability to secure a record deal may have prolonged their longevity. Instead of being indentured to a label, they financed and sold This Is Thirteen themselves. Thus, they cut out the middlemen and keep all the profits. Their fans, who are older, are more likely to buy CD's than to download the album. It was almost a brilliant move. That is, until I went to their website to buy the CD. It costs 20 euros or 25 Canadian dollars, currently approximately 22 US dollars. Evidently, the band still lacks good management.

- Cosmo Lee

Links:
Band website
Band MySpace
Movie website

Maryland Deathfest '09

Homemade shirt Photo by Skullgal

I am no fan of festivals, metal or otherwise. Large crowds annoy me. Expensive tickets annoy me. Dilettantism, which multiplicity encourages, annoys me. I prefer my experiences intense and intimate, not diluted and truncated. Yet Maryland Deathfest 2009 lured me with an eye-popping lineup, including Hail of Bullets, Mayhem, and Bolt Thrower, who last played the US 15 years ago. The festival was uplifting, if unintentionally through adversity. Being a metalhead requires work. MDF '09 certainly required work.

Asphyx - Vermin

The addition of an outdoor stage this year introduced a new element: the sun. The only time "sunlight" belongs with metal is with "Studio" after it. Any band that played in the sun had no vibe, as well as poor sound. Big acts sounded like mud outside, while inside the adjacent club, smaller acts sounded killer. (Misery Index and Withered had particularly vicious sound.) With temperatures reaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit, even shade was no refuge. Everyone clustered inside, competing for air. Rotten Sound got off to a blistering start, but I soon became lightheaded and had to step outside.

Despite the heat, metalheads did not flag in wearing black. (See the above killer handmade shirt.) Merch was one of the festival's most impressive aspects. Merch booths flanked the venue inside and outside; two rooms of merch tables lay inside, one thankfully fan-cooled. Festival-goers used these rooms for respite and socializing. Most people had selective schedules, often hand-scrawled on paper. See this band at this time, then that band afterwards. Take a break and leave the venue for food. Only the foolhardy would intake ten consecutive hours of grindcore and death metal.

Rotten Sound Photo by Carmelo Española

Choosing one's battles and pacing oneself yielded rewards. Headliners Bolt Thrower delivered in spectacular fashion. This, ironically, was due to the un-spectacular-ness of their music. Amid such large spaces and iffy sound, anything technical or speedy lost impact past fifty feet. Thus, Cattle Decapitation and Pig Destroyer came off harmlessly. Immolation's blastbeats were inaudible. Bolt Thrower, however, played a ground game of mostly mid-paced eighth notes. Heads nodded and fists pumped to simple beats. The show felt like a down-tuned version of AC/DC. This rolled back over 20 years of technical advancements in death metal, but, hey, less is more.

The best example of such atavism was Asphyx. The Dutch death metallers somehow had brilliant sound outside. Guitars pumped out mammoth, if pedestrian, old-school death metal. The drummer was wobbly, a dangerous weakness for any metal band. Even so, Asphyx had the festival's best set. The sole reason was Martin van Drunen (interviewed here), who after seemingly 10 million years — his countenance seemed pickled from years of drinking, and his grey-streaked hair made him sort of a metal version of Gloria Steinem — still has one of metal's most lethal instruments: his voice. Low end is common in death growls, but van Drunen adds midrange bite on top. The result sounds like a large, wounded animal. Who cared if Asphyx's songs all sounded the same? I could have listened to van Drunen howl for hours.

Victories like this were plentiful, as were losses. (Atheist was the most unintentionally hilarious band I've ever seen. I have not laughed so hard in a while.) Recounting them is probably best left for war stories among witnesses. As time passes, details will fade. What's left is the overall feeling — being among metalheads, thousands of them, and eating, sleeping, and breathing metal for days. While in line for tickets, I saw some locals take pictures of metalheads, in a kind of reverse tourism. The metalhead in front of me said that in an alternate universe, metalheads would be normal, and squares would be freaks. For a few days, Maryland Deathfest was that universe.

- Cosmo Lee

See two other compelling accounts of MDF '09 here and here.

One man stands

Photo by Jeff Widener

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. (See this interview with the photographer of the above photo.) Thrash metal, back when it had a conscience, responded to the event. One year later, songs inspired by it appeared on three thrash albums: Anthrax's Persistence of Time, Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss, and Testament's Souls of Black. These songs - "One Man Stands," "Blood Red," and "Seven Days of May" - are underrated gems. When the nuclear winter that thrash predicted finally occurs, perhaps these songs will survive to show that metal stood for something.

Anthrax - One Man Stands
Slayer - Blood Red
Testament - Seven Days of May

This post is one of many observances of the occasion. And to what end? China still suppresses dissent, now through technology. The world looked the other way for the Beijing Olympics. The US wrings its hands, then unclasps them to do business with its "most favored nation" trading partner. Now the US in the thrall of China's monetary policy. What good are songs against guns and money?

- Cosmo Lee

Stinking Lizaveta @ Cake Shop

Bands that exude joy are rare. Even if music is supposed to be "joyful," all too often its execution isn't. Technical difficulties plague shows; personal differences get in the way of music. These small details can turn hot gigs into merely warm ones.

Thus, Stinking Lizaveta completely surprised me at New York's Cake Shop last Saturday. This instrumental trio's music isn't particularly upbeat. Sacrifice and Bliss (At a Loss, 2009), their latest full-length, is actually somewhat dark. Its tart abstraction suggests a drier Dysrhythmia (whose Kevin Hufnagel was in the crowd that night).

A Day Without a Murder

Live, though, this Philly outfit had a blast. The crowd couldn't help but do so, too. Every so often guitarist Yanni Papadopoulos would yell "Whoo!" into the microphone. It was an expression of pure joy. Sometimes he lifted his axe to his lips and yelled into its pickups, just because he could. It was easy to see why he teaches for Paul Green's School of Rock. He is a shredder, but not the traditional sort. No poncey sweep picking for him - he earns his notes the old-fashioned way, one note at a time. His pick-melting power suggested an updated version of Dick Dale. Papadopoulos was all over the place - climbing on chairs, amps, anything that could be climbed. At one point, he unplugged his cord and banged out rhythms with its tip. At another, he handed his guitar to a startled crowd member, who smeared the strings while Papadopoulos whipped up an exuberant torrent of effects. Smiles sprouted up all around.

Cheshire Agusta was one of the best drummers I have ever seen, in any genre of music. I have seen Bernard Purdie, Dave Lombardo, Dave Grohl, Neil Peart, and Jimmy Chamberlin play, and Agusta is their equal in terms of making a room move. Her crisp kineticism reminds me of Brann Dailor without the overplaying. Since Papadopoulous was hopping around the room, and his brother Alexi worked through lines incognito on electric upright bass, Agusta held the center down. Everyone else seemed to agree; cameras constantly targeted her. There is still some novelty in a female drummer. (See this great interview with Agusta on the topic.) Agusta didn't seem to notice. She was fully inside the music, constantly talking with her eyes with her bandmates. Yet they executed tricky stop-time arrangements seemingly with eyes closed. I was spellbound.

Stinking Lizaveta's website quotes Kurt Vonnegut: "Anybody practicing the fine art of composing music, no matter how cynical or greedy or scared, still can't help serving all humanity. Music makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it." That night, the band didn't talk this talk; it walked its walk.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Relapse
The End
All That Is Heavy
Blue Collar Distro

Dirty black summer

Summer draws nigh, bearing gifts of black metal. Metal release dates are notoriously moving targets, but here are some educated guesses. (These are mostly US release dates.)

This week brings new records from 1349, Glorior Belli, Necrophobic, Kult ov Azazel (with their best album yet), and Hiems. The latter, titled Worship or Die, may be the top black metal album this year. It is really something special. Moribund lists today as the release date, but Amazon says June 30.

Kult ov Azazel - Storm the Gates

A new Shining record is due out on June 15. Goatwhore and Foscor have new ones out on June 23 and 28, respectively. The Goatwhore one is smoking. Klabautamann has a new record out on June 23. Hells Headbangers lists new full-lengths from Havohej and Destruktor this month. The AJNA Offensive has the new Katharsis CD soon (the LP is already out), with the new Weapon on the way.

Lithuania's Argharus have a new record out on July 6 (so says the label; band says 6/6). July 14 is a big day, with new releases by Drudkh, Destroyer 666, Bethlehem, Anaal Nathrakh, and a live CD/DVD from Carpathian Forest. On July 21, Metal Blade reissues Valkyrja's fine full-length from two years ago.

And that's just June and July. August's crystal ball remains cloudy, though a new full-length from Imperium Dekadenz is imminent. Feel free to post updates and corrections in the comments. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? It's grim and hell is hot.

Riffage: Danzig - "Dirty Black Summer"

John Christ

One of my favorite riffs of all time comes from Danzig's "Dirty Black Summer," off 1992's Danzig III: How the Gods Kill. Danzig wrote the song, but credit goes to John Christ for playing it in, um, godlike fashion. It is quite simple, in standard tuning (hallelujah!). To get the full effect, do a pick squeal on the last note (G string, 5th fret), with a slide back up to the first note (A string, 7th fret). (You can see Christ do the slide in the rather awful video.) That D string 4th fret note is also ripe for vibrato. Details like these add "grease" and "soul." Where did Christ go, anyway??? ("He is risen" is not an answer.) And can anyone point me to a free online tab generator?

- Cosmo Lee

Danzig - Dirty Black Summer

Sodom - Agent Orange

Happy 20th birthday, Agent Orange. Evidently, it is the best-selling German thrash record ever. In Germany alone, it shifted over 100,000 copies. 99% of metal albums now don't put up those kinds of numbers worldwide! Agent Orange's secret weapon was guitarist Frank Blackfire. He made it and its predecessor Persecution Mania unstoppable thrashing machines. (In this interview, he says he wrote most of the music.) For Sodom, everyone rates In the Sign of Evil, but I prefer Blackfire's machine gun of a picking hand. (He then contributed its attack to Kreator's Coma of Souls.) Plus, Agent Orange has bad-ass artwork by Andreas Marschall with Knarrenheinz, my favorite metal mascot next to Motörhead's Snaggletooth. Harris Johns' production is also killer. The record's anti-war sentiment is still too relevant: "This album is dedicated to all people - soldiers and civilians - who died by senseless aggressions of wars all over the world." Long live Agent Orange, rest in peace Chris Witchhunter.

- Cosmo Lee

Agent Orange
Exhibition Bout

Hava Nagila

"Hava Nagila" is one of my favorite songs of all time. It is cute yet dark, with its sinuous Phrygian Dominant tonality. I won't get into the history of the song, as a Google search will take care of that. I will, however, direct you to the first ever recording of "Hava Nagila," from 1922. Note how slow it is, in comparison to the breakneck speeds I experienced at a (half) Jewish wedding - see here.

Hava Nagila (Idelsohn, 1922)

The song has been covered a thousand ways 'til Saturday, in a thousand different styles. Even Elvis took it on (badly). The metal versions of "Hava Nagila" I've heard are all charmingly bad. See, for example, this Polish nu-metal version. Sonata Arctica slipped it into the end of their For the Sake of Revenge live album. The quote isn't long enough to warrant sharing, plus you should avoid Sonata Arctica anyway, so just take my word for it.

Anthrax - I'm the Man '91
Little Dead Bertha - Hava Nagila
Boney Nem - Heavy Nagila

Two Three metal versions are worth sharing, though. The first is "I'm the Man '91," from Anthrax's Attack of the Killer B's. It isn't a cover per se; it uses the "Hava Nagila" riff in a tongue-in-cheek reference to the band's Jewish members. It is also the worst thing Anthrax has ever done (which is saying a lot). Almost as bad is a cover by Russian goth/prog metal band Little Dead Bertha. It actually starts out kind of cool, like a Spaghetti Western. But then it goes into big, dumb power chords, like a Great Kat song minus the shredding. Last is a crazy thrash send-up by Russian parody metallers Boney Nem. It reminds me of Korpiklaani on steroids. Thanks to reader Petya for the tip!

The best cover ever of "Hava Nagila" is in Hindi, set to insane Bollywood-style dance routines. See above. I have lost count of how many times I have watched this slice of heaven.

Invisible Oranges alumni

As You Drown Photo by Anton Hedberg

In the early days of this site, I scoured MySpace looking for unsigned bands to review. Now that (a) I do Decibel's demo column, and (b) I am deluged with signed releases, demos have become a low priority here. There is just too much crap out there. MySpace has killed off "the legendary demo." If an unsigned band has enough potential, its MySpace numbers will attract labels. (Well, most of the time. Belladonna, whom I reviewed here, have garnered over one million profile views, and they're still unsigned.) The market inefficiencies that gave rise to "obscure bands" are long gone. With MySpace, no band is obscure. (Except for Pavor, who are willfully obscure (though they cannot escape the fan MySpace) and willfully awesome.)

Scale the Summit - The Great Plains
As You Drown - Open Wound Salvation

Thus, it's a trip revisiting the archives of the "self-released" tag here. A good number of demo bands here have gotten signed. The most high-profile one is probably instru-metal band Scale the Summit. I reviewed their demo three years ago and said, "Tighten up the performances, boys, and you'll be well on your way." (I can't believe I once wrote like that.) Tighten up they did, and now they have a great record, Carving Desert Canyons, out on Prosthetic.

As You Drown are now heavy hitters, too. When I reviewed their demo two years ago, they were called Ethereal. (Naming themselves is not their forte.) They have a new full-length, Reflection, coming out on Metal Blade on July 7. It has incredibly crappy Photoshop artwork (de rigueur, it seems, for big metal label releases), but otherwise it's modern death metal done right: precise, powerful, and not too technical. Some of you may remember "Open Wound Salvation," with its "AM radio effect" intro, from the demo review.

Other prominent Invisible Oranges alumni are Altar of Plagues (Profound Lore), Crown the Lost (Cruz del Sur), and Romans (Blackmarket Activities). Really, I'm proud of any demo band here that goes on to bigger and better things. Getting signed is not the end-all-be-all of being in a band - see Steve Albini's "The Problem With Music," which is about major labels, but increasingly applies to indie labels as they act more and more like major labels (hello, 360 deals!), and is essential reading for anyone even remotely interested in the record industry. In fact, as Devin Townsend says in Working Class Rock Star (reviewed here), "Getting signed is sometimes the death of a band." But for many bands, it's a legitimate goal, and I'm glad this site can do its small part in helping them get there.

Below is a fairly complete list of Invisible Oranges alumni (not counting those originally reviewed in Decibel's demo column, which include Howl and Revocation, both on Relapse; Vindicator, on Heavy Artillery (which I predicted - it's fun to play A&R), and The Konsortium, on Agonia), along with their current labels.

- Cosmo Lee

Invisible Oranges alumni

Altar of Plagues - Profound Lore
As You Drown - Metal Blade
Brave - Femme Metal
Crown the Lost - Cruz del Sur
Digression Assassins - Ampire
Eibon - Aesthetic Death
Gloomy Grim - Anticulture
Gwynbleidd - BlackCurrant
Maitreya - Vici Solum
Obscene Gesture - Xtreem
Romans - Blackmarket Activities
Scale the Summit - Prosthetic
Scythian - Necroterror
Vougan - Soundholic

Trap Them, Victims @ Lit Lounge

Trap Them

Curran Reynolds' Precious Metal weekly is Manhattan's epicenter of underground metal. But it's even better for music that ends in "-core." The best metal is big and grand; the best "-core" is in-your-face. Lit Lounge's basement, where Precious Metal takes place, is a narrow, dimly-lit grotto. It could be someone's wine cellar. The performance space is the size of a living room. Sparks can fly in such an enclosure - see Landmine Marathon's recent incendiary gig, reviewed here. Hardcore outfits and Deathwish, Inc. labelmates Trap Them and Victims, coming off triumphant sets at Maryland Deathfest, laid waste to the Lit last Monday.

Trap Them - Guignol Serene
Victims - Killing

Trap Them seemed slightly weary. They were merely ballistic instead of their typical nuclear explosion. Frontman Ryan McKenney, already wiry and intense, sported feral facial hair. He did that old Buddy Guy trick of using a long cord and running into the crowd to get into the faces of those in back. Guitarist Brian Izzi coolly deployed death 'n' roll, d-beat bends, and doomy sludge. The surprise star was the rhythm section. Bassist Steve Lacour stroked and strangled his strings with the fervor of back-alley sex. Jeff Lohrber bashed his kit with visible glee. He was not as technical as predecessor Mike Justian, but his rough-hewn style hit just as hard. Napalm Death's Barney Greenway was in attendance as just another head-nodding, air-guitaring punter. Ever the professional, he gently repositioned Lacour's mic stand when it fell askew.

Sweden's Victims were that rare thing - a band whose every member is fun to watch. The bassist/vocalist was gruff and focused. One guitarist was shirtless, slightly nerdy, and sweatily inspirational. Every so often, he would yell, "Come on!" The other guitarist was a complete spazz, brandishing his axe in a thousand positions, threatening the safety of those nearby (and that of his guitar). The drummer was very tall and dwarfed his kit. Together, they presented total Discharge/Motörhead worship. That is usually not my thing. But the presentation was so genuine and the songs were so catchy that I gave in. Sometimes a good beat is all one needs. The band's barreling two-steps cried out for "pickin' up change" dances. Fortunately, no one gave in to the temptation.

- Cosmo Lee

Links:
Victims
Trap Them
Deathwish, Inc.

The glorious pile-on

Last Monday's Victims gig reminded me of how much fun hardcore shows could be - especially without karate-kicking idiots. Yet it brought back memories of Sick of It All's "Step Down," the classic video cataloguing hardcore dances: The Windmill, The Pizzamaker, and my favorite, Pickin' Up Change. It's strange how humans react to music in such stylized ways. (If you get me drunk enough, I will do the Top 10 Techno Dances by Germans for you.) This video needs a metal equivalent, for headbanging. Calling Amon Amarth!

Funeral Mist - Maranatha

Funeral Mist's Maranatha (Norma Evangelium Diaboli/AJNA Offensive, 2009) has been called everything from worst to best album of the year. The truth probably lies in between. Maranatha picks up where its predecessor, Salvation, left off - specifically Side B, a melange of varied speeds and orchestral and choral samples. Maranatha fleshes out this diversity with startling clarity for black metal. Songs now have actual riffs and are individually discernible. Orchestras and choirs dot songs more organically now. An unnamed drummer contributes wobbly timekeeping, but Arioch's vocals are expressive and grotesque à la Attila Csihar. The result is less predictable and hard-hitting than Arioch's main gig, Marduk.

Jesus Saves!

Perhaps more interesting than the music is its theology. (See discussions of the word "Maranatha" here and here.) Like other Noevdia releases, this one is quasi-religious, with Christian trappings (choirs, Latin language, supplicatory lyrics) but substituting Satan for God as the deity of choice. (The use of Latin in Catholicism and the elitism prevalent in black metal are flip sides of the same coin.) "Jesus Saves!" has this curious line: "...And the sun of falsehood shall shine with trust from the depths of Satan in the name of God." Appropriately, the artwork on the facing page depicts a goat-headed woman holding a cross. Portuguese black metal act Corpus Christii also posits this conflation of Satan and God. Whether or not it makes sense, at least it's not the typical pentagram-festooned cliché.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
The End (CD)
AJNA Offensive (CD)
Hells Headbangers (LP)

Interview: Early Graves

Makh Daniels, Early Graves Photo by Stacy Schrag

In the April '09 issue of Decibel (#54, Brutal Truth cover, order here), I did a feature on how the recession is affecting touring bands. I sent 20 bands a five-question interview regarding various aspects of band finances. Their responses were remarkably uniform. However, Makh Daniels, vocalist of Early Graves (San Francisco's answer to Trap Them; I reviewed their We: The Guillotine here), gave by far the most colorful responses. Here is his interview in its entirety.

- Cosmo Lee

Safety Net Acrobats

How has the tanking economy affected your band and you personally? What is your day job, if you have one?

Since I started touring heavily back in '06, I have had something [like] over 30 jobs. Usually office admin kinda stuff, but there's been barback stuff and waiting tables and shit like that. Back then it wasn't that hard to find a job, but it's funny you mention the job thing, 'cause for the past month I've been looking for pretty much ANYTHING. The economy is just the biggest turd right now. Any time there's a job interview - and mind you, I have a pretty good résumé - there's like 10,000 goddamn people who've applied for it before you and have master's degrees in physics and psychology who are way over-qualified snatching my data entry or receptioning position. That's how bad it is. Those people are just scrambling and taking whatever they can get, which leaves the people like me, who forsaked [sic] being a college dude/jobber/chump to go tour, without any real options. I might get a job at my friend's bar being a bouncer, so that might be tight. Of course, I'll lose the job once the next tour pops up, but hopefully it'll get some debt taken care of.

When gas was $4/gallon, how did that affect touring? Now that gas has dropped to $2/gallon, how has that affected touring?

Man, back when gas was $4 a gallon, it was nearly impossible to have a successful tour without tipping in and out of the red. It seemed like the only smart thing to do was share a van with another band on the tour. Food was always free 'cause people we stayed with would cook up somethin' hella good, or we'd just lift groceries from Wal-Mart. I don't really know how much it cost per week/month for the other shit, but $100 wouldn't even fill the tank, ya know? Someone [was] always having to dig into whatever little bit of savings they had and have nothing when they got back home. It was so fucked up. During some of the worst parts of the touring cycles, when we didn't have any money for gas, and we were stuck in Knownothingtownfuckthisplace, North Carolina, we'd get all drunk and go to church parking lots, creep up to their "Christ is risen!" missionary vans and siphon all their gas and shit. Kinda fucked up, but whatever. I think we even mentioned boosting their fucking tires, too, but we're all, like, "Naw naw naw, what if the tires don't fit? Fuck all that! Hella work!"

But since it's dropped to $2 gallons, it's been, like, unbelievably successful tours. And I mean for us "successful" means not having to come out of pocket. We'd be sitting in the van after a few weeks of touring, looking at all the money we had in the cash box and just straight up STARING [at] it. I mean, there wasn't hella of it or anything, but the fact that there was even ANY money in the cash box made us all, like, "Is this real? Are we actually making money on this tour? WTF?! Has someone been kickin' it with Rumpel-fucking-stiltskin?!" Ya know? But seriously, [I'm] so glad that gas is super low now. You can actually buy some shit without trippin' hella hard.

Have people been buying less merch in the past year or two?

For some reason, people have been really buyin' tons of merch. I think it might be because we have shark mouths and nuns grabbing each other's butts on our shirts, but I don't know. The shows have been really good as of late. I don't really know what that means [as] far as the economy goes, but maybe it's the same as bars being prosperous during times of recession. Maybe it's worth it enough for people to get out of the daily grind of their lives and headbang and smoke a buncha weed and shotgun beers with some shitheads from SF. Who fuckin' knows, though?

Has your label's promotion budget decreased, or the amount of royalties you get? Are you seeing any money from paid downloads (iTunes, Amazon, etc.)?

Well, Ironclad/Metal Blade put out our records, do the distribution, give us a budget to record, and get the word out via press agents, so they do what they are supposed to, and I can't really expect that much more from them. So the budget has increased a bit mainly 'cause the record sales are doin' OK, so they don't really need to cut back anything (at least I hope not). As far as royalties: LOLOLOLOLOL. Being in bands like this, you usually don't see a dime til' like 10 years later, so I'm not holding my breath. Haven't really been seeing any money from iTunes or Amazon, but who knows. Maybe it's in a Swiss bank account somewhere.

Do you/your bandmates have health insurance?

I personally have medical insurance but...let's just say...it's free...and paid for by companies I don't work for anymore...unbeknownst to them...that's all I can really say without catching a fraud case. But the rest of my band don't really have any health insurance. Last tour Dan (drummer) got a crazy throat infection and had to go to this hospital in Seattle. Since he didn't have health insurance, he got them to agree for him to pay them later once he got home. All the doctor did was check his throat out and give him antibiotics. The bill ended up being somewhere around $900. That's fucking ridiculous. It's a basic human fucking right to get medicine cheaply if you are sick or hurt or whatever. I don't really get why that hasn't been implemented yet, but I imagine CEO's of medical companies everywhere need to buy their 2009 Mercedes, new mansions in the Bahamas, and generally be the biggest fucking dickheads this world has ever seen. But yeah, not bitter or nothin'.

Links

MySpace
Ironclad Recordings
Metal Blade Records

Black September - The Sermon of Vengeance 7"

Over several mini-releases (demo, split (reviewed here), three EP's), Black September has become a band to watch. The Chicago outfit is notable for ferocious vocalist Jen Pickett and a death metal style that's old-school yet forward-looking. The Sermon of Vengeance 7" (Shaman/Injustice of Humanity/Iconoclast, 2009) adds fleeting but imperial melodies from the intersection of black and pagan metal. Occasionally, the band hints at unfurling these motifs into grand structures. It doesn't do so, probably due to the strictures of a 7". (A recent 11-minute collaboration with Winters in Osaka tantalizingly gave the band more room to maneuver.) Black September could become a hybrid that's grounded yet epic - Bolt Thrower and Bathory, perhaps. A full-length would be the proper venue for such exploration. Black September has become over-qualified to be mucking around with 7"s and splits. (This 7" has massive production fit for an LP.) The band's next statement should be a strong one.

- Cosmo Lee

Purification (excerpt)
Blood for Oceans (excerpt)

Buy:
Black September (w/free poster)

Get in the van

Mike Hill, Tombs

The tour diary is one of my favorite forms of writing. It combines two things I love, music and travel. The best tour diary ever is Henry Rollins' Get in the Van, about his Black Flag days. But I love reading most other tour diaries, even by bands I dislike. Their music may not interest me, but their lives do. Any band who tours has an interesting life. It's not necessarily a good life. In fact, the most interesting lives are often the worst ones. But regardless of how a touring band rolls, in a bus or in a van, it sees and does things most people never do.

Tombs - Beneath the Toxic Jungle
Order of Ennead - Introspection and the Loss of Denial

Two tour diaries have commanded my time lately. The first is by Mike Hill of Tombs. Either he has a military background, and/or he has a heavy Rollins influence, with terminology like, "Racked out at 1100 Hr." His hard-bitten tone is similar, too. He's not afraid to rip on other bands, like Dredg, who inexplicably took Tombs and Pelican out on tour. Here are some gems from his diary. It won't ever be published in hard copy - not without serious spell checking, anyway - but it has heart, soul, and an eye for details.

Dredg went on after us and did their kind of predictable thing with the vocals and guitar effects. Their whole thing is kind of funny; they’re rolling with this 8 person travel group yet they can only really draw about 100 people each night. I noticed that on the nights they headline over Pelican, a substantial amount of people wander out of the venue.

The venue itself was kind of a strange setup. One side was a pool hall with an outdoor patio. The other side is a venue. An area was cordoned off with caution tape to delineate the overage and underage sections. I thought aout how much I hate alcohol and dealing with drunk people and the caution tape became this kind of epxressionist thing for me where it “cautioned” you about going into the bar and getting wasted. You may tunr into an asshole; you may become one of those bloated douchebags that wears a backwards baseball cap and an untucked dress shirt.

Pelican and us have been travelling in convoy formation all day in case of an emergency. For the whole day we had no more than 30 feet visibility. At times, there was a complete whiteout. The wind swept across the highway. The snow was so fine that it billowed like white smoke or steam obscuring the countryside. White desolation surrounded us. It was the middle of nowhere, there was virutually no one else on the road Occasionally we’d see trucks and cars that had skidded off the road and lay wrecked on the median.

Tonight is the last night of the tour; I’m sitting here trying to not think about the shit storm that I have to deal with when I get back to New York. I don’t know how to be in a relationship with anyone. I have no idea how to do any of this. Playing in a band is the only thing that I’m any good at, and that’s debatable as well. It’s the only thing that I’ve done consistantly for my whole life. I’ve never really held onto a job for very long and my thing with women comes and goes. I fade in and out.
We confirmed tha Isis tour today. Pelican will be out on that as well. It starts in a little over a month so as bad as it gets at home, at least I know that I’m leaving in a few weeks. That always makes me feel comfortable knowing that I’m leaving. I’ll take touring over being at home any time especially since it appears that everything is melting down. This is the only path for me, it’s the only thing that I don’t let down. The road dictates my actions and I have to follow.

The second is by Kevin Quirion of Order of Ennead. Recently his band toured Europe alongside Vital Remains and Tribulation. His tour diary isn't half as heavy as Hill's. I gather that Europe is easier to tour than America. No soul-destroying long drives, nicer venues with showers, and so on. Quirion's diary is a testament to the important little things on the road: food, showers, laundry, and sometimes women.

Show went well and even met some people that saw us in January in Bochum. They started a chant for us "Book Again". That was cool. There was an after party following the show until 6am. Man was that a mistake. All I will say is some people were drunk, some were bloody and the entire tour almost got thrown out of the club. Having 4 bands with near endless beer on tour is probably not a good idea.

No shows booked for two days so we hung around southern France for two days. The bus parked about 3 miles from the center of town. There was food close by, but it was expensive. Had pizza everyday that was actually very good. Bought the guys in Tribulation crepes. A must in my opinion for anyone visiting France. Everyone got drunk for two days and some enjoyed very fresh oysters.

At first we couldn't find the club. There is no sign on the building and its an industrial park. Its one of these venues you pull up to and say "What the hell is this place?" Then later you play the show and its killer. Walked around a bit and not a thing to see here. We are miles away from the city. Great show though and all were drunk and taking pictures with all of the beautiful French ladies.

Later the show went fantastic and then most of the bands watched Samael. Some had never seen them and Scott and myself have been talking them up all tour. They were awesome as usual and it was really nice to see them again. It was just a great day all together and I forgot to mention this place has a washer and dryer. That should say it all.

Show went well, but I wasn't into much tonight. Monotony of the road setting in, but everyone liked the show. Did an interview afterwards with someone I did one for on-line months ago. Some women hanging around backstage. What does that mean?

Tombs tour diaries
Order of Ennead tour diaries

Working Class Rock Star (DVD)

Justin McConnell's Working Class Rock Star is essential viewing for those with rock star dreams. The documentary is unrelentingly dark, but then again, so is the music industry. It's bad for labels now, and it's worse for artists. This film portrays the struggles of bands trying to "make it." It is divided into several sections: "The Myth," "The Life," "Tour," "Work & Family," "The Business," and "The Future."

Some established artists - The Haunted, Unearth, Devin Townsend, Gwar - discuss how hard things can be for them. This is sobering in and of itself. These are the 1% of artists that "make it," the music equivalent of professional athletes. But things are tougher for minor leaguers. The film achieves great poignancy documenting the lives of several up-and-coming bands. It's obvious where some are headed: nowhere. Their music is unoriginal or doesn't stand out. Yet they're completely invested in it.

This is heartbreaking, as these are caring, committed people. McConnell gets deep into their everyday lives, showing their struggles with work, family, and finances. As one gets to "know" them, one wants them to succeed. But the world has more bands than ever, with fewer places than ever for them. This film makes that clear. It lays bare the costs of touring, recording, and giving up the stability of normal life. The production values aren't glitzy - hand cams, straight shots, plain fonts. They're perfect for the message, though. McConnell's eye is sharp, and what he sees is bleak.

- Cosmo Lee

You can view the first four minutes of this film here.

Buy:
Amazon
Other outlets

Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

Yesterday, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas turned 15. Much has been made of its urtext status in black metal, as well as its violent circumstances. (Wikipedia notes, "It may also be the only heavy metal album, and possibly the only album in any genre, on which both a murderer and his victim perform.") However, its musicality has been overlooked. Guitarist Euronymous progressed from making noise (Pure Fucking Armageddon demo) to interesting noise (Deathcrush EP) to actual music. De Mysteriis is full of great riffs and melodies. The whole record is hummable. Drummer Hellhammer had also become a force, with tumbling fills and surprisingly subtle cymbal work. (See, e.g., the title track.) Varg Vikernes, too, had some nice bass moments. The best performance of all was by Attila Csihar, who wielded an underworldly range of howls, growls, and almost-singing. Even with bloodsoaked hands, these guys could really play.

- Cosmo Lee

Buried by Time and Dust
De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

Top 20 grindcore lists by A. Stutheit

Does anyone read Amazon user recommendation lists? Me neither. But I have found perhaps the king of Amazon lists: "A. Stutheit". I am confident he is a he because no woman would ever do this. (See High Fidelity.) "This" = 3165 recommendation lists, averaging over one a day for the past eight years. If I ever started a metal online forum, I would have A. Stutheit seed it with threads like "Nu-metal's most technical drummers" and "Second/third-rate grunge". But let's focus on grindcore, since A. Stutheit does. I probably can't even name 20 grindcore bands, much less make that many lists of them. A. Stutheit, however, has an encyclopedic, microscopically detailed grasp (and rather liberal interpretation) of the genre. Below are his top 20 grindcore lists - out of his first 300. I cried uncle after that.

1. New grindcore bands that are definitely NOT experimental
2. New grindcore bands that are harmonic AND dissonant
3. (Partially) Atmospheric new grindcore bands
4. Grindcore with soulful singing (part 2)
5. Grindcore with a capella vocals
6. New grindcore bands w/ near "pig squeal" vocals
7. New grindcore bands w/ Fear Factory-esque drummers
8. Grindcore's new slap bassists
9. Grindcore with great bass interludes (part 2)
10. Betcha didn't know they're grindcore! (part 4)
11. Local grindcore bands (to me, at least)
12. New "everybody soloing at once" grindcore bands
13. New grindcore bands w/ textbook hardcore breakdowns
14. New grindcore bands with thunderous breakdowns
15. New grindcore bands with just one vocalist
16. New grindcore bands with beautiful solos
17. New grindcore bands with ripping/wailing solos
18. New grindcore bands that sound old-school (but not Carcass-esque)
19. Grindcore bands with high & low vocals (part 4)
20. Grindcore bands that are good without trying too hard

Karl Sanders - Saurian Exorcisms

2004's Saurian Meditation was one of the wackiest records ever made. Relapse somehow gave Karl Sanders the go-ahead to make an entire album of Nile interludes. Instead of being mere cannon fodder for blastbeats, Nile's Egyptian mumbo-jumbo became full songs. Vaguely tribal drums, vaguely tribal chants, and sweeping synths formed a gloriously new age-y stew in that Dead Can Dance/white people do Middle Eastern music/yoga DVD kind of way.

Rapture of the Empty Spaces
Contemplate This on the Tree of Woe

Saurian Exorcisms (The End, 2009) is more of the same, with a few tweaks. The instruments are deeper in the mix, which is more atmospheric and widescreen. Sanders has realized that the ancient Egyptians did not play electric guitars. Thus, no wailing solos this time, though Sanders plays exotic instruments (baglama saz, Glissentar) with decidedly guitaristic articulations. Surely he realizes the tongue-in-cheek aspect of his work. The ancient Egyptians did not have crystal-clear, multi-tracked mixes. (Their pyramids probably had killer reverb chambers, though.) This record is Egypt via Stargate or The Mummy; perhaps Sanders is gearing up for a second career. When his death metal lifespan ends (he turns 45 soon), he could make credible film soundtracks.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Relapse (CD)
The End (CD)
Amazon (MP3)

Nile - Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka

Nile's Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka (Relapse, 1998) is the Hall of Fame album in this month's Decibel (#56, Isis cover). I personally would have chosen Black Seeds of Vengeance or In Their Darkened Shrines. But Amongst is no slouch. It's Nile's breakthrough moment, leaving behind all traces of thrash. Nile would then climb the death metal ladder with speed and dexterity. They hadn't yet reached the "holy shit" speeds of Annihilation of the Wicked. Here, they were merely blazing. In 1998, as death metal stagnated creatively, "Ramses Bringer of War" must have been refreshing: The Ten Commandments set to blastbeats. If it seemed hokey, it didn't for long. Riffs were dramatic and exotic. One could imagine blastbeats as locusts; half-speed trudges evoked slaves in the shadows of pyramids. Talk about finding one's niche - there was no market for Egyptian-themed death metal until Amongst filled it.

- Cosmo Lee

Ramses Bringer of War
Stones of Sorrow

Buy:
Relapse (CD)
The End (CD)
Amazon (MP3)

Those once loyal

Bolt Thrower

Listening to Bolt Thrower's Those Once Loyal in preparation for seeing them at Maryland Deathfest, three things come to mind:

1. I severely underestimated it when I reviewed it three years ago. (I also wrote one hell of a crappy review.) Martin Kearns' sense of groove is completely underrated.


2. 3:11 in "Anti-Tank (Dead Armour)": best half-time groove EVER.


3. Landmine Marathon is basically a younger, spryer, grindier, female-fronted version of Bolt Thrower. I always knew the influence was there, but it didn't fully register until now.

I'm going to the first two days (Friday and Saturday) of MDF. If you want to meet up, email me at invisibleoranges at gmail dot com. Tons of people I know are going. This should rule.

Anti-Tank (Dead Armour)

Feel the knife

Last night, I came home to a domestic disturbance in front of my building. Chased by an angry female voice, a man crossed the street to a pay phone and started dialing. People do not use pay phones at 2am for wholesome purposes. A woman brandishing a knife charged out the door after him. We made eye contact. Her look said, "So what?" I hurried inside. My neighborhood is too metal, even for me.

Just when you think you're safe
You're in the clear
You'll hear our screams of battle ringing in your ears

Exciter - Feel the Knife

Villains - Lifecode of Decadence

Villains portray themselves as fighters and fuckers. Their version of this mythos isn't like Lemmy's. He might write a song called "On the Prowl," but he'd never use the phrase "her morbid sexual carcass." He's too much of a gentleman for that. Villains aren't gentlemen, or so they'd like you to think. I believe it. I've seen them live a few times, and they traffic in discomfort. They play metal but don't look it. They barely acknowledge audiences. They obviously don't give a fuck. They care about playing well, sure, but they hide it. No shredder egos for them. They just want to do the job, and then do the job with some single mother afterwards. When Lemmy does it, it's almost noble. When Villains do it, it's creepy.

On the Prowl
Headless Excruciator

I once likened Villains to Ludicra as the sound of the streets. That's true to an extent. Both have punk, thrash, and black metal in their veins. But while San Francisco's streets are fundamentally sad, New York's streets are just mean. Villains don't have Ludicra's female presence or humanist attitude. Instead, they proclaim, "And we are not friends / I will win in the end." Their homes have stacks of old metal LP's and old porn videotapes. Their world isn't 2009. It's Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, and Fender P Basses. (Fender was once metal.) Hence the glorious hand-scrawled artwork, the typewritten lyrics, the MySpace boycott. Vocalist Desecrator gets busy with falsettos more than ever, but they're cool. He's not trying to be power metal. He's just getting a rise out of you. That's what Lifecode does so well. It hits you sideways - slanted Slayer riffs, sliced and diced "verses" and "choruses," sick and grumbling guitars. All that Pro Tools stuff out there? Strictly missionary position.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Nuclear War Now!
Hells Headbangers (CD)
Hells Headbangers (LP)

For a chance to win one copy of this CD, email invisibleoranges at gmail dot com by midnight EST Wednesday, May 20 with the subject header "V for Villains" as well as your name and address. I will choose a winner randomly.

The metal ass crown

Another gem from Fenriz' blog: Helvetets Port. The Swedish retro true metallers have a new LP, Exodus to Hell, out on High Roller. (Pure Steel will put out a CD version in the summer.) Their website states, "Our mission is to make you believe that it is 1983 all over again." Mission accomplished - see the video above for "Lightning Rod Avenger." Michael Myers! Rising sun gear! Strats in metal! LP's! Note also the amazing apparel, including the male ass crown. I had never seen one before. Is this a Swedish thing? An '80s thing? Or is it - horrors - a metal thing?

Buy:
Eat Metal
High Roller

Isis - Wavering Radiant

Since 2002's Oceanic, Isis have basically written one song. It's not a song so much as a template, a theme with variations. These include clean and dirty vocals and guitars, and myriad paths to the top of Isis Hill, the peak of each track. Over time, Isis have softened, trading riffs for textures. This has lost and gained them fans. Some prefer the band's early rawness. Others like the kindler, gentler Isis. Neither group is wrong. Isis have simply changed objectives.

Ghost Key

The ideal Isis track is long and patient, yet dynamic. Although Isis songs have mostly sounded the same since Oceanic, they have had various architectures yielding various results. The band's biggest Achilles heel since then has been the riff. When Isis step on their distortion pedals, octaves, minor thirds, and other standard fare ensue. Over time, these peaks have diminished as their novelty has worn off. Wavering Radiant still has "boom" moments, but busy, gauzy production smoothes them out. Producer Joe Barresi seemingly hates snare drums. Here, they are mere thuds; this is the third recent metal album, after Enslaved's Vertebrae and Satyricon's The Age of Nero, that he's hobbled with dull sound. Contrast it, for example, with the haunting nudity of 2004's Panopticon.

But, again, objectives have changed. Now Isis are almost in the realm of pure texture. Wavering Radiant is to Isis what Disintegration was to The Cure - a keyboard-soaked, reverb-drenched set of textures. (Isis are also fond of The Cure's watery clean tones.) Its overproduction fits the music. It is detailed and subtle, an audio Jenga puzzle. Out comes a guitar line; in comes a bass line. Each moment counts, almost to a fault. The songs still have simplistic overall tonalities, but they now have more tonal variations within them. They're fleeting - a non-diatonic note here, a modulation there - but they help maintain interest. Aaron Turner's vocals help in this regard. He's more comfortable with singing than before, and he uses it to carry songs to peaks. Before, riffs sweated to push songs up Isis Hill. Now, Turner hits those target notes. It's a small change, but forward progress in Isis' game of inches.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
eMusic (MP3)
Amazon (MP3)
Isis webstore
The End (CD, LP)

Nick Vasallo - The Burning

How about a composer who's actually alive? And one who plays metal? In a band that's good, to boot? Nick Vasallo is a guitarist for Bay Area death metallers Antagony. He's also a doctoral student at UC Santa Cruz in music composition. The Burning (Ars Nova Classics, 2007) is an eclectic compilation of his work. Its palette includes choirs, solo piano and harp, and various small ensembles.

The Burning
Lumen et Tenebras
Emergence of the Kraken

Diverse influences are evident - traditional and modern classical, taiko drumming, and, yes, metal (the album is named for a song by El Dopa). Actually, The Burning's one track with metal is its only misstep. It's a mess, albeit a colorful one - think, say, Unexpect. Otherwise, Vasallo shows a talent for strong, dark gestures, regardless of instrumentation. No doubt this comes from years of metal. "Emergence of the Kraken" is particularly interesting, as he wrote it without external reference (e.g., instrument or software). It was just Vasallo, pencil, and paper - deaf Beethoven-style. I envy those who can translate the music inside them this precisely.

Vasallo has been winning awards left and right, and he recently premiered his first orchestral composition. Too bad it wasn't called "Symphony of Destruction." (Or "of Sickness." Or "for the Beaten Down." Or "X.") The Burning is currently available for next to nothing from Amie Street. Antagony's new album, Days of Night, comes out on Deepsend on July 21.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Nick Vasallo (CD)
Amie Street (MP3)

Revocation giveaway

Photo by Return to the Pit

Every so often I come across a band whose unsigned status is utterly incomprehensible. Boston's Revocation are by far the greatest example. I saw them live last fall. They were a trio and could have used a second guitarist. Still, they killed. In guitarist/vocalist David Davidson, I saw the next Dimebag Darrell - not in sound, but in individual identity and total command of the instrument. Here was a guitarist raised on thrash (Dave Mustaine was an obvious influence) who had cranked up his chops with death metal, never sacrificing melody or feel. My jaw was on the floor.

Unattained
Summon the Spawn

I bought a CD, Empire of the Obscene. Amazingly, it was even better. Songs were catchy yet deep, the production was perfect, and the artwork was typical high-grade stuff from Pär Olofsson. The record was "pro" - something Metal Blade or Century Media could have released. If it had come out in the late-'80s/early-'90s, it would have competed with the best in technical thrash. Yet it was unsigned. Every few months, I asked the band whether it was signed. The answer was always, "We are negotiating with labels." How long could that take??? I reviewed the record for Decibel's demo column (#54, Brutal Truth cover). Sure enough, the band signed to Relapse a few weeks ago. A new album, Existence Is Futile, is due out this fall.

Empire of the Obscene is available from the band's MySpace. It is the best unsigned metal CD I've ever heard. I am giving away one copy of it. Just email invisibleoranges at gmail dot com by midnight EST on Sunday, May 17, with the subject header "Revocation rules" and your name and address. I will randomly choose a winner.

- Cosmo Lee

Dave Lombardo plays Vivaldi

Here's a weird one: Dave Lombardo playing Vivaldi. In 1999, the not-in-Slayer-at-the-time drummer collaborated with Italian music critic Lorenzo Arruga and some classical musicians on Vivaldi: The Meeting, a set of improvisations on Vivaldi pieces. (This bio of Arruga amusingly calls the recording "improvisations with a Cuban drummer.") The CD is fairly unlistenable, though it has a certain joie de vivre (which anyone would have given the chance to play with DAVE FUCKING LOMBARDO). Hearing winds, female operatic vocals, and thundering double bass drums is not my idea of a good time. Chalk this one up next to Fantomas on Lombardo's "good on paper/bad in reality" CV. Compare "Una Sfida" ("The Challenge" - a fitting title) against Nigel Kennedy's recording of the Presto movement of "Summer" from Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons."

- Cosmo Lee

Lorenzo Arruga, Dave Lombardo & Friends - Una Sfida
Nigel Kennedy - "Summer," Presto

Buy:
Amazon (CD)
Amazon (MP3)

"Dechristianize" on piano

This has made the rounds, but it never fails to warm my heart: a video of two guys playing Vital Remains' "Dechristianize" on piano. Their performance is a little sloppy. But it's charming that they put the time into this endeavor. Minus distortion, drums, and vocals, the song reveals classical influences and majestic themes (i.e., riffs). I just spent the last hour watching piano versions of metal songs on YouTube. (Yes, I am single.) For example: Metallica - "Blackened", Slayer - "Seasons in the Abyss", Necrophagist - "Stabwound".

Dechristianize

Gadget to play rare US dates

The Funeral March, cover detail

Mighty Swedish grindcore outfit Gadget is playing two rare US shows. The first is Friday, May 15 in Philadelphia at 941 Theater (941 N. Front St., free beer by Yards Brewing, flyer here). The second is Saturday, May 16 in Brooklyn for the Auditory Assault Fest at Club Europa (98 Meserole Ave.). Total Fucking Destruction, Javelina, and Man Will Destroy Himself also play the Philly date. Auditory Assault Fest is a who's who in grindcore today. I reviewed Gadget's The Funeral March here, and interviewed cover artist Orion Landau here.

Requiem

Mono @ NY Society for Ethical Culture

Photo by iamdonte

To celebrate their 10th anniversary, Japan's Mono played a one-off show last Friday at New York's Society for Ethical Culture. Originally, it was to be their only North American date to support their new album, Hymn to the Immortal Wind. However, it sold out, causing the addition of a second date. People traveled from far away - Washington, Alabama, North Carolina - for the show.

Hymn has a significant orchestral presence, so Mono was backed by the Wordless Music Orchestra, a new music chamber ensemble. Band + orchestra is a risky proposition - see Metallica's S&M (abysmal), Yngwie Malmsteen's Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra (ludicrous), Dimmu Borgir's Death Cult Armageddon (functional), Septic Flesh's Communion (tasty). This pairing was a mixed bag.

The Society for Ethical Culture is a large, quasi-religious auditorium. (See photos of the show here.) An inscription above the stage reads, "The Place Where People Meet to Seek the Highest is Holy Ground." However, a vendor sold alcohol. People carried cups of beer through church pews. The WMO opened by premiering a piece by slowcore composer Arvo Pärt. Their execution was fine, but the volume was low due to the ensemble's small size (32 pieces). Also, in the dark, beer cups rattled and rolled, interrupting the somber atmosphere.

Ashes in the Snow

Mono's set pushed the orchestra to the back of the stage, facing house left. The band was in front. Bassist Tamaki Kunishi was the only member standing up, though she took some turns on grand piano. Mono's music is not technically difficult. But given its protracted nature (songs typically exceed 10 minutes in length, with extremely gradual crescendos and decrescendos), coordination with the orchestra must have been difficult. The players took cues from their conductor, who took cues from the band - any member of which could be directing the action at a given time.

Mishaps occurred not in timing (transitions between songs were smooth), but in intonation. The rhythm guitarist's B string was often flat. It's enough to have guitarists out of tune with each other. But with the orchestra trying to compensate while sitting next to cranked amps, perfect intonation amongst all was impossible.

Still, Mono's music does not require precision. Their attack resembles a cloud that engulfs and recedes. In another universe, it could be black metal - emphasis on chord progressions, not riffs, with dramatic melodies and tremolo picking for days. The guitarists had a panoply of pedals, which they used to full effect. They were often both down on hands and knees, tweaking knobs. I wonder how the orchestra felt, to be playing backing fare while their rock music employers made a racket with machines. Perhaps they felt stimulated; perhaps they were just collecting paychecks.

Mono seemed to respect their employees. They were visibly pleased with some orchestral passages. Drummer Yasunori Takada often made eye contact with the conductor. Mono are a humble group. Without a vocalist, they shun populist gestures. They are often genuinely in the thrall of their own sound. It is one to evoke thrall; people cry at Mono shows. More might have done so here without the orchestra. Mono operate best unadorned, in intimacy. With big, lush strokes, the orchestra filled in Mono's cracks. Sometimes it's best to leave questions unanswered. The show felt oddly triumphant. Given the occasion, though, that was appropriate.

- Cosmo Lee

Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness

Picture disc, 2006 reissue

Happy 20th birthday, Altars of Madness. The record is actually one of my least favorite by Morbid Angel. It has crackling performances, catchy songwriting, and the band's best production besides Gateways to Annihilation. But it lacks the majestic atmosphere of later records. That infamous murk contributed to Morbid Angel's sick ambience. The dryness of Altars feels sterile in comparison. Some parts are cheesy - the opening riff of "Maze of Torment," the waltz section of "Chapel of Ghouls." The CD has three unnecessary remixes tacked on at the end. And why was "Lord of All Fevers & Plagues" a bonus track? It's arguably the best song on the record. Still, it's a thrill to hear a young band so potent. Morbid Angel weren't kings of death metal yet. Altars of Madness was the beginning of their coup.

- Cosmo Lee

Maze of Torment
Chapel of Ghouls

Buy:
Earache (US)
Earache (EU)
eMusic (MP3)
Amazon (MP3)

Fleshgod Apocalypse - Oracles

Fleshgod Apocalypse's shtick is combining death metal and classical music. Classical music in metal goes all the way back to Richie Blackmore. However, metal bands usually lack formal training. They often merely tread harmonic minor water, while throwing in some diminished arpeggios. So many bands play classical-sounding licks without "getting" classical's complexity and colors.

In Honour of Reason
As Tyrants Fall

These Italians aren't the answer to the problem, but they're one step closer. On their debut, Oracles (Willowtip, 2009), they construct bona fide classical chord progressions. They dial in big, serrated tones, while keeping wankery in check. They also insert tasty string and piano interludes. I can't tell if the orchestral parts are samples, but the liner notes credit someone with "orchestral arrangements." If they're indeed composed from scratch, they sound 100% authentic.

They're also nice breathers. In relentlessness and percussiveness, Fleshgod Apocalypse suggest Krisiun gone neoclassical. Surprisingly, the sound has legs. The band doesn't skimp on death metal in indulging its classical fetish. Headbanging comes first. Perhaps Wagner inspired bangovers in his day.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Amazon (MP3)
Relapse (CD)
The End (CD)
Willowtip (CD)
Fleshgod Apocalypse (CD)

The Great Kat - Beethoven's Guitar Shred (DVD)

The Great Kat's Beethoven Guitar Shred is the most surreal DVD I have ever watched. It contains 11 minutes and nine seconds of content, divided into four sections: "Shred Videos," "Shred Bonus Features," "Shred Kartoon," and "Shred Online."

"Shred Videos" contains seven videos totaling 7:47 in length. They are a mix of classical pieces and original works. All zip by in a warp-speed frenzy of shredding (on both guitar and violin), cleavage, frizzy hair, fake blood, dominatrix outfits, and low-budget special effects. For a small taste, see the DVD menu above. For links to snippets of all the videos, see here.

"Shred Bonus Features" lasts two minutes and 17 seconds. Its four sections are a hyperspeed photo gallery of The Great Kat ("Hot Shred Bits 2," 29 seconds); a hyperspeed photo gallery of "Shred Geniuses" (48 seconds), which include Mozart, Hieronymus Bosch, Theodore Roosevelt, and, of course, The Great Kat; a 34-second video of her shredding through Bach's "The Art of the Fugue"; and 26 seconds of "Shred Credits."

"Shred Kartoon" is a 45 second-long animated cartoon of The Great Kat playing "Flight of the Bumblebee."

"Shred Online" is a 20 second-long hyperspeed photo gallery of The Great Kat, with website URL's superimposed on top.

The sum total is closer to Discordance Axis' desired effect than Discordance Axis ever got. It is a visual and aural assault of supreme saccadic absurdity. The Great Kat plays grindcore disguised as neoclassical shred, with everything louder and faster than everything else, nuance and phrasing be damned. For years, I wondered why The Great Kat never played in a proper band. This DVD shows why.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Amazon
The Great Kat

Black Sabbath and hip-hop

Rebuilding my music collection from scratch has had unintended benefits. One is the chance to revisit classics. When I had every album I ever wanted, classics sometimes got lost in the shuffle. You think you know a record, so you don't feel the need to hear it again. I resolved not to make that mistake this time. What better place to start than year zero, Black Sabbath?

My main impression this time around was how "black" it sounds. (I won't discuss the record in full, as there will be chances for that with its upcoming double-disc reissue and 40th anniversary next year.) It is essentially a heavy blues record. I once pointed out the funkiness of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath; someone else compared Sabbath to the Meters. The funk is not so much on display here, but on "Wicked World", Bill Ward, who grew up with jazz, swings like a mother.

My other main impressions were hip-hop samples. Enough time has passed so that not only has Black Sabbath become iconic, so have songs that sample it. (Black Sabbath's other records have also been sampled. For brevity's sake, I will focus only on Black Sabbath. I will also omit The Beatnuts' "Reign of the Tec", which samples only a snippet of Tony Iommi's "Wicked World" solo, and Busta Rhymes' "Blackout", which merely replays the riff from "Black Sabbath".)

Black Sabbath - The Wizard
Cypress Hill - I Ain't Goin' Out Like That

The first is Cypress Hill's "I Ain't Goin' Out Like That", from 1993's Black Sunday. As one commentator put it, "Las armónicas son de Black Sabbath!!!" ("The Wizard", specifically.) As we know from their awful rap metal later efforts, Cypress Hill were down with the metal. DJ Muggs grew up on Zeppelin and Sabbath before discovering hip-hop, and the group has covered "War Pigs" and "N.I.B." live. (The thought makes me shudder.) Even the video for "I Ain't Goin' Out Like That", with its skulls, fire, and graveyard, is kind of metal.

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Ice-T - Midnight

The second is Ice-T's "Midnight", from 1991's O.G. Original Gangster. It puts the best riff ever ("Black Sabbath") over the best drums ever (Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks"). With its tense plot and vivid imagery, "Midnight" is one of the best storytelling songs ever made. Ice-T's acting skills are, to use a '90s phrase, in full effect. He has had many metal moments - Body Count (bad, funny), collaborations with Slayer and Six Feet Under (bad, not funny), talking head on Cannibal Corpse's Centuries of Torment DVD (good, funny), cameo alongside the Ugly Kid Joe singer on Motörhead's "Born to Raise Hell" (just plain bizarre). "Midnight" is by far his best.

- Cosmo Lee

Swine Fleurety

Above: metalheads in Mexico City last week. Note the Tsjuder shirt. My mother is telling me not to go outside. This is New York Fucking City. If everyone followed her advice, nothing would get done. Or perhaps everyone would be alive. WHO knows. Supposedly an industrial pig farm started all this. One level below pandemic, people are still consuming and turning the gears that grind them to dust. Crank up The Harvest Floor - John Darnielle told you to - and prepare for end times. Megadeth, indeed.

Tsjuder - Possessed

Castevet - Stones / Salts

I don't know much about Castevet. Their MySpace lists three band members, one of whom drums for Copremesis. That's about it. I do know, however, that their debut 7" (Paragon, 2009, streamable here) is what I've listened to the most for weeks. Its two songs recall greats - Voivod, Morbid Angel, Deathspell Omega. They drape elegant dissonance over driving low end. The result feels distant, foggy, dirty, and emotional. Usually metal's presentation is singular - in-your-face, shrouded, etc. This experience, however, has both foreground and background. These songs are small worlds; I want to see their universe. A full-length, recorded by Colin Marston, is due out next year. Resistance will be futile.

- Cosmo Lee

Stones (excerpt)
Salts (excerpt)

Buy:
Paragon
Castevet

Voivod - "Le Pont Noir"

Artwork by Away

Before reviewing the new Voivod record, I revisited its back catalogue. Angel Rat and The Outer Limits are tremendously underrated. I have owned both, but never truly appreciated them until now. Perhaps I bought into the conventional wisdom of "first x albums good, everything later bad." Perhaps my ears just weren't ready. Voivod was always ahead of its time.

Le Pont Noir

One song from The Outer Limits felled me this time around. "Le Pont Noir" - what an epic! It opens with naked clean guitar and rare rimshots by drummer Away. Singer Snake tells an eerie tale of going down to a bridge, not knowing what he'll find. (See lyrics here.)

I'm going to the bridge tonight
Venus shines so ever bright
Deep in the woods under the stars
How did I come to get this far?
Have this feeling...what will I find
Around the corner of my mind?

At 1:35 comes a skull-shattering mindfuck of a harmony. Is guitarist Piggy using a harmonizer, or is he twisting this tapestry by hand? Sharps and flats spiral upwards, as Snake emits an otherworldly wail. On Crack the Skye, Mastodon attempted similar abstraction, but with half the class. This presentation is bare and huge - less is more.

The song's latter half is a dodgy funk bit. What were these white boys thinking? But the song rights itself. First a hectic doubletime, then an abyssal halftime, then the original clean guitar, returning the way it came. In five minutes and 43 seconds, one has traversed hours. If not for the next track, they could last forever.

- Cosmo Lee

RIP Jon Blank

Jon Blank, bassist for Wino and other bands, died this past weekend of a suspected drug overdose. (See story here.) I am not familiar with his other projects, but evidently he was quite the musician. His work on Wino's Punctuated Equilibrium was perfect - solid, supportive, supple. When I interviewed Wino recently, he praised Blank's tone, both sonically and personally. Punctuated Equilibrium is one of my favorite records this year. I will be listening to the low end Blank laid down for a while. As Lemmy said, "Stay clean."

Wino - Release Me

General Surgery - Corpus In Extremis

General Surgery's Left Hand Pathology was so successful at its aim that it made me mad. That aim was impersonating Carcass. Covering songs in tribute is OK; mimicry without anything more, like parody or commentary, isn't. Left Hand Pathology was essentially a Carcass record - only it wasn't by Carcass, which made it very unnecessary.

Decedent Scarification Aesthetics
Perfunctory Fleshless Precipitate

Corpus In Extremis (Listenable, 2009) still has blatant Carcass-isms - angular yet serpentine riffs, some Jeff Walker-esque vocals. But thankfully the band leaves the Carcass nest often. Calling its style "unique" would be a stretch, but its aspirations are higher now. Riffs are steely, their execution laser-guided, and the focus and technique far exceed those of Carcass back in the day. Carcass, of course, had originality and atmosphere on their side. Still, this record is a physical weapon. No progressive steps toward death metal here - this is two bars of intro, then two minutes of defleshing. Grindcore has long run its course creatively, but kicking ass never gets old.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Relapse (CD)
eMusic (MP3)
Amazon (MP3)

Starting May 9, General Surgery plays a week of US West Coast dates and the Maryland Deathfest. See dates here.

Big brothers and metal

My sister is 17, so we have a large age gap. We have lived apart from each other all our lives. Whenever I see her, something's different - she's taller, has glasses, has contacts, and so on. Hoping to influence her tastes, I've given her various albums over the years. Some have been hits (Ken Burns' jazz box set, Stolen Babies); some have not (Pink Floyd, Northern State).

Apocalyptica - Angel of Death

Recently she visited me. I was delighted to discover that she liked the Cynic and Dead Can Dance CD's I gave her. Since I last saw her, she had started liking some metal - Metallica, Slayer, Iron Maiden. I asked her what Maiden she liked. "'Alexander the Great,'" she said. "And some other song." Her knowledge of Metallica, too, was only several songs deep. It turned out that she did not own or listen to albums. Instead, she downloaded random songs from P2P networks.

I was horrified. She did not know what the cover to Somewhere in Time looked like. I marched her over to a computer to rectify this. She seemed unimpressed. "There's a lot going on," she said. Kids these days! I asked her what Slayer she liked. "'Angel of Death,'" she said. Good! But she didn't know what the song was about, because she had heard the Apocalyptica cover first. Bad! (Actually, the cover is shredding. Headbanging to cellos sans drums is in fact possible.)

She also liked Disturbed. This, of course, disturbed me. In no uncertain terms, I tried to nip that in the bud. I felt like I had been derelict as a big brother. What is the job of a big brother, if not to train younger ones in the ways of metal? Still, my 17 year-old sister in 2009 likes Queensrÿche (or three songs, at least). She didn't blink when I put on General Surgery. I can't be doing that badly.

- Cosmo Lee

Teitanblood - Seven Chalices

2xLP w/ included A4 booklet

Sometimes reverb rules. Seven Chalices (Noevdia/AJNA Offensive/Dauthus, 2009) recalls classic "wet" sounds like Pleasure to Kill, Hell Awaits, and early Bathory. Five of its 11 tracks are interludes, forming almost a quarter of the record. This could be as bad as hip-hop, but the interludes are as interesting as the music, if not more. The music is bestial black/death - meat and potatoes, with lots of metal, literally. Drums are buried in the mix, but rides and splashes cut through in a dirty shimmer. Guitars are beefy and filthy. The vocals drool and howl in a glorious cave of reverb.

Morbid Devil of Pestilence

This is atmospheric; the interludes are even more so. They are a rich array of dark ambience and treated vocals, with a depth rivaling those of Nile. Since the songs are long, Hell Awaits-type excursions, the interludes are nice breathers. The liner notes complement the sounds with page after page of hand-drawn, esoteric imagery and text. Evidently, the 2xLP is a stunner. Where does Noevdia find these bands? This one is 6 years old, but sounds like it's 666.

Buy:
The End (CD)
AJNA Offensive (CD)
Hells Headbangers (CD)
Hells Headbangers (LP)

Soma Degenerate

Last night I saw a young lady in a Suffocation shirt at Whole Foods. This was a rare sight, so I buttonholed her. She was an NYU student who runs Soma Degenerate, a weekly metal radio show at WNYU 89.1 FM, NYU's radio station. It airs each Sunday from 10pm to midnight EST. Playlists are heavy on death metal; last week's show included Vader, Bloodbath, Krisiun, Obituary, and Hour of Penance. You can stream and download broadcasts here.

Ridiculously heroic women

Sabina Classen needs to cut her toenails.

Practically all of Doro's discography could go in this post.

Note the combination robe/thong thing.

That is one intense sword.

Believe it or not, "women wielding swords while wearing diaphanous clothing" is a subgenre of metal artwork.

See?

Next up: "female warriors in metal pasties."

Holy abs of steel! That Celtic knot tattoo must have hurt.

This feels vaguely Nazi.

Cher became a pirate and traded up from sword to chainsaw.

Lord Mantis, Wetnurse to slay East Coast

Lord Mantis

Seventh Rule labelmates Lord Mantis and Wetnurse are teaming up on a US East Coast mini-tour. (See dates below.) Lord Mantis' Spawning the Nephilim, which I reviewed for Decibel (#56, Isis cover), is no joke. I compared it to Kylesa and Khanate; Blabbermouth compared it to Black Cobra and Khanate. It's brutal. Wetnurse are combustible live, so this bill should kill.

Lord Mantis - Lord Mantis

6/27 Philadelphia, PA @ The M Room
6/28 Baltimore, MD @ Talking Head
6/30 Gainesville, FL @ The Atlantic
7/01 Tampa, FL @ The Brass Mug
7/02 Miami, FL @ Churchill's
7/03 Tallahassee, FL @ The Engine Room
7/04 Savannah, GA @ The Wormhole

Buy:
Seventh Rule store

Mastodon - Crack the Skye

After only a minute, I was violently allergic. That singing - ouch. I felt as if an old friend had showed up in a shiny new Hummer. Something had changed irreparably.

Oblivion

Actually, I had seen it coming. Crack the Skye (Reprise, 2009) is the next logical step in Mastodon's evolution from metal band to prog band. The last few records had increasing amounts of singing and progginess. I could take it less and less; this one tipped the balance. Like Enslaved on Vertebrae, Mastodon finally dove headfirst into the lake of prog. Goodbye, riffs; hello, everything else.

Crack the Skye is a marvel of overkill - 1000 harmonies, 1000 layers, 1000 bucks an hour production. Mastodon have a way with melodies, and these are some of their catchiest tunes. Sad, then, that they desperately need Ritalin. Brann Dailor is no help; he has an awesomely dexterous inability to keep a pulse. This record is expensive and jittery. It could say something meaningful if only it settled the fuck down. This may be music to like or to appreciate. But if anyone claims an emotional connection to it, he is a liar.

Live is another story. In concert, Mastodon turn the tedious into the towering through sheer force of personality. This is how they've become America's most important - though far from the most potent - metal band. They are now the gateway into metal for many. It could be a lot worse (e.g., nu-metal, metalcore). Mastodon take worthy bands like Kylesa and Intronaut out on the road. They're probably the same dudes they've always been. Musically, though, I have to wish them goodbye and good luck.

- Cosmo Lee

Stormcrow / Laudanum - Sacred Death

Oakland is one of the unhappiest towns on earth. It's San Francisco's ugly sibling, an industrial wasteland of racial tension. Stormcrow and Laudanum hail from there and sound like it. Sacred Death (20 Buck Spin, 2009) may be the heaviest split I've ever heard. Stormcrow turn in two tracks of Bolt Thrower-style metallic crust. They're like Landmine Marathon, but more metallic and with male growls. Think tank slogs, not grind fireworks. Laudanum drop two bombs of massive sludge/doom. This stuff is a dime a dozen now, but goddamn, does this stand out. The production is huge and raw. Riffs turn over like ancient engines slowly coming to life. Feedback and noise seep through the cracks, carrying ghostly, tortured vocals. A few melodies float above - small hopes in a dark abyss. The forthcoming Laudanum full-length this year should be massive. In the meantime, grok this 12", which includes a download coupon for the MP3's. Notch up another win for 20 Buck Spin.

- Cosmo Lee

Stormcrow - A New Black Death (excerpt)
Laudanum - Omega (excerpt)

Buy:
The End
20 Buck Spin

People are weird, pt. 6

Hot in Herre

Sports Illustrated used to have a little column called "This Week's Sign That the Apocalypse Is Upon Us." Documenting sports atrocities and injustices, it was by far my favorite feature of SI. "People are weird" is sort of the equivalent here. Normally, it highlights Google searches that lead here. Judging by their search queries, people (aside from you, dear intelligent and articulate reader) are illiterate perverts with vivid imaginations. This installment only confirms this, but with a twist: these are Google Images searches that have led here. What pictures people seek constantly shock, amaze, and disgust me. If you buy me a drink, I will show you the miles upon miles of image search queries, mostly relating to the female anatomy, that I can't bring myself to air, even in this befouled forum.

10. Google Images: happy slapping snuff videos
9. Google Images: girl hockey fight
8. Google Images: porn crazy train
7. Google Images: in the oven fetish
6. Google Images: scream hardcore fuck mosh dirty
5. Google Images: deaf aliens
4. Google Images: SHOCKING ALIEN
3. Google Images: 3 D ALIENS FUCKING WOMEN
2. Google Images: nasty horchata
1. Google Images: inappropriate

Saros - Acrid Plains

The San Francisco Bay Area has the best metal scene in the US. On any given weekend, you have a chance of seeing Impaled, Ludicra, Hammers of Misfortune, Slough Feg, Black Cobra, Totimoshi, Grayceon, Amber Asylum, Giant Squid, Stormcrow, and Laudanum. In their own unique ways, they capture the Bay Area's mix of hope and despair, sunshine and fog, dirt and water. Saros is the newest rising star in this gritty constellation.

Acrid Plains (excerpt)
Reversion (excerpt)

The band evokes many others: Death (proggy death), Opeth (acoustic prog), Enslaved (rock-y blackened prog), Ludicra (haunted vocal harmonies), even Megadeth (mid-paced riffing). Leila Abdul-Rauf is a triple threat on guitar, spooky singing, and Chuck Schuldiner-esque growls. Drummer Blood Eagle, of Weakling fame, turns in a nuanced, dynamic performance. The songs are long journeys, filled with twists and turns. Even without printed lyrics, they form complete worlds.

Perhaps this album should have been called Arid Plains. Billy Anderson's recording is appealingly dry, yet the material feels vast. This record is very deep. It has the melancholy typical of Bay Area metal, yet hints at sights beyond. One gets the feeling of a soul struggling to be free. Umlaut has diligently been documenting Saros gigs here. The accounts make me miss the Bay Area, that beautiful land with clouds always overhead.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Amazon (MP3)
The End (CD)
Profound Lore (CD)

Metal celebrity sightings

Andy Galeon

I have had only a handful of metal celebrity sightings. Metal celebrity sightings are encounters with metal musicians in "real life" - i.e., outside of shows, interviews, or other contexts in which one would expect to meet them. Musicians one personally knows do not count.

I once walked by Scott Ian of Anthrax in the street in SoHo. He was very short. I did not say anything; I was struck dumb by the fact I had just walked by Scott Ian of Anthrax in the street in SoHo.

At Amoeba Records in Berkeley, I saw Greg Christian of Testament. He was very tall. After he bought a CD, I followed him for half a block like a creepy fanboy. Then I told him, "I'm a big fan," or something inane like that.

At Amoeba Records in San Francisco, I ran across Andy Galeon of Death Angel. He was wearing a Death Angel hoodie. I said, "Nice hoodie." He said, "That's my band." As if he had to explain. We chatted for a bit about Death Angel.

For some reason, I often see Makoto Mizoguchi (Disembowel, Pyrexia, Hate Eternal (live)) at the post office late at night.

What metal celebrity sightings have you had?

Testament - Live at Eindhoven '87

The cover for Live at Eindhoven intrigued me for years. Testament seemed so godlike in front of that crowd of 14,000 (or 30,000 according to guitarist Alex Skolnick). It's an iconic rock festival image, up there with a rain-soaked Def Leppard at Monsters of Rock '86 and Pantera at Monsters of Rock '91 in Moscow. I missed out on the original EP, so for years I could only fantasize about its contents.

The Haunting (Live @ Eindhoven)

Prosthetic turned my fantasy into reality by reissuing the five-song EP as a full-length of the entire show. Fixing what ain't broke, the reissue has the blandest artwork ever rendered in Photoshop. The set, too, is a disappointment. The playing is sloppy, the sound is mediocre, and Skolnick's solo is pointless wankery. (Now, after years playing jazz, he would probably do it much better.) Metal live albums are mostly forgettable; this one is no different. Two EP's and two full-lengths are four live releases too many for Testament.

Yet this is still a cool historical document. With only The Legacy under its belt, Testament was already touring the US and Europe with Anthrax. Its hunger is palpable. Chuck Billy's between-song banter is gloriously moronic: "Yeaaah! We'll kick some fucking ass now! Are you going to kick some fucking ass with us?" He could read the Bible out loud, and it would sound metal. Speaking of which, check out Skolnick's liner notes. Stryper headlined the festival!

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
Amazon (MP3)
eMusic (MP3)
The End (CD)
Prosthetic (CD)

Baby Please Don't Leave Me

Buddy Guy

Recently I was on a random MySpace page when it started playing music. Normally I hate it when this happens. However, the song had a nice start - organic drums, overdriven bass, heavy twang. Stoner metal, perhaps? Then I heard the voice: an actual bluesman. "Oh, baby, baby, please don't leave me," he implored, over and over again. Guitar and bass trembled in groaning unisons. I was hooked.

Baby Please Don't Leave Me (Buddy Guy)
Baby Please Don't Leave Me (Junior Kimbrough)

To my surprise, it was Buddy Guy. I associate him with a more tart Chicago blues style. But here he was, tuned down to C, crawling through down home Mississippi sounds. I had to find out more. Turns out that he cut a record in 2001 called Sweet Tea. It paid tribute to Mississippi's Fat Possum label, with covers of songs by Junior Kimbrough, T-Model Ford, and CeDell Davis, among others.

I was briefly into Fat Possum in the '90s. Of its artists, Kimbrough particularly caught my ear. His songs were dark, driving, and hypnotic. They went on and on, rarely changing chords, massaging riffs into hips and feet. I would have loved to have visited his legendary juke joint. Shoulders probably shook; alcohol probably flowed; eyelids probably drooped. If you don't know Junior Kimbrough, do yourself a favor and get Sad Days, Lonely Nights.

Not only did Guy cover Kimbrough's "Baby Please Don't Leave Me," a wide stylistic detour, he made the song utterly his. In Kimbrough's hands, on the odds-and-ends collection Meet Me in the City, the song was spidery and rambling. (Somewhere in there is a Motörhead riff.) Its lo-fi miasma is a direct precursor to American weirdo black metaller Wrnlrd. In Guy's hands, the song cried, cajoled, threatened, and heaved. It wasn't metal, but it was heavy. No wonder Black Sabbath was once called Earth Blues Company.

- Cosmo Lee

Landmine Marathon @ Lit Lounge

Photo by Cosmo Lee

You think you know what to expect. You've seen the band before. Yet when Landmine Marathon raze the Lit Lounge, you are just as saucer-eyed as every other punter afterwards. The band has quite a look: four beards and a skinny young lady in skinny jeans. On their first note, bassist Matt Martinez breaks a string. His lowest, biggest one. What kind of bassist breaks a low E (tuned down to B, actually)? Martinez is as stunned as everyone else. He has brought no spare axe and, hoping that his band won't stop, walks offstage to change strings. The band can't stop, won't stop grinding. Grace Perry has become a demoness in a t-shirt with a mic. She can't stand still. She runs back and forth, perpetually in search of something. She charges into the crowd and ends her lines on tiptoe. Two guys are doing that synchronized European brothers-in-arms headbanging. Martinez returns with the ugliest bass I've ever seen. It's so worn, it looks furry and diseased. Jackson made it??? Turns out that he works for Jackson, and that he Frankensteined it together from spare parts. Perry is shivering from the demons inside. Racing back and forth thankfully doesn't help. Drums clatter away in the back, proficiently but sounding like shit. No matter - everyone's faces are melting from the carpet bombing up front. Grind, grind, grind. Fucking Monday the 13th. Suddenly the set ends. Groans, cheers. Perry announces that she is (wo)manning the merch table because, as the vocalist, she has nothing to carry. Prices are low, she says, because people, like the band, are poor. This song comes straight from that table to you.

- Cosmo Lee

Skin from Skull

Buy:
Amazon (MP3)
Level Plane (CD)

Metal pets: Purrzum

Thanks to roxymuzak for the tip.

Lost Wisdom

Do you have a metal pet? Is your furry/winged/scaly loved one br00tal...ly cute? If so, we want to feature it. Please send photos and testimonials to invisibleoranges at gmail dot com.

News and sales: 2009-W17

If you click on the above image, print out the flyer, and present it at the door, you can get in free at Relapse's Contamination Tour date in Cleveland at Peabody's on May 6. The lineup features Obscura, Graves of Valor, and Abysmal Dawn.

Tickets are available here for the Nuclear War Now! festival in Berlin, DE. This two-day fest (Nov. 13-14) features Bone Awl, Dead Congregation, Midnight, Morbosidad, Villains, and many others. NWN also has Rotting Christ/Necromantia and Ulver/Thorns slipmats.

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Unanimated's In the Light of Darkness is streaming in its entirety here. It comes out April/May on Regain.

Slough Feg's Ape Uprising is streaming in its entirety here. (The page also has full album streams for the new Crown the Lost and Crescent Shield records.) It comes out May 8 in Germany, May 11 in the rest of Europe, and June 2 in USA/Canada on Cruz Del Sur.

The latest records on Relapse from Buried Inside, Brutal Truth, and Agoraphobic Nosebleed are streaming in their entirety here, here, and here, respectively.

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Pre-orders are available here for Xasthur's new 2xLP, All Reflections Drained. One can choose from various vinyl options (black, red, picture disc) and accessories (back patch, slipmat, t-shirt).

Pre-orders are available here for 1349's new CD, Revelations of the Black Flame. Tom G. Warrior co-mixed the record. It comes out June 2 in the States.

Pre-orders are available here for Voivod's new record, Infini. Like its predecessor, it was extrapolated from riffs recorded by guitarist Piggy (RIP). It comes out June 23 in the States on Relapse.

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FMP has dropped prices in its distro for the moment. Most CD's are now $5. The label also confirmed the upcoming release of Velvet Cacoon's Atropine.

Rhino has compiled its remasters of Black Sabbath's Dio years into a 5-CD box set. The Rules of Hell features extensive liner notes and new interviews with band members. It is available here and here.

Australian deathrashers Shackles' debut album, Traitors' Gate, is out on gatefold black vinyl and picture disc at Hells Headbangers.

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Aspherical Asphyxia Productions has embarked on Old Crown, New Spawn, a three-part tribute to Emperor, Arcturus, and Ved Buens Ende. The Emperor one is available for free download here.

The soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch's new film, The Limits of Control, features Southern Lord artists Boris, Sunn O)))/Boris, and Earth. The cast includes Isaach De Bankolé, John Hurt, Bill Murray, and Tilda Swinton. The film (trailer here) comes out in theaters June 3.

From the press release: "Massachusetts' finest hard rock purveyors, Killswitch Engage, have announced the title for their eagerly anticipated fourth album for Roadrunner Records. The title is Killswitch Engage."

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Feel free to suggest worthy additions/updates.

Metallica can still (and will always) blow minds

Two videos currently blowing my mind: the first is of Metallica playing "Enter Sandman" for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. The sound is shit and the band is far away, but you know what's going on. Everyone is recognizable by body posture - Hetfield, Hammett, Newsted, Trujillo. Look at their audience: banquet tables. When I saw the Stones 14 years ago, the entire floor of the Astrodome was filled with chairs. This is many orders of magnitude lamer. Longtime Metallica friend (as in buddies before Cliff Burton joined) Umlaut, who took the video, recounted the occasion here. The picture of Cliff's bass behind a glass case is chillling. John Marshall's (Metal Church, Metallica guitar tech, occasional fill-in for Hetfield on guitar) perspective is here. He sat at the same banquet table as Jon and Marsha Zazula, Scott Ian, Charlie Benante, and friggin' Jim Martin of Faith No More. Can you imagine the conversations at that table???

Here is a rehearsal video from one of the times when Marshall filled in for an injured Hetfield. First, note how tall he is. Next to him, Hammett looks like a child. Second, note Hetfield trying to teach Marshall the guitar part to "One." His frustration is obvious. Finally - Metallica rehearsal! Your crappy band plays your crappy songs at practice. These guys play Metallica songs at practice. Several times a week, they get together and jam on... oh, what will it be today? "Creeping Death"? "Jump in the Fire"? "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)"? Do they goof on "Enter Sandman" like every other band during rehearsal? Or do they do it it at full tilt each time? It's not news that famous bands play their own tunes at practice. But what goes on in Metallica's garage is much different than what goes on in yours.

Death of a music collection

Good riddance

In the recent burglary of my home, thieves stole my hard drives, which housed my music collection. Last year I made my collection all-digital. I digitized my CD's, then sold or gave them away. I am not a fan of CD's. Jewel cases look cheap, and look worse over time. Digipaks age just as badly. People extol the virtues of liner notes and artwork, but these usually look bad in this age of Photoshop. I actually prefer the visuals of cassette tapes. The card slides out unimpeded, and its folds feel more satisfying than stapled pages. If only tapes had the fidelity of CD's; if only DAT's had caught on.

In a perfect world, I would live in a small place with one room devoted exclusively to 180-gram black vinyl. (Either that, or I would have a spouse.) At the moment, I cannot afford this world, nor would I want to. I am itinerant, so my music should be portable. Unfortunately, that means it's also steal-able. After finding out about the burglary, the first question most people ask (after ascertaining my health) is, "What about your music collection?"

Believe it or not, I'm not troubled about it. Of course, the loss is a huge inconvenience. I put thousands of hours into building a collection of somewhere between two and three thousand albums. But recently I have suffered information overload. Too many publicists flooding my inbox; too many albums in queue to be heard. In one fell swoop, some not-so-kind strangers solved these problems.

Archgoat My new best friends

My music collection has always been in flux. I have gone from hundreds of CD's (college days) to 90% vinyl (DJ days) to thousands of CD's (recently). When I owned CD's, I constantly pruned their ranks. This was due to necessity. When I moved (which in the past 10 years has averaged about once a year), my music collection was by far my largest possession. Bad music was literally dead weight. Going digital lessened this weight somewhat, though hard drives, too, have limits.

Of course, pruning my music collection has always been voluntary. Having it offloaded all at once was a shock. (I hope those thieves are enjoying my complete Aborted discography, because I certainly didn't.) After the burglary, I resolved to rebuild on an as-needed basis. The first priority would be albums for work. The second would be albums I wanted to hear at the moment - no hoarding for later. I also resolved to do ID3 tags perfectly this time (I am OCD like that). So I am re-ripping CD's that publicists have sent me. Friends send me albums here and there. The process has been slow. I like that. Music should be immersion, not a fire hose.

For a few days after the burglary, my music collection consisted of two Archgoat albums. (This reminds me of a friend of a friend who owned a single CD: ESPN's Jock Jams, Volume 1. What a desert island disc!) I have never listened to Archgoat so much in my life. I heard things in Archgoat I'd never heard before. (Which weren't many - maybe five things, as opposed to three. Archgoat is not brain-busting music.) Each addition to the collection has been a joy. (Except for the new Doro record. God, it's bad. It might be so bad it's good.) I look forward to rediscovering all of metal again. Black Sabbath one through six? Yes! Seven and eight? Well, if I must. Nine and ten? Yes! Eleven onwards? I'm not that much of a completist.

Archgoat - Angel of Sodomy

This fiasco drives home one point for me: no one needs recorded music. Humans existed just fine before recordings. It's annoying to see bozos on message boards saying, "I need X band's discography on rapidshare by tomorrow!" No, you don't. You need a life. Sure, people need music. (At least they probably do. Humans likely got on for a while clubbing animals and each other before discovering that ingesting peyote and hitting rocks together made for good times.) But music is really a proxy for other things: empathy, communication, community, fucking. If I were to be struck deaf tomorrow - and that would happen with my luck - I would still function in society. I'd have to. But someone else would have to do this site.

- Cosmo Lee

Thanks to Nick Green for the idea.

Top 5 Metal Merch Gripes

A band impresses you with its live set. You go to its merch table afterwards, determined to support the band. You peruse the offerings. CD - already have it. Vinyl - already have the CD. T-shirts one through five - no, no, no, no, no. Hoodie - too expensive. Disappointed, you meekly say, "good set" and slink off. You spend your money on beer instead.

How often does this happen to you?

This happens to me about 90% of the time (minus the beer). Band merch is probably my only non-necessary expense. Yet I find far too few opportunities to support bands this way. I won't shell out for a shirt I won't wear. In fact, I'd be more inclined to give straight to a donation can. If shirt sales are touring bands' primary means of subsistence, you'd think they would design shirts more carefully. Here are my top five gripes about metal band merch.

- Cosmo Lee

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Ugly - front

This is your basic merch mistake. Far too many shirts have meaningless skulls, eye-watering colors, and unflatteringly large designs (hello, technical death metal). Why is the most tasteful design always the girlie tee??? My favorite shirts are white-on-black, Chris Moyen-type deals. Every band should have a simple, logo-on-the-chest shirt. Shirts are adverts - why not make the message clear?

Ugly - back

Sometimes shirts look OK on the front, but ruin things on the back. Hypocrisy has a nice, logo-on-the-chest shirt. But the back says, I'M A FUCKING HYPOCRITE (see above). I have actually seen people wear this shirt. It might as well say, I'M A FUCKING MORON. Origin has a shirt with Antithesis' cover, which I like, on the front. But the back says, KILL TO BREED PEACE. What does that even mean??? There's no way I'm wearing that. Krisiun, too, had a shirt for AssassiNation that I considered buying. That is, until I saw the back: ONE ASSASSINATION UNDER GOD. I kind of get what that means, but it's easily misconstrued, and would make me look like, well, an ass.

No small sizes

This is the most frequent reason why I leave merch tables empty-handed. (I am not a big guy.) I realize bands know their markets and stock inventory accordingly. Old-school death metal bands have older, fatter fans (XL on up). Young hardcore bands have pert, skinnier fans (YL on up). But would it kill bands I actually like to stock a few small shirts? Most of my shirts are hardcore and grindcore just because they have small sizes.

No long sleeve shirts

This is my biggest merch gripe. Who really needs another short sleeve t-shirt? Like a good pair of pants or spouse who tolerates metal, a good long sleeve shirt is a keeper. I realize geography might be a consideration. Landmine Marathon, who have day jobs and thus mostly tour locally in hot-ass Arizona and SoCal, don't make long sleeve shirts. I understand that. But it still makes me mad.

Colors other than black

If their music isn't cute, bands shouldn't get cute with their merch. (One exception: Morbid Angel's EXTREME MUSIC FOR EXTREME PEOPLE shirt. That is cute and good.) None of this white/tan/red nonsense. I am from the Henry Ford school of metal shirts. Any color is good, so long as it is black. I ran out of clean black shirts the other day and had to wear a cream-colored shirt. I felt like a lesser man.

Blut aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II

Blut aus Nord have delivered perhaps the prog metal record of the year. This is ironic, given their general categorization as black metal. Then again, this isn't your big brother's black metal. Early efforts were requisitely frostbitten, but The Work Which Transforms God transformed the band. Blut aus Nord became an abyss of disharmonic guitars and dissociated drum machines. Its trough (or peak, depending on viewpoint) was 2006's MoRT (reviewed here), one of the scariest records ever made, in any genre.

The Cosmic Echoes of Non-Matter

Odinist (reviewed here) stepped back from the abyss with more grounded guitars. Now the band has returned to Western tonalities with a sequel to 1996's Memoria Vetusta I. The result is exquisite. All those years suppressing melodies must have built up quite a reserve. Solos soar; songs perorate; chord progressions wax ornate. (The pedestrian programmed drums, which beg for human interpretation, are the only blot.) De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas this is not. But Blut aus Nord engage in the same creative destruction that Mayhem did in the '90s. Mayhem destroyed death metal and themselves, and ironically laid the groundwork for black metal orthodoxy.

Recognizing that orthodoxy is anathema to black metal, Blut aus Nord have reconfigured the form. They destroy the old order by building a new one. It's not revolutionary; the return to conventional tonality is classicist. But music goes in cycles, and Blut aus Nord have the wheel firmly in hand. They've just steered back onto Euclidean planes.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
The End
Candlelight
Plastic Head

Brendon Small & School of Rock @ B.B. King's

Brendon Small w/ All-Star Photos by Joanna D. Robertson

I love seeing children interact with metal. They're not scenesters yet; they haven't been told by society not to like metal; they just like the music. The adult pursuit of metal is perhaps an assertion of youthful fantasy and play in a world unrewarding of such things. With his Metalocalypse show on Adult Swim, Brendon Small has made kids' business adults' business. Touring with the School of Rock All-Stars is a good fit for him.

Dethklok - Go Forth and Die

Small is funnier and a better shredder than most. Not only does he write and voice much of Metalocalypse, he also does the music. Many in the crowd (B.B. King's, NYC, April 3) sport t-shirts for his cartoon band Dethklok. Surprisingly many children, teenagers, and sharply attired women are present. TV has wider reach than I thought.

Paul Green's School of Rock has achieved renown for teaching teenagers how to play Led Zeppelin, Yes, and Jimi Hendrix. (Never mind that no one taught these icons how to rock.) The All-Stars are the school's top students. They easily stand up to most professional bands in terms of musicianship and showmanship. Not only do they shred, they also rock. It's heartwarming to see Small shredding guitar harmonies with kids half his age. He often lapses into exuberant profanity: "How about these fucking kids? They're fucking great!"

Gigi Gleason

Small and the fucking great kids work through Dethklok songs and metal classics. Each song features a different lineup, as kids swap in and out. The changeovers go like clockwork. Kids finish playing, hand their instruments to replacements, and crisply exit stage right. Lots of discipline, little ego. Most of the kids are male, though two singers are female. One does Axl Rose, the other King Diamond; both look alarmingly wholesome. Guitarist/vocalist Gigi Gleason is a find. Misstallica, her all-female Metallica tribute band, opens the show, and she plays Kirk Hammett flawlessly, down to the curls.

During Misstallica's set, a tiny kid - seven or eight, I'd guess - pumps his fist to "Creeping Death." He sings along to the "die by my hand" chant. After another opening band, he has changed into an Appetite for Destruction t-shirt. (A nearby metalhead with long mane and beer gut is wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. The world has seemingly turned upside-down.) Suddenly, I see the kid onstage with the All-Stars. He is shredding on a Les Paul his height. Later, he takes the mic for Megadeth's "Peace Sells." The kid changes the words. "What do you mean, I'm not in Metallica?" he snarls. "I wrote Ride the Lightning!" My mouth is agape. The future is in good hands.

- Cosmo Lee

News and sales: 2009-W16

Aquarius Records has the new Altar of Plagues, Amesoeurs, Haptic, Harvestman (aka Steve Von Till), and Old Wainds CD's.

Stinking Lizaveta's new record, Sacrifice and Bliss, is streaming in its entirety at Decibel this week. Purchase links for CD's and MP3's are here. Next month, the band tours with drone act Darsombra, culminating in a May 30 show at NYC's Cake Shop alongside Kylesa. Vegan cupcakes + metal = bliss. See dates here.

New records on Relapse by 16 and Mumakil are streaming in their entirety here and here, respectively. Both come recommended. Purchase links are on the streaming pages.

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Artist Brian Walsby has a new book out, Manchild 4 (cover above). It contains an illustrated Melvins tour diary and includes a live Melvins CD (story here). Get it at All That Is Heavy and Bifocal Media.

Profound Lore has posted the lyrics, not printed in the booklet, to Cobalt's new record Gin.

All That Is Heavy has begun manufacturing its own shirts. The first one is of The Obsessed's Lunar Womb. The fact that a small shirt is available for this record is mildly mind-blowing.

Playthisriff.com is a new site run by Bob Balch of Fu Manchu. It offers video lessons in guitar, bass, and drums from Nick Oliveri, Brant Bjork, and Mike Watt, as well as members of Fu Manchu, T.S.O.L., 3 Inches of Blood, Exodus, Pelican, Helmet, and more. See advert here.

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Secrets of the Moon will host a free listening session in Berlin on June 13 for Privilegivm, out later this year. The session will include a live performance with support from Farsot. See details here.

Pre-sale tickets are now available for the Matchitehew Assembly in Chicago. The two-day festival (June 5-6) features black metal and noise artists including Marblebog, Krieg, Bone Awl, Ashdautas, Menace Ruine, Velnias, Bloodyminded, Locrian, and more.

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Feel free to suggest worthy additions/updates.

Thank you

The support and sympathy in response to the burglary of my home has been amazing. I am truly thankful. The dollar value of the losses (computers, hard drives, other electronics, my fucking pull-up bar) isn't fatal, but it's enough to make life hard. I've set up a PayPal donation button to help defray the costs. A PayPal account is not required to donate. No amount is too small. Donate only if you have the means to do so. I know that times are tough for everyone.

A setback

Posts here will be sporadic for the next few days. My home was burglarized and my computers and hard drives were stolen. I hope to get back up to speed by next week. Thank you for your patience.

Metallicostarica

Costa Rican true metallers Acero have released a video for the title track from their album En Pie De Guerra. I reviewed the record here, with its uplifting song/video "Heavy Metal." That same spirit blesses "En Pie De Guerra." It has one of the best live performance videos I've seen. The band could work on its stage presence - the guy with the shaved head smiles too much - but the gig is quite the party. Metal is that rare endeavor where audience and performer are equally visually interesting. Would an indie rock crowd go nuts like this? I think not. Right now, someone somewhere is throwing the horns.

Buy:
CD Baby (CD)
Amazon (MP3)

Imbroglio - The Oncoming Swarm

Most records sound like records. They have intros, songs, interludes, and so on. Imbroglio's debut, The Oncoming Swarm (The Path Less Traveled, 2009), has such ingredients. But it's not really a record so much as the sound of a bad day. Normally, this is not a good thing. I do not like hearing friends complain about bad days. Then again, my friends don't come down-tuned with blastbeats. Sorry, friends. Sometimes records are better than people.

Butterfly Children

If I had produced this one, it would have been diminished. I would have deleted its intro, two interludes, and noise outro. It would have been a 17-minute EP, not a 32-minute something-between-an-EP-and-LP. I generally hate intros and interludes, but these work. The industrial ambience and nude clean tones ooze anxiety. I would have made just Side A of My War. Imbroglio adds Side B.

This lends depth to a normally shallow sound - abrasive, angular hardcore with metal leanings. Imbroglio is one of the angriest bands I've ever heard, along the lines of Gaza and early Ion Dissonance. (This is unsurprising given band members' connections to Architect, another angry outfit.) Shuddering accents buffet high and low end scrapings. The vocals could strip paint. Hovering above is a black cloud. The interludes are deceptive breathers. They're suckers' rallies, upticks in Sisyphean days. Life only lets you get back up so it can beat you down again. The beating never felt so good.

- Cosmo Lee

Buy:
eMusic (MP3)
Amazon (MP3)
Interpunk (CD)
The Path Less Traveled (CD)

To help Imbroglio book its May/June tour, go here.

Literally

Averse Sefira Keeping speaker repairmen busy

People forget that "literally" literally means that. Few are guiltier of this than metalheads. Metal-archives.com, with its unwashed masses of reviewers, is rife with such abuse. Confusion is common between "liberally" and "literally." A single adverb turns hyperbole into (literally) mind-blowing reality. Here are some of the best examples.

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"The drumming on this is fucking stellar with double bass that LITERALLY BEATS MY TEMPLES INTO PULP."

- on Biomechanical's Cannibalised

"A really cool light intro sets you up for a monster riff that literally grabs you by the balls..."

- on Exit to Eternity's Demo

"The song literally explodes into your face before slowing down a bit..."

- on Darkthrone's A Blaze in the Northern Sky

"Literally, you could watch all the porn in the world five times and you'd never surmount as much cum as the guitars that Musical Idiot 1 and Musical Idiot 2 spew all over us."

- on Dragonforce's Ultra Beatdown

"Your speakers literally explode when the first 'real' song begins. And it is appropriately called 'Detonation.'"

- on Averse Sefira's Tetragrammatical Astygmata

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"Once i got the plastic wrap off the cd, i ploped [sic] it into my cd player, shut off my lights, put on my head phones and was literally blown away by the brutal warlike chant of Krisiun."

- on Krisiun's Ageless Venomous

"That famous double bass break in 'Angel of Death' will literally melt your face off..."

- on Slayer's Still Reigning

"So after hearing the first song 'Into the Black' my chin was literally hanging down to my feet."

- on Naglfar's Harvest

"It's literally like getting fucked (although I wouldn't know) in the ass brutally whilst getting punched in the face super hard by a drill instructor who's yelling at the top of his lungs at you the entire time."

- on Meshuggah's Chaosphere

"From there I did everything I could to get as many of their releases as possible, and so when I heard that they would be releasing a new album I literally had to get a 3.7 kW submersible dewatering pump to drain the drool that had accumulated."

- on Benighted's Icon

Ironsword - Overlords of Chaos

Now that retro true metal is upon us - see Earache's Heavy Metal Killers compilation (reviewed here) and Metal Blade's recent signing of Ravage - perhaps the "true" true stuff will get its due. Portugal's Ironsword is the real deal, having been blessed by Manilla Road's Mark Shelton, who adds guest vocals here. Overlords of Chaos (Shadow Kingdom, 2008) combines '80s trad metal with speed metal and Motörhead's grit. Sure-handed drums cradle meaty riffs and fist-pumping choruses. The vocals are the highlight - gruff and sonorous, not the usual castrato yelp. This is music of muscles and tempered steel, but the garb is denim, not loincloths.

- Cosmo Lee

Cimmeria
Road Warriors

Buy:
eMusic (MP3)
Amazon (MP3)
Shadow Kingdom (CD)
All That Is Heavy (CD)

Thanks to David M for the tip.

Metal distros and sales: 2009-W15

The $39.98 LP

CM Distro has a new look. It now resembles The End's distro, which has a 5% sale off nearly 1000 items for the month of April.

Relapse has unveiled a new Nasum t-shirt. Also, pre-orders of Brutal Truth's new CD, Evolution Through Revolution, from Newbury Comics include an autographed CD booklet.

Willowtip has pre-orders up for the forthcoming Magrudergrind CD - also available bundled with a t-shirt.

Nuclear War Now! has the new Villains album, Lifecode of Decadence, in CD, LP, and diehard LP editions. Also in are the LP of the latest Hooded Menace album and Snakepit magazine #17, which comes bundled with either a 7" or 12" by Assassin.

Profound Lore has a few shirts, designed by Watain's Erik Danielsson, remaining from The Devil's Blood's recent US dates.

Anthrax's Fistful of Metal will be reissued on vinyl on May 12, 2009. This deluxe 25th anniversary edition comes in three colored 10"s in a tri-fold, die-cut sleeve with historical photos (pictured above). It will retail for a teeth-rattling $39.98.

Black Sabbath's Dehumanizer (and the other Dio years records) has gotten a 180-gram black vinyl reissue. It's available at Rhino, Insound, and Hellride. Revisiting this hidden gem should whet the appetite for Heaven & Hell's The Devil You Know, due out April 28.

Brutal Truth @ Double Door, Chicago

Photos by Carmelo Española

Band reunions don't excite me. Nostalgia is a debilitating condition. Cashing in on it is preying on the weak. Every dollar spent on a reunited band could go to an up-and-coming one. Sure, it's nice to see bands get props if they didn't get them back in the day. But if they're paid and well-fed now, will they stay lean and hungry?

Brutal Truth dispelled such fears. They've been reunited for a few years now, and reports of recent shows have been positive. A new record, Evolution through Revolution, shows a desire to move forward. In fact, the band opened its show at Chicago's Double Door on March 21 by playing the record in its entirety. No old songs to warm up the crowd - just bam, new stuff.

From the first note, it was clear that the band "had it." Few bands have such casual confidence. Converge has it. So does The Red Chord. It's forged from hundreds of nights on the road facing every live situation possible. You see it in the way bands set up. No fussing over technical details - just plug in and destroy.

Of course, Brutal Truth hasn't done hundreds of nights on the road since the last millennium. The members have had jobs, families, projects, and other bands. But somehow they sounded not like the geezers they were. (One year in grindcore time is at least two years in real world time.) Never mind that Dan Lilker was the only one with long hair now, or that Kevin Sharp looked like a stray fisherman. The eyes got a handful; the ears got a feast.

Not all at once, though. Lilker's bass was an invigorating rumble. But Rich Hoak seemingly had no snare drum. Guitarist Erik Burke, the one new member, sounded like a black metal demo stage left. Kevin Sharp barked and screamed over the mess. Still, the new stuff hit hard. Yakuza's Bruce Lamont and Bloodyminded's Mark Solotroff forcibly inserted sax skronk and noisecraft. Sharp responded by jamming his mic into Lamont's sax bell. Upon Sharp's announcement of the airing of the new album, the crowd cheered. Crowds only cheer for new material when they're being ground to a paste.

The snare mic eventually kicked in. Smack, crack, and other addictions ensued. Hoak is arresting to watch. He doesn't move around the kit like a metal drummer. He's got punk and jazz in him. Hoak is like a combination of Ventor, Buddy Rich, and an ape. His facial expressions would be funny if he weren't kicking so much ass. Burke never stopped sounding like bees in a bucket. But fuck it. The rest of the band was on fire. You know Slayer's live setup, with huge stacks of amp cabinets, most of which are turned off? Imagine those very much turned on, and closing in on you. The attack felt like a moving wall. Somehow four men sounded like an army.

Birth of Ignorance

That was just the first set. I had to get a Red Bull to keep up. After intermission, the band returned, armed with the classics. "Birth of Ignorance" started up, and the rest of the night was a blur. Lilker: stage right, freakishly tall, calmly deploying low end ordnance. He has a subtle technique of picking successive strings with the same upstroke. ("Economy picking" in guitar terms; I've never seen a bassist do it.) Hoak: flying around the kit with seemingly three arms. Sharp: throwing water on the crowd, in return getting splashed with beer by producer Sanford Parker up front. It was a night one didn't want to end. The Chicago winter outside didn't help.

- Cosmo Lee

Act & React: Mamiffer

Mamiffer is pianist Faith Coloccia and friends. Their Hirror Enniffer was one of Hydra Head's more intriguing releases last year (reviewed here). Coloccia's collaborators included three-fourths of These Arms Are Snakes, Hozoji Matheson-Margullis from Helms Alee, and Aaron Turner of Isis. We had Coloccia listen to six tracks identified only by title. Each title had the word "faith" in it. Coloccia's reactions follow below. Turner was in the room at the time, and Coloccia also captured his reactions to her reactions.

FC = Faith Coloccia
AT = Aaron Turner
Photo by Morgan Cuppet

Jesu - "Blind and Faithless" From: Why Are We Not Perfect (Hydra Head, 2008) What: Labelmate; not immune to criticism

Listen

FC: I can't stand it! The decayed sound is OK, but the feeling of Pro Tools is so close I want to run away and not even give the song a chance. (Justin [Broadrick] probably recorded it to tape, and I'm just projecting some kind of Pro Tools complex onto this track. Maybe it's the feeling of major chords and upbeat sounds that makes me want to quit out of iTunes?) Reminds me of the bad relationship I had during the time I had a My Bloody Valentine CD. If the violin-ish sound was the only part of the track then I could listen to the song. I like some Jesu songs. This is Jesu, right? The title sounds like a Godflesh title.

AT: In response to you saying that the Jesu track sounds like My Bloody Valentine, I think that's a slightly unfair assessment of the track, although it does sound like music from that era.

Y Kant Tori Read - "Fayth" From: Y Kant Tori Read (Atlantic, 1988) What: Pre-fame Tori Amos' synthpop band with future GN'R drummer Matt Sorum

Listen

FC: I know that voice. It's Tori Amos. This is fucking horrible! I know that voice from a mixtape cassette my cousin gave me in high school. It had "Little Earthquakes" on it. I used to try to play piano songs by ear, and I tried to play one of her songs, "Winter." All I ended up doing was transposing her vocals into piano notes. Her voice is so dominant over the instrument.

I remember a show on MTV that outed past pop musicians who were all of a sudden in the "alternative" scene. Amos was one of them. They showed a video of her in a black leather skirt with her hair all crazy and her band was called Tori Cant Write (or Read?). I think this song is a sad result of someone's listening to a crappy manager.

AT: Tori Amos, really? It sounds like Madonna or Cyndi Lauper.

Arkhon Infaustus - "Behind the Husk of Faith" From: Orthodoxyn (Osmose, 2007) What: French black/death metal; Jesus not welcome

Listen

FC: This goes a little past my ears. [It] sounds like the shows that were dangerous to go to in high school, where there would be a meaty human circle of sweaty guys with their shirts off releasing anger. I like the double kick pedal and some of the guitar tones. It would feel good to play some of the chord changes on whatever stage they have that's covered in sacrificed Christian blood.

AT: I don't think you had a response or at least it was not memorable.

Wrath of the Weak - "A Leap of Faith Ends When You Crash into the Ground" From: Alogon (Profound Lore, 2008) What: One-man Burzumic black metal; reviewed here

Listen

FC: I think I have heard this before. The beginning is nice before the instruments come in. I like the hard-to-hear note changes, the layer of static on the whole song, and the lack of constant vocals, but the constant adhering to a beat is a little off-putting. It's good. I could listen to this and not feel really upset or annoyed.

AT: I think I have that record, and it's not bad, actually.

Black Math Horseman - "Bird of All Faiths and None / Bell from Madrone" From: Wyllt (Tee Pee, 2009) What: Haunted heaviness; the vocal performance of the year

Listen

FC: Sounds like my friend Sera's band. (Black Moth? Horsemen? I'm really terrible with remembering band names!) Kind of sounds like Red Sparowes. Her voice is really good to hear. It was recorded in a nice way [and] sounds honest. I think it would be awesome if she did songs with only her voice, or experiment[ed] with her voice layered. I would love to be brave enough to sing.

AT: It was surprising for me to hear you identify Black Math Horseman after hearing the MP3 for about five seconds, and having only seen Sera's band once.

Ballerina - "Faith" From: Dance of Balet (IPS/PRS, 2006) What: Indonesian prog metal

Listen

FC: I don't know what this is, but it reminds me of Living Colour, especially the vocals at the end. Sounds like an accent of someone who listens to Corey Glover or Mike Patton sing and so tries to sing like them, but their country's accent does not lend them the same syllables and sounds that the American accent could. I don't really want to listen to this. I do, however, really like the white noise of the heater in my place, and silence, so I will listen to [that] instead.

AT: Thought it might be Living Colour, but don't know. [It] sounds like Euro power metal with a funky twist. Funky is the perfect word for the horrible shit they were perpetrating.

Links

MySpace
Hydra Head

Sepultura - A-Lex

Sepultura was probably my favorite metal band of the '90s. After Max Cavalera left, I dutifully kept following the band. It was a tough friend to keep around. With each new Sepultura record, I would have the same reaction 30 seconds in: "God, this sucks."

What I Do!

A-Lex (SPV, 2009) is no different. The reason is simple: Andreas Kisser cannot write a riff to save his life. When Max left, he took the riffs with him. Since then, Sepultura has been mired in faceless, generic riffs. They're sort of hardcore, sort of thrash, sort of grunge, sort of boring. Annoyingly, their execution is often great. Energy levels have been high on the last few records. Igor Cavalera played his heart out on Dante XXI (reviewed here). His replacement Jean Dolabella does a fine job on A-Lex. Derrick Green is a much more expressive vocalist than Max Cavalera. But no matter how hard they put their backs into it, they're still shoveling shit.

Most of the songs on A-Lex are between two to three minutes long. Yet they feel interminable. Most are lucky to get past two notes in a riff. In their knuckleheadedness, they sometimes recall Roots - minus the conviction and tribal flair. When Kisser unloads the occasional hot lead, it feels false; such overdubs are absent in the band's one-guitar live setup. This record is best when the band doesn't play. The ambient interludes have rich sound design. The overall recording is heavy and organic-sounding.

But these are just condiments. The sandwich is still inedible. Never mind the album concept about A Clockwork Orange. It's a talking point to mask mediocrity. I didn't read the book, but I saw the film. Assuming that the film is inferior to the book, this record trails miles behind. The film was lurid and horrifying. The only horror here is the endless mundanity.

- Cosmo Lee

Sell:
Amazon (CD)

Metal pets: Shana the dog, Dario the cat

Morbid Tails

Shana (aka Shana Emfurry)

Shana is a four year-old Collie/Shepherd mix. She was rescued from a local pet shelter, and her name is a cross between Shaun of the Dead and Shane Embury because she has a big appetite. Her favorite bands are High on Fire, Lair of the Minotaur, and Mastodon because they wrote songs about wolves ("Speedwolf," "The Wolf," and "The Wolf is Loose," respectively). She considers herself a Wolf in her Throne Room (the living room) and sits on her Barkthrone (the futon) with imposing authority. Whenever I play Municipal Waste, she starts doing a one-dog circle pit; she thrashes like a maniac while chasing her own tail. She enjoys playing in the park, sneaking into the bathroom to drink out of the toilet, barking at the stray cats in the neighborhood, and eating my sneakers.

Dario Argento (aka Mewronymous)

Dario Argento is a three year-old tabby Maine Coon. I found him on my back porch one morning when he was still a tiny kitten. He just walked into the kitchen looking for food while Dario Argento's Suspiria was playing in the living room. Hence his br00tal name. These days he likes to ambush the dog with his blackened claws of death. He's planning on sneaking himself in my suitcase so he can go to Maryland Deathfest to see his favorite band Mayhem. In his spare time, he loves knocking down the garbage can and scattering tamale wrappers across the kitchen. For some weird reason, my hair ties go missing and he pees in the hamper whenever he hears Autopsy and Asphyx. Beware his sweet demeanor - he's dangerously charismatic, and he will rub his furry tail against your face without any warning.

- bacon and blastbeats

Lair of the Minotaur - The Wolf
Asphyx - Food for the Ignorant

Do you have a metal pet? Is your furry/winged/scaly loved one br00tal...ly cute? If so, we want to feature it. Please send photos and testimonials to invisibleoranges at gmail dot com.