Catalan black metallers Foscor have released a video for "I Tornà de les Cendres", from their album The Smile of the Sad Ones, which I wrote about here. The video takes place in a spa in Catalonia called the Balneari de la Puda (built in 1870, abandoned in 1958). Its atmosphere is thick like caked blood. A girl wanders the halls of the decaying complex, encountering shadowy figures - or is it all in her head? The prostrate poses and old world vibe recall Morbid Angel's video for "God of Emptiness". The colors match the music: gritty, duskily beautiful. It's refreshing to see black metal sans panda paint. I'm a big fan of Foscor, and wonder why they aren't huge.
Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of Dio's first solo record, Holy Diver. The title track has made inroads into popular culture (South Park, the Judgment Night soundtrack, Killswitch Engage's cover and its ridiculous video), but "Rainbow in the Dark" inspires more love, even though no one really knows what it's about. People have tried to parse it (attempt #1, attempt #2); the most cogent explanation seems to be Dio's feeling of alienation after leaving Black Sabbath and/or Rainbow.
The song's video is beyond explanation, though. A creepy man follows a woman into a Soho sex shop, whereupon he is repelled by a ferociously youthful Vivian Campbell. Bassist Jimmy Bain joins Campbell in the street, while their boss lip syncs on some rooftop. It's all quite baffling. Evidently, Dio is not fond of the song - it's the poppy aberration on Holy Diver - but he is in the minority. "Rainbow in the Dark" has the second greatest synth hook of all time (#1 and #3 would be Europe's "The Final Countdown" and Usher's "Yeah!"); it and Dio's purple boots are beyond reproach.
On October 15, 1999, starting at 11 pm, Nicholas White was trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. Although a surveillance camera captured this, security guards didn't notice. Above is footage of the entire time, greatly sped up. You see White fiddle with the buttons, try to escape out the top, and examine the contents of his wallet to kill time. His situation is Kafka-esque, most so when he opens the doors, only to be greeted by a wall. Sadly and understandably, he cracked from the experience. I highly recommend reading the full story at the New Yorker. You will learn a lot about elevators.
Speaking of Darkthrone and black metal documentaries, Until the Light Takes Us will supposedly come out this year. Details so far are shadowy, but YouTube has a hilarious excerpt starring Fenriz. In a phone interview with a metal publication, he affirms his love for house and techno, specifically Monika Kruse. The silence on the other end is side-splitting. (I happen to like Kruse and her Terminal M label, though in recent years she's fallen to the same minimal virus that's crippled most of techno). Few things make me happier than open-minded metalheads pissing off close-minded ones.
The Misanthrope (Peaceville, 2007) is very much misnamed. No teenagers in corpsepaint here - Darkthrone's Nocturno Culto is quite the social creature. He goes ice fishing with his buddies; he goes camping with REI (or in Europe, probably Jack Wolfskin) endorsee Fenriz; he hangs out with an old guy named Knut; he shoots live footage of Gallhammer and Aura Noir; he plays board games with Aura Noir. This is a paean to community, not misanthropy.
Don't expect a Darkthrone documentary. Devoid of commentary and narrative, this DVD is basically a home video. We see beautiful shots of the Norwegian landscape, clips of Darkthrone rehearsal with Fenriz, artsy footage of Nocturno smoking, and baffling first person shots of cross-country skiing. The latter recall the video game Doom, in which your weaponless hand waves slowly in front of you. Footage of dragging around a coffin goes unexplained. Random jump cuts and cheesy visual effects abound. A cinematic masterpiece this is not.
Yet it's still watchable; a home video by Darkthrone is more interesting than most of our sad lives. The Gallhammer footage is awesome and too brief. Fenriz busts out with some trademark one-liners. Darkthrone in their death metal days appear in killer vintage live footage. There's that classic "toxic piss" scene I could swear I've seen in some black metal documentary. It's fascinating to see a way of life so different from the typical urban rat race. Those who live outside Scandinavia will get the most out of this.
Nocturno's soundtrack is truly ambient - pensive chords, hints of riffs, electronic noodlings. For background music, it's pleasant enough, and comes on a CD along with the DVD. At the moment, black metal documentaries are in vogue; thankfully, this isn't another one. It's just a bunch of snapshots with a-day-in-the-life appeal.
Speaking of food as drummers, here is an oldie but goodie. For the intro to last year's Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, Mastodon did a song called "Cut You Up with a Linoleum Knife." It welds King Diamond falsettos to Judas Priest power metal, and is my favorite work by Mastodon since Remission. Only Brann Dailor's difficulty playing a straight beat in the chorus gives away the band's identity.
Last year, as a goodwill gesture to hometown fans, Animosity played a free show in a San Francisco park. I wasn't there, but the event was captured on video (see above). It's so San Francisco, from the decidedly mixed crowd to the incongruity of death metal outside on a rainy afternoon. Dig the guitarists' matching Stryper-esque Alexi Laiho Flying V's. The video's sound seems to come not from the gig, but from a demo. I've posted the final version of the song, "You Can't Win," from Animosity's Animal, which I've reviewed here.
At Metal Injection, I've reviewed South Carolina deathcore-rs Through the Eyes of the Dead and Hungarian black metallers Marblebog. At Decibel, I've reviewed Bay Area goremasters Impaled and Danish death metallers Corpus Mortale. I've also started writing for All Music Guide, so the sidebar gallery will see more flux now. Of the latest batch of records I reviewed, the highlight was Hirax's The New Age of Terror, my favorite post-'80s thrash album.
The current subprime mortgage financial crisis brings to mind Megadeth's "Foreclosure of a Dream" - not that there are other metal songs about foreclosures. For those outside the US, a foreclosure is the repossession or sale of property by a bank when the property owner can't make the mortgage payments. For various reasons (higher interest rates, housing market downturn, predatory lending, unwise borrowing, etc.), foreclosures are soaring in the US. In turn, this is causing turmoil among mortgage lenders and their investors.
This carries echoes of the American farm crisis in the early to mid-'80s. Farmers who had borrowed at artificially low interest rates in the '70s faced higher interest rates, decreased exports due to domestic subsidies, and declining land values. Under President Reagan, farm foreclosures soared (650,000 between 1981 and 1987), with insurance companies and corporate agribusiness buying up much of this land. Members of Megadeth bassist Dave Ellefson's family in Minnesota were victims of such foreclosures.
Hence, "Foreclosure of a Dream," one of Megadeth's more nuanced (and easy to play!) songs. You can see the lyrics here. Lines like "Barren lands that once filled a need / Are worthless now, dead without a deed" specifically apply to farms, but otherwise the song has universal relevance. "More borrowed money, more borrowed time" could apply to the '80s savings and loan crisis, as well as the collapse of President George H.W. Bush's infamous "Read my lips" promise, a soundbite in the song. The video is straightforward and effective, depicting a foreclosure auction. Dave Mustaine's end-of-song melisma is perhaps the finest singing he's ever done.
I don't know how it is in other countries, but owning property is very much an American "dream." As this song shows, the dream can become a nightmare.
While writing a review of Overkill's new album, Immortalis, I revisited the band's entire full-length catalogue - 14 albums. For two days at work, I listened to nothing but Overkill. That's called "taking one for the team." A few things jumped out at me: (1) Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth's sneer is a surprisingly easy taste to acquire, (2) the band's mid-period groove metal albums really suck, (3) guitarist Dave Linsk is the best thing to happen to Overkill (4) since Rob Cannavino and Merritt Gant joined up for 1991's Horrorscope.
No offense to Bobby Gustafson, who played on the band's classic early albums, but when Cannavino and Gant came on, Overkill went up a notch. Horrorscope was an over-achievement for Overkill, a blue-collar band with some truly boneheaded moments in its oeuvre. It honed thrash to a degree of sophistication Overkill would never reach again. Although Cannavino and Gant stayed on for two more full-lengths, they never recaptured the magic of Horrorscope.
The title track was even more of an over-achievement. I remember seeing this video on MTV when I was young, and it blowing my mind. Little did I realize I was seeing an aberration. That amazing bass intro? Those sick harmonies in the solo section? Where did those come from??? They're so not Overkill. And only recently did I realize that when Ellsworth sings the lines that end in "fields of fire," he's channeling Sabbath-era Ozzy. Overkill's last four albums, featuring Linsk, are thoroughly enjoyable, but they don't hold a candle to this.
OK, this ad is about bikers, but it could easily apply to metalheads. Note that its inclusion here in no way constitutes endorsement (though I did favor Herbal Essences some years ago because it wasn't tested on animals; I'm not sure if that's still true). So, any metalhead hair care tips? Do you value "bounce" and "shine" as much as "brutality" and "grimness"?
Admit it, this shit's important if you've got long tresses. Once at a show, I saw a couple where the man and the woman were both like Cousin It. I made the mistake of standing behind them, and even though I had a good several feet of clearance, every time they headbanged, I'd get bits of...stuff...in my mouth.
Metal shows in Europe are uniquely trying, because instead of dodging moshers, you have to avoid headbangers. That's how they show metal appreciation. A good show looks like clumps of hair bobbing up and down all over. Both men and women are liable to bust into headbanging anytime they feel so inspired. Of course, headbanging has a radius of activity, so if you want to avoid eating the hair of others, stand next to short-haired people.
In Europe, they also have this practice, which I've never seen in America, where people put their arms around each other and headbang in unison, like full-on bending from the waist - for entire songs. Usually, it's two people, though sometimes it's more, and then you can really crank up some collective torque. I've only seen men do this, though once I saw some girls do it to parody men.
People who don't go to metal shows miss out on so much.
Not new news, but this can't not be seen - Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela have been turning heads with their nylon-string cover of Metallica's "Orion." Rodrigo's flatpicking makes an interesting contrast with Gabriela's percussive rasgueado technique. Evidently, the couple cut their teeth in metal bands in Mexico (they've also covered Metallica's "One") before journeying to Dublin and Denmark, busking for a living. Busking friend Damien Rice took them on tour; now the pair is hitting the charts in the US and UK, with recent exposure on MTV. Quite a story! Apparently, an EP of Metallica covers is on the way. The highlight of the video is Gabriela's painted toenails tapping away, a most un-metallic sight.
Continuing on the thread of Middle Eastern conflict...
"Holy Wars...The Punishment Due" is one of metal's great songs on one of metal's great albums, Rust in Peace. But despite how often I've heard the song, I never parsed the lyrics until recently. They only reinforce my belief that despite how political Megadeth albums are supposed to be, Dave Mustaine's politics are a mess. At the very least, they're ill-articulated. Sure, Megadeth songs are political in that they talk about political matters. But whether they actually state clear positions or raise hard questions is another matter.
For example, the lyrics to "Peace Sells" amount to little more than "fuck you, man" in the first half of the song + the meaningless (though catchy) "Peace sells, but who's buying" chant at the end of the song. I get the feeling Megadeth's politics are like the interlude in the "Peace Sells" video, where the kid's dad comes in and tells him to turn off that garbage (i.e., the Megadeth video) and watch the news, and the kid turns around and says, "This is the news." Instead of subjective commentary, the jumbled, rapid-fire political imagery in Megadeth's videos and songs are merely reflections of reality - which is the supposed objective mission of the news.
Of course, there's no such thing as fair and balanced. In today's media, any reflection of reality is a political act due to editorial choices. And to his credit, Mustaine does sustain some consistent positions. He thinks war in the name of religion is bad, a thread that continues from "Holy Wars..." all the way up to the recent United Abominations album. He also thinks the UN is a piece of shit.
The problem is, these are profoundly unprofound positions. Any 15 year-old who reads any amount of news would come to these conclusions rather quickly. Sure, picking on metal lyrics is shooting fish in a barrel. But for someone who mouths off to the media so much, and whose albums are hyped as political, Mustaine's politics seem highly unlikely to change anyone's mind about anything. Not that Nasum or Napalm Death would be more likely do so, however. In general, I think that politics - the flag-waving/burning, mantra-chanting kind - doesn't lend itself to great art. Politics is not about subtleties (though it should be), while art is.
Mustaine should understand this, though, as he's responsible for some of the 20th century's most amazing musical compostions. "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due" has no musical cracks. It's wall-to-wall awesomeness, full of twists and turns that somehow make perfect sense. Trivium and Lamb of God can cite Megadeth all they want, but they will never, ever write a masterpiece like "Holy Wars..."
The classic lineup
However, the lyrics are nowhere near as cohesive. The first half of the song, the "Holy Wars" part, is straightforward - "Killing for religion / Something I don't understand." However, when the song switches to half-time (the "Punishment Due" part), the head-scratching begins. The first verse ("Upon my podium") still makes sense; it depicts a zealot in line with the song's theme.
But the second verse - what does "Wage the war on organized crime" mean? What does organized crime have to do with anything? "Sneak attacks, repel down the rocks"? Wouldn't "rappel" make more sense? (otherwise, who is repelling what?) "Some people risk to employ me / Some people live to destroy me / Either way they die"? Huh???
The rest of the song is similarly befuddling, though repeated examination yields one possible answer. The "Paid by the alliance, to slay all the giants" line - is the narrator some sort of assassin of holy war? That might explain the "risk to employ" bit. Maybe that also accounts for the last few lines about how "they'll take my thoughts away" and "now I must scream of the overdose / And the lack of mercy killings." Has he been imprisoned, and wishes to commit suicide by OD because they won't shoot him? The narrator certainly seems delusional. Or maybe I'm just dense. Help, anyone?
Here's an interesting interview where Mustaine seems to imply that "Holy Wars" is about conflict in Ireland, not the Middle East.
I'm a big, big fan of Hank Williams III's country music (and of Hank the First, though not of Hank, Jr. - I'll always associate him with Monday Night Football, unless someone can convince me otherwise). What I've heard of III's metal band, Assjack, frankly sucks, though I'll reserve judgment until they record a proper album. Still, I admire III's willingness to do country and metal sets back-to-back. He's playing here in SF the day after Christmas with The Reverend Horton Heat and Nashville Pussy. That's going to be one hell of a hootenanny. I'm seriously considering putting my family on hold for the show.
Here's a video of his barnburner "Dick in Dixie" live in Austin, TX. Few country shows could boast so much goat-throwing. Dig that Black Flag-style "III" logo! His fiddler and pedal steel player shred, too. It ain't metal, but it kicks ass just the same.
By far, my favorite parts of skate videos are the bail sections. I enjoy good skating as much as anyone, but the sadistic part of me just can't get enough of seeing people hurt themselves in creative and painful ways (I especially enjoy handrail impalements).
That said, some slams I wouldn't wish on anyone. Jake Brown's 40-foot fall at the recent X Games definitely qualifies. That's like jumping from the top of my apartment building! Dude pops his shoes off, breaks multiple bones and organs - and walks away. Hang on 'til the end for extra-punishing camera angles of the fall.
Today is Live Earth Day, which, like the Internet, is evidently another Al Gore invention. The idea is like Live Aid - simultaneous concert festivals in eight cities around the world (New York, London, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney, and Hamburg) "to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis."
I'm quite skeptical about events like this. What's the ecological footprint of these festivals? Won't they generate tons of environmentally-unfriendly waste? What about all the transportation attendees will take? How "green" are the corporate sponsors? Exactly who and what, aside from rockstar egos, benefit from this?
A bright note, though - a fan of Dutch goth metallers After Forever has made a great video for their song "Equally Destructive." The editing is fantastic, timing images in perfect synchronicity with the lyrics. The song I can take or leave, but these images say more than a hundred spoiled rockers ever will.
My metal artists feature at Stylus today highlights Larry Carroll, who did the covers for Slayer's Reign in Blood, South of Heaven, Seasons in the Abyss, and Christ Illusion. He's also doing the cover for The Hour of Reprisal, the upcoming album by Ill Bill of Non Phixion fame.
It's no coincidence that the title is a Slayer lyric. Ill Bill and his brother Necro once played in a death metal band called Injustice, and Non Phixion's logo was a tribute to Voivod's. His MySpace has a song that's hip hop lyrics over full-on metal, but the flows don't mesh well with the riffs. Bad Brains' H.R. and Daryl Jenifer contribute to The Hour of Reprisal, which evidently will include vocal hooks from Max Cavalera and Howard Jones of Killswitch Engage.
The metal doesn't stop there. Ill Bill dropped a verse on Jedi Mind Tricks' "Heavy Metal Kings," in which "heavy metal" refers to guns, not music. But JMT'S Vinnie Paz says, "We're basically trying to convey the energy of old-school metal, real rugged shit - but in hip hop." The single's cover is totally metal, as is the title of its album - Servants in Heaven, Kings in Hell. The album even takes song titles directly from Slayer, Venom, Amorphis, Sinergy, and Trivium.
Ill Bill's verse features the lines, "I'm a Slayer album personified," and "Blast the black metal at you like Danny Lilker." The latter is technically true, as Lilker has done time in black metal bands Hemlock and Overlord Exterminator. BM is hardly Lilker's calling card, though, so maybe Ill Bill's metal knowledge runs deep?
In the song's video, Paz wears shirts of Iron Maiden and Terror (he seems to be rocking Nike's Iron Maiden trainers in the making-of video below, ). A limited edition of the album even had a remix of the song with Terror on guitars. R.A. the Rugged Man makes a cameo in the video; he's oddly reminiscent of SFU's Chris Barnes. The making-of video below is quite enjoyable, so check it out.
The Japanese are responsible for some of the most fucked-up (and addictive) TV I have ever seen. There's their uber-sadistic game shows (warning: NSFW), my favorite of which involves forcing contestants to apply makeup while riding a rollercoaster. There's the most messed-up English lesson ever. There's the amazing Cats Carrying Fish, 11 full minutes of...cats carrying fish.
But the most mind-melting TV I've seen recently is this appearance by Marty Friedman and Paul Gilbert on Rock Fujiyama. American TV doesn't hold a candle to this. Friedman and Gilbert speaking fluent Japanese? The Japanese hosts rocking American accents? A weird duet where Friedman and Gilbert struggle through "Tornado of Souls" (which has one of my all-time favorite guitar solos)? It all pales in comparison to an incredible session of "play a riff by that band," where Gilbert demonstrates what a walking riff dictionary he is.
There's tons more of Friedman/Gilbert goodness on YouTube. I have watched this clip at least six times now...you can't beat the Big-Deth.
When I was much younger, I absolutely bugged out to the B-52's "Rock Lobster." I'm talking about full-on losing it, complete with bodily mimicking of the "down, down, down" part. After seeing a gazillion YouTube videos of the song, including a pretty good Family Guy rendition, I'm convinced this is one of the best songs ever written. The female vocals are perfect, Fred Schneider is Fred Schneider, and...dude, that cowbell.
Why metal bands are the only ones to record covers of this song is beyond me. And, really, the covers aren't that great. I first heard Dead Horse's version circa 1991 via the wonderful WUNH 91.3 FM. It's not bad, gruffly faithful to the original. Botch's version, on the other hand, is one of the low points of the band's catalogue. The Internet seems to disagree, though; perhaps the most popular Google search leading to this site is people seeking that cover. Happy now?
Much more interesting is this live video, apparently recorded in 1979. It's one of the hottest things I've ever seen. We always knew Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson were hot, but gawdamn! And Fred Schneider's porn-stache! With the cameraman roving around, you'd think this were the set of Boogie Nights. Dark, sweaty, and slightly jaded, this version shits all over anything "post-punk" today.
Two recent and bizarre bits of black metal in the popular media (clips below) - the first is Akercocke on Irish BBC TV, in a somewhat hyped "debate" with Christian types. The band isn't that articulate (hitting the bottle on live TV hardly advances one's cause), but then again, the whole show is a disorganized, Jerry Springer-esque mess. I thought these kinds of censorship flaps were relics of '80s America? By the principle of "any publicity is good publicity" (Earache uploaded this), Akercocke wins by simply showing up.
The second is the now-popular clip of Christian black metallers Admonish on MTV's "Pimp My Ride International." Not much metal about this, really, though there is an absurd amount of goat-throwing and Lil' Jon puts the "black" in black metal. Bonus points for brief snippets of Slayer and Method Man. But why does this Swedish band have a Norwegian flag in its rehearsal room? Was the suicide door an ironic black metal joke? And now that that speakers take up the back seat, how will the rest of the band get to gigs?
VBS.tv (aka Vice TV) has posted its five-part documentary on Gorgoroth. It's short, about half an hour total. Photographer Peter Beste is involved, which no doubt aided this rare, intimate look at singer Gaahl. Ignore the silly TV/PS3 interface, and check it out:
Kylesa to tour with Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation
In WTF news, Kylesa will be playing select US west coast dates with Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation. This makes no sense other than for the fact that Kylesa happens to have a woman in its lineup also (and that maybe it qualifies as Southern gothic rock). It's great that the band will reach new audiences, but the Hot Topic set may be in for a nasty shock.
(with Lacuna Coil, Within Temptation)
5/30 - Spokane, WA - The Boulevard 5/31 - Portland, OR - Aladdin Theater 6/01 - San Francisco, CA - Slim’s 6/04 - San Luis Obispo, CA - Downtown Brewing Company 6/05 - Sparks, NV - New Oasis 6/06 - Salt Lake City, UT - Avalon Theatre
The band has also released a video for "Hollow Severer" from its album Time Will Fuse Its Worth. Accompanying the video is a contest offering the chance to win Kylesa vinyl and t-shirts.
Now, I have seen some guitar shredding in my life. I've been to a Necrophagist show. I've seen Trey Azagthoth play live, up close. I've owned Steve Vai's Alien Love Secrets video. I grew up when Guitar One magazine was called Guitar for the Practicing Musician.
But nothing - and I mean nothing - comes close to the sheer fucking fury that is Michael Angelo Batio. Never mind that he is essentially a computer with a pick and bad hair, or that he is the most soulless guitarist I have ever heard. What matters is his absolutely absurd double guitar, with which he creates the sonic equivalent of masturbating twice at the same time. This is (two) hands down the most ridiculous guitar playing I have ever seen.
"Crush my soul, make me feel" definitely applied to Bob Flanagan. He was a BDSM performance artist; Wikipedia says BDSM stands for "bondage & discipline," "dominination & submission," and "sadism & masochism." I know virtually nothing about these things, and what little I've seen of Flanagan's work makes me wince. Horror movies and death metal are nothing next to actual human pain.
However, Flanagan wasn't subjecting himself to unbelievable punishment (e.g., hammering a nail through his penis) just for kicks. He had cystic fibrosis, which causes lung infections, gastrointestinal diseases, and other things no human deserves. Flanagan used BDSM to "fight pain with pain" - in other words, to control his suffering.
Evidently, it worked; when he died at age 43 in 1996, he was one of the longest documented survivors of cystic fibrosis. Frankly, I cannot imagine pain so great that it compels one to seek out other pain to distract from/conquer it. You can learn more about Flanagan's life at the site Sheree Rose, his partner and artist collaborator, maintains.
Flanagan appeared in the video to Godflesh's "Crush My Soul," directed by Andres Serrano (of "Piss Christ" fame/infamy). Rose is the handler who hoists him upside down, an inverted Christ. Evidently, Kirk Hammett's viewing of this video led to Metallica using Serrano's art for Load and ReLoad.
This video has two sections interspersed with "band" footage. The first is a cockfight; the second is a church service. Serrano draws parallels between them. In the beginning, he focuses on the cross worn by the guy in the red hoodie. Near the end, he cuts in footage of chickens. In both situations, Serrano calls attention to people pitching in money. Perhaps they're complicit in something?
WARNING: THESE VIDEOS CONTAIN EXTREMELY GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING IMAGES. DO NOT WATCH THEM AT WORK.
Godflesh - Crush My Soul
Flanagan also appeared in the video to Nine Inch Nails' "Happiness in Slavery." I'm surprised I could find it uncensored on YouTube, as it's one of the edgiest videos I've ever seen. The video was part of the "Broken Movie," which was never officially released. That "grinding into grist" part reminds me of Pink Floyd's film for The Wall.
Nine Inch Nails - Happiness in Slavery
It's all too easy to dismiss Flanagan's activities as "insanity" or "perversion." He approached them with dignity, humor, and courage that few of us have. Here's a video with a voiceover of him reading his poem "Why." In it, he explains why he does what he does.
I won't go into the history of The KLF, as many others have already done so. Suffice it to say that Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty were two strange guys with a brilliant knack for publicity. Their stunts included burning a million pounds (true) and allegedly doing sonic weapons research on cows (false).
But their crowning moment was their final performance, at the 1992 Brit Awards, the UK equivalent of the Grammys. The KLF had won "Best British group" and were to play a live version of their house anthem "3 A.M. Eternal." Wearing a kilt, leaning on a crutch, and firing machine gun blanks at the audience, Drummond showed up with Extreme Noise Terror in tow and bashed out a chaotic (and rather crappy) metal version of the tune. Later, the band delivered a sheep carcass to an industry afterparty. How black metal of them.
Below is a video of that performance, which holds more historical than aesthetic value. But first, the original (and perhaps more absurd) video for comparison:
Today marks five years since Paul Baloff's passing. I'm a slow learner, and it took me a while to appreciate his contribution to metal. I grew up with Zetro-era Exodus, and shamefully didn't hear Bonded by Blood until long after the fact. When I did, I was initially underwhelmed. The riffs were cool, but the album was drenched in '80s reverb, and Baloff's vocals seemed so goofy and histrionic.
Recently, though, I put on the album, and I got it. One thing in its favor is the fact it's not too fast. It has the requisite double-time thrash, but it also has plenty of midpaced parts. Proper headbanging requires a certain speed, not too slow and not too fast, and Bonded absolutely nails it. With the guitars chugging away like locomotives, Baloff's voice was the perfect spark to put songs over the top.
As for the origin of the title -
"I think one of the best memories I have of Paul was one night when we were sitting around in his car drinking vodka, straight from the bottle, listening to Venom and Mercyful Fate, and we were drunk and we were just saying how much we loved each other and how great it was to finally have a band playing the type of music we wanted to play. And we all of a sudden decided that we should just immortalize it, and so someone whipped out a razor blade, and we started cutting up our hands...I cut my hand, Gary Holt cut his hand, Tom Hunting cut his hand, and Paul Baloff cut his hand, and we all rubbed the blood together and we were all bonded by blood."
- Kirk Hammett
Here's a great live clip of "Bonded by Blood" from Another Lesson in Violence. As he said at the show, "This one's older than shit, heavier than time." RIP Paul Baloff (April 25, 1960 - February 2, 2002).
I'm one of the, like, three people that don't love Mastodon's Blood Mountain. I don't hate it, and in fact I find parts of it quite interesting. But it just doesn't move me - too much art, not enough rock. I'm more of a "March of the Fire Ants" type of guy.
However, a good video can help a song go down better. That's the case with "Colony of Birchmen," which otherwise does little for me. The video is basically a stoner fantasy. Fireball flying through trees? Check. Sasquatch? Check. Band playing in a cave in front of a freakin' waterfall? Check. Doesn't anyone else think Troy Sanders' singing is a lot like Tommy Victor's?
I love anything "behind the scenes," so I was delighted to find the raw animation by Dan O'Connor for a segment in the video. Here it is, done "green screen" style for backgrounds to be added later.
Here's the full video. The animation in question begins around 3:29.
Finally, here's a kid lip-synching the song while wearing a glove on his chin. It's not as surreal as the kids dancing to Sepultura, but it's still bizarre. I don't know what drives children to put themselves on camera and physically react to metal, but I can't say I'm against it.
Hate Eternal for me is one of the pinnacles of human achievement - I mean that seriously. That three people can produce a sound so fast, fierce, and efficient blows me away. Haters cite the band's relentless speed, and while that's true of the first two albums, I, Monarch was a huge step up in depth and diversity. Having seen the band play twice, I was curious what this live DVD would offer.
Visually, there's not much to see. The gig is at The Garage in London on June 4, 2006. The venue is dimly lit. With four cameras, not many angles are possible. Most of the footage is straight on from the front, though there some nice close-ups of Erik Rutan's hands during solos. A few behind-the-band shots offer glimpses of the crowd (I think I counted one girl there). The editing is basic - not too fast or slow, with some cheesy whip pans. Hate Eternal's not the type to do spin kicks or any such bullshit. They basically stand there, circle headbang occasionally, and do the job.
But what a job they do! The drama here was that drummer Derek Roddy had left just when Hate Eternal was about to go on tour. The band ended up hiring Kevin Talley for the American dates and Reno Killerich for the European dates. I caught the American tour, and while Talley did fine, Killerich is absolutely, um, killer here. Filling in for Roddy is no small task, but Killerich makes it look easy. He blasts like a machine, his cymbal work is solid, and his fills are precise. Best of all, the band is tight, with a definite sense of groove - as much as this music allows, anyway.
Rutan mixed the DVD himself, and the sound is great. His guitar tones are meaty yet edgy, and the drums are punchy. You can't hear much of bassist Randy Piro, but fuck it, that's metal.
The DVD offers a few extras. There's a slightly tense interview with the band. Rutan's the mastermind, and that's quite evident. There are also three music videos. The one for "Powers That Be" features an unintentionally funny black-hooded figure walking in the woods. Black-hooded figures in the woods reek of silly black metal videos and should be avoided at all costs. I guess the band couldn't spend enough to avoid that fate. The videos for "The Victorious Reign" and "I, Monarch" are of much higher production and narrative quality.
The final DVD extra is a guided tour of Rutan's Mana Studios. There's footage from both the old location, a house, and the new location, a fancy-schmancy facility. Rutan endearingly points out practically every single piece of gear; he's particularly attached to the 2" tape machine, which came from Morrisound Studios and recorded all those classic death metal albums. As with the rest of this DVD, the uninitiated probably won't get much out of this. The death metal faithful, though, will. I give this two invisible oranges.
One of my highlights of 2006 was interviewing Cannibal Corpse drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz for Hails & Horns, the metal offshoot of AMP magazine. For being in the world's biggest death metal band, Paul was amazingly gracious and down-to-earth. He candidly answered burning questions I had - was the band being funny with its artwork and song titles? What goes on in a performance video shoot? And, of course, what exactly is a cannibal corpse?
H&H doesn't have much of an online presence, so I put up the interview here. Paul's on the right in the Sadus shirt. Note the textbook use of invisible oranges. Also, dig this clip of the 'Corpse in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Jim Carrey's performance is br00tal.
Speaking of Anaal Nathrakh, Mick Kenney and Dave Hunt are also in filth grind outfit Mistress. Kenney and Mistress bassist Dirty Von Donovan are in rocka rolla band Exploder. Napalm Death's Shane Embury played on the last Anaal Nathrakh album. Embury and Kenney run Feto Records, who put out Exploder's debut. Kenney does artwork for all these bands. The idea of a cabal maximizing output and profits under myriad guises is a brilliant one.
Exploder has released a special holiday single, "Hells Bells It's Christmas." It's catchier than the clap, and would be a radio hit if the world had any justice. Really, it warms me cockles.
Some time ago on her MySpace blog, Angela Gossow wrote, "I personally believe the last two Arch Enemy albums were too harmless. We got to get the grit, bite, speed and danger back into our music. Less controlled, more riffs, melodies, solos, different parts, breaks, sudden changes." I couldn't agree more.
What frustrated me about these albums was that they were too soft for Gossow's voice. Ever since she linked up with vocal coach Melissa Cross, she's become one of the most formidable vocalists in metal, regardless of gender. Live, hearing her slide from a death growl up to a high shriek in the same breath is amazing. The band has this flamethrower for a lead instrument - why does it clutter up its songs with pretty clean tones and prog sections?
My favorite Arch Enemy album is Gossow's first with the band, 2001's Wages of Sin (on Century Media). On this album, the band established its present sound, a hybrid of power and melodic death metal. While its ingredients are the same as those of its successors, this album has a more "classic" feel. The songs are more exploratory and don't feel so tied to verse-chorus structures as later efforts, which seem to me like endless quests for the perfect anthem. Sure, choruses make anthems, but any metalhead would pick riffs over choruses, and Wages has riffs in spades. Even though some songs wander into that accursed clean tone territory, none are the blatant filler found on later albums. "The First Deadly Sin" is Slayer-esque, especially in the modulations up during vocals, while "Web of Lies" is simply well-written and well-played. Dig those cool bass runs, which would have never happened on the hyper-controlled last two albums.
There's also an amusingly low-budget video for "Ravenous," which has become one of the band's signature songs.
Be sure to pick up the two-disc version of this album, the second disc of which contains cool covers and tracks from the Johan Liiva era. You can find this at CM Distro or The End.
Given my recent review of The Esoteric's Subverter, I thought I'd revisit the band's previous album, 2005's With the Sureness of Sleepwalking (on Prosthetic). I saw this band play last year, and I was blown away. I picked up this album, and was again blown away (you can read an interview I did with the band here). Why these guys aren't huge is beyond me, as they play with passion and creativity that shame their more popular peers.
The Esoteric are hard to categorize; perhaps that's why they're still relatively unknown. Members of the band have been in Coalesce, Reggie and the Full Effect, and Today Is the Day, and singer Steve Cruz' interest in electronic music colors the songs occasionally. Thus, there's a range of influences - metal and hardcore, obviously, but also a uniquely shoegazer sense of melody and harmony.
For me, the latter is the key to the band. The Esoteric do the Botch/Converge thing as well as anyone, but their songs reach for something higher. The chords have harmonic content that's far more emotional and sophisticated than the usual jagged dissonance. "Your New Burden" crosses Swervedriver with Tool, while "Somnambulist" has magnificent suspended chords.
Seriously, every time I hear this album, I feel better about the human race. If people can make something like this, they can't be all bad, right? If you agree, pick this up at Prosthetic or The End.
If YouTube is any indication, Sepultura's "Refuse/Resist" holds a strange fascination for children.
Exhibit A is a video showing two brothers playing the song. I'd guess that the drummer is about eight years old, and the singer/guitarist is about six. The latter is playing a guitar that's practically taller than himself. He's also wearing a Pikachu shirt. His vocal ad libs are somewhat disturbing. Not only does he do the "Fuck it up" that comes before the main riff enters (actually, I think it's supposed to be "Fuck shit up"), he also does some "Uh"s on the upbeats. Has he been watching Sepultura live tapes? Did he go to a show? Where did he learn to do the "fret hand over the neck" trick?
More importantly, where are the parents? Are they filming this? Or is it the bad influence older brother? Would you let your elementary schoolers listen to Sepultura? There's no way I would, unless they got educated in Black Sabbath first. Sabbath at two, Maiden at four - that's about the right trajectory for rocking Sepultura at six.
Kids playing Refuse/Resist
Exhibit B is a video showing two children dancing to this song. This is one of the most surreal things I've ever seen. The girl in the Powerpuff Girls mask is something else. In terms of compulsive viewing of car crash-like phenomena, she's somewhere between the Dancing Baby and the Star Wars Kid. It's kind of like watching Donnie Darko minus the plot and Jake Gyllenhaal. The poor boy doesn't have much rhythm, but he manages to sync up with the girl near the end for some credible "Jumpdafucup" action.
Kids dancing to Refuse/Resist
How did this video get made??? Did Uncle Frank, the one with the tattoos, say, "Kids, want to do something fun?" Were they coerced into doing this? If so, someone should call Child Protective Services. I'm reminded of that Simpsons episode where Burns shoots a gun at some guy's feet and tells him to dance.
To get some, ahem, chest hair back into all this, here's the original video. It's pixilated as hell, but what can you do. Enjoy!
The soundtrack for last year's Masters of Horror series on Showtime seemed like a good idea - take new and unreleased songs from the hottest metal/metalcore/screamo/emo bands of the moment, spread the goods across two discs, and wrap the whole thing in nice packaging. So I picked up the soundtrack and put it into my computer, only to have DRM spyware brazenly and irrevocably install itself. This was the same shit Sony pulled in that whole scandal last year. The packaging gave no warning of copy protection. Disgusted, I extrac
When I was much younger, I absolutely bugged out to the B-52's "Rock Lobster." I'm talking about full-on losing it, complete with bodily mimicking of the "down, down, down" part. After seeing a gazillion YouTube videos of the song, including a pretty good 
Hate Eternal for me is one of the pinnacles of human achievement - I mean that seriously. That three people can produce a sound so fast, fierce, and efficient blows me away. Haters cite the band's relentless speed, and while that's true of the first two albums, I, Monarch was a huge step up in depth and diversity. Having seen the band play twice, I was curious what this live DVD would offer.
Some time ago on her MySpace blog, Angela Gossow wrote, "I personally believe the last two Arch Enemy albums were too harmless. We got to get the grit, bite, speed and danger back into our music. Less controlled, more riffs, melodies, solos, different parts, breaks, sudden changes." I couldn't agree more. 
Given my recent