metal v. crapcore

I’ve had enough.

I love metal, almost anything metal. However, it so happens that I tend not to like what people call [insert label here]core (henceforth crapcore, a catch-all for all core subgenres). When I hear something on SiriusXM Liquid Metal that I don’t like, 95% of the time when I look the band up it’s some crapcore shit. So I’ve had enough. As of today, I’m on a one man crusade against crapcore on SiriusXM Liquid Metal. In the last few months, there have been some comments on their Facebook page about this, but I wanted to stay away from all that. Not anymore.

There are so many great metal bands who get ZERO air time on Liquid Metal, while fucking garbage crapcore bands like Demon Hunter, Dillinger Escape Plan, and all that shit get played every fucking hour. Enough!

Time to think whether crapcore belongs with metal. I think not. What do you think?

Crack the Skye is the metal album of the year 2009. If you disagree, die. Thanks.

Our friends at Liquid Metal need your help picking the best album of 2009:

Best of 2009? What’s the best album of the year for YOU? We’re starting to put together the list of top albums and need your help. Leave your choices here and also call the BLOODLINE at 877-87-HEAVY to leave your top pick of the year. Best of 2009 week starts Mon., Dec. 28th! Thanks so much for all your support this ……year, it means the world to us! Hellyeah

Call them righ the fuck now and tell them that Crack the Skye is the best album of the year: 877-87-HEAVY

Or, you could give up on life, acknowledge you’re a loser for not understanding that Crack the Skye is the best album of the year, and go sodomize yourself with a fucking elephant horn until you die.

Really, this is a binary choice. Either you agree this is the best album of the year, or you sodomize yourself with an elephant horn up there beyond your wildest dreams.

Alternatively, I can send you a single bullet for free (plus shipping and handling).

Crop circles: mystery solved!

Kangaroos high as hell from eating opium poppies are the cause! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8118257.stm

There you go.

Live blog – Liquid Metal 12/12/09 7-8pm

8:05     Cannibal Corpse! Nice!!! Ok, now I’m off for real. See ya, suckers!

8:02     Thanks to Ian for going along with this, and keep up the good work!

8:01     Ok, time to sign off. I leave as Daath begins to play. It’s a nice band, but I don’t see what they bring to the table. They’re ok.

7:57     Can’t wait for Machine Head’s next album!

7:53     Machine Head covering Iron Maiden. It’s a very nice take on a classic song. Robb Flynn doesn’t have the voice of Bruce Dickinson, but that’s ok. He’s a great guitarist, and Bruce Dickinson is only second to Dio.

7:51     3 good songs in a row, we’re on a roll!!!

7:50     White Zombie… So many acid trips, so few songs…

7:50     Skeletonwitch’s riffing: incisive.

7:48     Skeletonwitch is awesome. Blabbermouth criticized the vocal, but I really like it.

7:47     Thanks for the plug Ian!

7:46     Sort of…

7:45     That song is from when Tom Araya could still sing. 🙂

7:44     It’s nice to have a deeper cut from Slayer. This is actually their best song from Diabolus in Musica. Someone at Liquid Metal knows their Slayer.

7:42     MOTHER FUCKING SLAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEER

7:40     Trap Them: don’t know these guys. Sounds harcore. Good filler, but I’m waiting for the next song. It’s just not metal enough for me, but if you’re into it, more power to you.

7:38     Please make it stop.

7:35     Metalcore is so passé. These guys should imitate the lemmings.

7:33     You can hear the talent, but there’s no hook for me. Just another band who clumsily integrates different influences. Jose, easy on the Ankla… 🙂

7:31     Ah, Ankla.

7:29     The new Fear Factory is just mehh. It’s 100% Fear Factory, minus the innovative factor they had when Demanufacture got big, way back in 1995. It may just be that specific song; I’ll definitely give the album a serious listen when it comes out in early 2010.

7:26     You did a great job, Ian. Thanks for dedicating this Bloody Roots to Dio!

7:24     I saw Lamb of God for the 3rd time a few weeks ago as part of the Metallica tour. They did a great show. I was never a big fan of Randy Blythe’s voice, but after I watched Killadelphia and Walk with Me in Hell, I got a much greater appreciation for the band, including Randy. I love the texture of the guitars, and the drumming is the definition of metal. 

7:21     Budweiser: the poor man’s best friend.

7:17     Ouch, Katatonia. Not my favorite band, but at least it’s not fucking IWABO or Horse the Band. At least Katatonia has something to bring to the table. Mood, melody. Actually I would not mind Liquid Metal having an hour of that stuff on a Sunday night.    

7:06     Heaven and Hell: excellent pick to conclude this special edition of Bloody Roots!

7:04     What, Ian has been touched internally by Dio?

7:02     Here we go folks, Bloody Roots is ending with a well deserved thanks to Dio for all he has done for the metal community.

Live blogging Liquid Metal: why? Here’s the answer.

6:47

Like everybody else, I listen to Liquid Metal because they play music that I like. But like everybody else, there’s much that I don’t like as well. So I thought it would be interesting to register my impressions as we progress through one hour of programming. I don’t expect them to play only stuff I like; it would be unreasonable to do so.

6:49

My best wishes to Dio for a prompt recovery. He’s the best voice in metal.

I like the new Slayer. I never thought I would, but I really like it.

Much of what Slayer did after “Divine Intervention” was sloppy. It had gotten to the point that you believed the albums were pretexts to rake in the $$$ from the inevitable tour.

I am a big Slayer fan. Read: I love what they used to do, and really like the vibe at their shows. What they’ve written in  the last 15 years sucks. Big time. It’s pedestrian, unoriginal, 100% filler to help usher the coming tour.

World Painted Blood is different. It’s a gift to the long-time fans. Melody is back–sick melody is back. The slow, crawling nastiness is back. With this album Slayer returns to the grating evil of their guitars from before the late 1990s-early 2000s.  It’s fast, slow, intense, but it never feels pointless like their previous three albums.

Some songs are fast, as it should be. Some songs are spewing notes at a slower pace. Regardless of the pace, you feel the tension. “Playing with Dolls” is exhibit A that Slayer is back, they’re paying attention, and they’re as sick and evil as ever.  But the album is solid from beginning to end.

My favorite line from the album, perhaps *my favorite line in all of metal* because of the intensity it suggests: “You’ll wish you were in Hell.” This one gives me goosebumps.

May we all burn in Hell together.

Liquid Metal live blogging – this Saturday 7pm-8pm ET

NOTE THE NEW TIME: 7-8pm.

Here’s an experience. This Saturday, December 12 starting at 6pm ET starting at 7pm ET, I will be blogging live for one full hour to comment on Liquid Metal’ playlist. I will comment on all songs and maybe tease Ian a little bit. I know that he doesn’t have 100% control over the playlist, but he owns 100% of the comments he makes!

No worries though, I am a big fan of Ian’s work (and so should you).

See you then!

UPDATE: I changed the time because, faithful listener that I am, I always listen to Bloody Roots either Tuesday or Thursday, and never noticed it also airs on Saturday. Since I would not want to pit myself against the teacher of the weekly heavy metal lesson, I am moving the live blogging to the 7-8pm time slot.

Grammy Awards, once again working hard to be irrelevant

I am still trying to recover from the fact that Mastodon is not even nominated for a Grammy.

The list is not bad, with the usual suspects: Slayer, Megadeth, Ministry, Judas Priest, with (relatively) newcomers Lamb of God.

They’re not running the risk of repeating their 1989 fiasco.

But still, one has to wonder how they arrived at the conclusion that Mastodon did not deserve to even be nominated. This is bizarre. Just plain bizarre.

From IWABO to Horse the Band

Horse the Band, really?

I can see myself thinking this is sooooo cool, ’cause I’m like you know, so groovy dude. This is so original because I don’t know shit, bro. My knowledge of music is so good dude, I fucking know that this band is the shit ’cause they mix Nintendo and metal together. It’s the new trendy shit, man: Nintendocore. Yeah, they say it with a straightface, ’cause they’re soooo original. I love whatever is original, like Nintendocore. If it were generated randomy by some programming script, I’d love it still, as long as it’s original. Those time signatures allow me to claim credibility, even if they don’t make any sense.

—————————————————————–

 IWABO is a joke, a fake product like a lot of trendy crap with a pathetic lack of real originality. Horse the Band comes up with a concept that appeals to people who think that a Nintendo NES is the epitome of music. Fine. Or not. They play their junk on SiriusXM. So, someone somewhere  thinks we are dumb enough to like Horse the Band; hey, we went along with IWABO… This is sad.

Best metal album of 2009

With only a few weeks away from the end of the year, it’s time to think about a list of the best albums of 2009.

I won’t publish my final list until the year is actually over, but as far as I’m concerned here’s one album that I think dominated all others this year:

Crack the Skye, Mastodon

It’s obvious to me that #1 should go to Crack the Sky, by Mastodon. I can appreciate technical mastery but without melody, however deviant, to me there’s no point. With this album, Mastodon display an amazing mastery of  melody and moods while staying 100% metal. Unlike bands like Opeth, the progressive element is completely fused. Instead of progressive chunks alternating with metal ones, the two genres blend seamlessly. Unlike Enslaved’s Vertebrae, which came out last year, the metal is always present even when the songs go into a more atmospheric mood. This is not the heaviest album: the strings aren’t the beefiest, and the drums aren’t the fastest. But really, so what? This album single-handedly proves that metal is one of the most creative genres out there. Whenever someone you know laughs at heavy metal, this is the album to shut them up for good.

The only thing I didn’t like: at 6:00 of The Last Baron, there is a pathetic aping of Yes circa 1974. One wonders how it got past quality control.

They played the album from A to Z last winter, and it was a great show. The songs were integral, except for some of the vocals (which is understandable), and the presence of the band on stage was so powerful and tight that it’s hard to imagine any metal band pulling something similar off anytime soon. Or put another way, they raised the bar so high that this is what you now have to beat. good luck.

 

Morgan Harrington, from Metallica to the Ether

Every night, they showed up at a different arena and played their catalog; then they packed their stuff and moved on to the next arena.

On October 17, 2009 Metallica performed at the John Paul Jones Arena, in Charlottesville, VA. Another arena, another concert. Great show.

 

Except that Morgan went missing.

I was there at the concert, drinking beer with my wife as Morgan vanished. Just drinking beer, only worrying about how I could game the system to get another beer despite the draconian quota of 4 drinks for the night.

We were legion that night, but she was one of us and she’s gone. The metal community is legion and she was with us.

When you stop and think about it, that night Morgan simply ran out of luck.

She could have been your girlfriend, your friend, your sister, the georgous girl you only had a glimpse of. She was your chick, just short on luck.

Metallica  has offered 50K in addition to the 100K that Morgan’s family has managed to raise. It’s $150,000 waiting for you, if you can help find her.

And I can only think of Nevermore’s song…

“Nevermore to feel the pain
The words fall out like fire
Just believe when you can’t believe anymore”

Contact InformationTip Line: (434) 352-3467 State Police E-Mail: bci-appomattox@vsp.virginia.gov General: info@findmorgan.com

www.findmorgan.com

Bands with Evolving Logos

You probably know of Metalsucks’ regular promotion, “Unreadable Band Logo,” sponsored (?) by Roadrunner Records.

One of the best examples of an unreadable logo is Immortal’s original design:

 

 

This is a very in-your-face logo, with barbed wire and an inverted cross as its centerpiece. Also notice the inverted pentagram above the inverted cross.The lettering is difficult to read, in a weirdly occult way.

Now compare with the new logo:

 

 

Here’s my point. Band logos are not only funny to look at, as Metalsucks does with the most extreme of them, but they are a bellweather for a band. When a logo changes, there’s a good chance that music is changing along with it. If you listen to the early Immortal, it’s much less accessible than the newer material–including “All Shall Fall,” which came out on October 6.

Immortal is not unique in  his regard. Other bands also polished their edges and modified their logo accordingly as time went by.

The legendary band Death began as a leader of a new genre, Death Metal. The original logo:

 

 

However, as the band became more technical the logo went through a serious cleanup. Out were the dripping blood, the cobwebs, the ghost face… and the inverted cross:

 

 

Others have remained consistent despite some serious changes. Darkthrone began as a run of the mill Death metal band; but they quickly revealed their awesome talent for dark melodies. Even when they migrated into Crust, they stuck to their original logo:

 

I would love to find other bands whose logo evolved with time. Especially bands who modified their logo to better fit a new orientation. Do you guys have any suggestion? Write them in the comments!

Bathory now on Napster

Napster finally obtained the Bathory catalog. It’s all available for rental if you are a member. I am not familiar with their work, but soon I will!

That One Night – was really forgettable

Over the years I have become a bigger fan of Megadeth than Metallica. What sealed the deal for me was Metallica’s freaky promotional video, “Some Kind of Monster.” I cannot imagine something less metal. I don’t care about the argument that this is what saved the band; they had reached the point where it was no longer worth saving it.

Yet, their arch-rival Megadeth is not without its flaws. Case in point: the “That One Night” DVD, recorded in Buenos Aires. I was really looking forward to watching it. I had studiously avoided the CD and any reference to the playlist, to get into the show as much as possible.

Well, I am saddened to report the (old news) that the song selection is puzzling at best. I understand that bands with a large catalog are torn between playing the classics and promoting their new material. I sympathize with those bands. Yet with bands like Megadeth, who ceased to be a creative force long ago, they should stick to the classics. Does anyone in this solar system want to listen to any of the songs from “Risk” live? Of course not.

More Metal, less tattoo-cry-baby-soft-rock

Is it me? My ears tell me that SiriusXM have been playing real stuff more frequently. I think I will cry. I am a very sensitive human being.

 

Ok, fuck that.

 

The percentage of soft, anal-retentive bands is still too high, but lately SiriusXM have been playing some real extreme metal. More power to them!!!

Grotesque Formation

I discovered Grotesque Formation last night on Bloody Roots‘ freakin awesome show about slam death metal. That was an incredibly good show, by the way. Thanks Ian! In case you missed it, click here for the playlist.

Starting today, if I write about an artist and their stuff is on Napster, I will add a Napsterlink so you can quickly access their music.

Going back to Grotesque Formation, this is pure death metal. If you are a Napster subscriber (5$/month for all you can stream music), you can stream their entire album Basement Decompositions for free.Well crafted but not overly technical, fast but not pointlessly so, with slow, fat vocals. They clearly are worthy heirs to Suffocation circa Effigy of the Forgotten. Also click here for their best of, in streaming.

 

Update: the Napsterlinks force you to register for Napster. Napster is well worth the 5$/month, but I don’t want to send people to a signup page. So, no more Napsterlink.

All right motherfuckers, I’m back.

New and Improved! Now with even more venom against Metalcore, and whatever you want to call the stuff that IWABO excretes.

 

Yep, I’m still blogging against this waste of storage space, this incontinence stain on the computing cloud that is IWABO. Liquid Metal has decided to play another “song” of theirs, and it’s no better than the first one. I hate their faux-original music. Maybe they should take a stroll on the Golden Gate Bridge, it might help them creatively speaking.

 

Ok, enough said about these losers for today. Time to go listen to the new Warbringer!

Sick of “Mandatory Metallica”

Metallica is the biggest, highest-selling metal band ever. Good for them.

 

Does that mean it’s ok for them to take over SiriusXM for a month of their catalog with snippets from braindead fans and cautious musicians who played with them? No.

Metallica suck big time.

Metallica wins a Grammy – Steals Recognition Away From Better Bands

So it is Metallica. No surprise, I suppose. The Grammys are a sad show. So many metal bands made better records than Metallica’s fake “going back to roots”, but we all knew they would win.

Metallica’s new album sucks, big time. It’s a clumsy collage of riffs, with no effort at making a good end product.

The list of nominees was not very inspiring this year, but they managed to pick the most stale, the most spent, the most packaged, metal band around and gave them some pop-rock recognition. Insane.

 

You know what? I am going to stick to Black Metal.

Gravest Catholic Sin: Genocide? Nope. It’s spitting out the Eucharist.

You know there’s something seriously fucked up about a belief system when they want you to eat human flesh. You know it’s fucked up beyond repair when its greatest sin is spitting out that human flesh instead of swallowing it.

Enter the Catholic Church. According to official Church doctrine, the Eucharist is the actual flesh of Jesus. Not a symbol of it, not an ersatz, but the actual flesh of Jesus (technically, he is “substantially present” in the Eucharist).

Since the Eucharsit is substantially the body of Jesus, desecration of the Eucharist is a grave sin. How grave? Only the Pope can absolve you of this sin. That’s right. Your friendly (too friendly to children?) local priest or bishop cannot receive your confession on this matter. Only the Pope can. However, you can confess whatever horrible act against any number of living persons to any random priest. Genocide; mass murder; the torture of children; the Holocaust; all are ranked as lesser sins than spitting out the Eucharist.

Some people argue that you can’t be moral without religion. Looks to me like you are more moral without religion.