Not Metal

Magrudergrind

Self-Titled

Ever been to the shitty parts of DC in the summer? Wait, that’s too specific.

Ever been to DC in the summer, period? Much better.

If you have, you know the feeling that is much like the more turgid parts of God’s lower intestines: mind bending heat, 100% humidity, violent in parts, and the palpable feeling that you aren’t wanted there. These surroundings explain a bit about Magrudergrind’s gnarly new record and the atmosphere of racial tension, paranoia, violent release it possesses.

Imagine you live in the capitol of the wealthiest nation on earth, but your block has on average over 20 murders a year. Then imagine that you will more than likely not be here within another five years. Not because you got killed, but because you won’t be able to afford to live there. It would be understandable if you had a chip on your shoulder.

Grind for a cause

That chip would sound like Magrudergrind.

The M-grinders play a mash of grind, thrash, and super groovy break downs. “Excommunicated” is a prime example of this: 1:23 that spends the first half of the song ripping the skin from your anus and the second half rubbing chainsaw balm all over it. The samples make sure you know that these guys like hip-hop and that in my opinion makes them all the much better. They don’t rap, but the breakdowns swing with a rhythm that few metal bands, and even fewer grind bands can muster when not playing at light speeds.

What it comes down to:

1. Do you like grind?
2. Do you like appropriate use of samples in your grind?
3. Likey the breakdown?

If you answered yes to these then buy this record. And buy a t-shirt.

Virginia Beach VA, 8/6/09

Mayhem ensues

What a glorious day for a show. It’s nearly 90 degrees and like 8 billion percent humidity. I am hungover from the prior night where one of my 3 compatriots did this to a motel room sink (thanks whiskey and cheap wine).

So we arrive to the venue for Mayhem Fest and are greeted by the brutal aural assault of Whitechapel. I was looking forward to seeing these guys and they were good. They were early in the day and it was hot and the crowd a little lackadaisical, but their meaty grind interspersed with hardcore breakdowns was a decent start to the day.

As evidenced by the above sink picture, we were hungover and the breakfast Taco Bell and the heat weren’t helping. So we made our way to a little bar area that was shaded and had seats. Currently playing was God Forbid, which none of us gave a damn about so we sat and cooled off. Also during this period I decided to go to the bathroom before all the drunks turned it into a sea of urine. I took a mighty dump and knew today would be a good day. I ventured back to the bar area and we waited for God Forbid’s set to end. The bar was like 300 yards from the stages, so we relied upon a tour pamphlet to tell us what time particular bands started playing so we could hoof it back to the stages and watch their sets. Up next was Behemoth, which we were stoked about. Unfortunately, the schedule on the flyer was wrong and we missed all but one song of their set. Shit the bed! But the one song we saw was great. They are real showmen, wearing corpse paint with the singer sporting some strange gladiator mask.

Up next was All That Remains. They are like the Nickelback of metal. Needless to say, we retreated back to the bar.

Something interesting between sets was the Metal Mulisha, which is a group of motocross riders. Not really my thing, but watching their flips and tricks was entertaining and held my interest since I was semi-hoping to witness a crash/fatality.

So after sitting on our asses and drinking beer at the bar, now it was time for The Black Dahlia Murder. Previously, I wasn’t a big fan, but after seeing them live I am rethinking that. They had great energy and the drummer is badass, not to mention some great solos by the guitarist.

Ass with a Huge Neck

If you haven’t noticed the pattern, now we went back to the bar. I don’t know who played during this period, but all we knew was that Cannibal Corpse was the next band we cared to see. We had the schedule figured out and made our way back to the stages in time to see Corpse. Needless to say, they killed. It was only a 5 song set (bullshit), but whatever, it owned. My only problem with them was that their singer, George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher (see picture to the left), was an ass. He would say things like, “If I don’t see you moving out there I’m going to come down there and strangle you.” Fuck off, I’ll move if I want to move. Maybe if you were half as good as Chris Barnes (original Cannibal Corpse vocalist) then I would move more. But whatever, the live versions of “Hammer-Smashed Face” and “Make them Suffer” were especially phenomenal. Also, note to people who light joints when standing directly in front of me: I don’t like weed and I don’t think it’s very metal. If you insist on sharing
chemicals, please, by all means, buy me a beer.

At some point after this, Trivium,  Bullet For My Valentine and Killswitch Engage played. Being that these are sub-par bands and the beer was far better than their music, we sat at the bar instead of watching these assholes. Obviously, we have priorities.

You wish you were this brutal

Now, the main shit. It’s fucking Slayer time! I am so excited. They are playing “God Hates Us All” as I take my seat. Beside me is a couple. Obviously, the guy drug the girl here cause she is not into it. But, she is showing cleavage so I overlook this indiscretion. Slayer have an awesome set list. They played some new stuff (not “Hate Worldwide” as mentioned here in a previous post) and some semi-new stuff such as “Jihad” from the album “Christ Illusion”. But they really kicked things into high gear with some classics, including: “Mandatory Suicide”, “Born of Fire”, “Dead Skin Mask”, “Angel of Death” and “Reign in Blood”. But what really sent a shiver down my perineum was when they played “South of Heaven”, which is of sentimental value because it is the song that got me into Slayer. Holy shit they ruled. Not only did they have a flaming Slayer logo, but they were so tight. Not a note missed. They are so still on top of their game. And Lombardo back behind the drum kit?!? He fucking rocks the tom fills. They are without a doubt a supreme live act.

The finale to the night was Marilyn Manson. I’ve been a fan since “Portrait of an American Family” and was excited to see him. He puts on a hell of a show: costume changes, props (including some dumb-ass mic with a knife at the end and also a flaming bible), great fog/lighting effects and firings of cannons of glitter/ confetti. Set list included: “Irresponsible Hate Anthem”, “Sweet Dreams”, “Disposable Teens”, “Dope Show”, “Rock is Dead”, “Little Horn” and “Tourniquet”. A great show but not so much great music. I mean, Manson is essentially a solo act. The band was of little importance and it showed musically. Manson’s vocals and charisma were great, but the music itself wasn’t that good. It was apparent that he was the main focus and the band/music was secondary. Also, several times he did that annoying thing performers do where they mention the name of whatever city they are in so that they can get a cheap pop from the crowd. For example, “VA Beach may be the loudest crowd so far on the tour, let me hear you.” Fuck you, I know you say the same shit in every city; don’t placate me and insult my intelligence.

But still, Manson, Slayer, Corpse, Black Dahlia and Behemoth destroyed. A great show and thankfully I had good friends and alcohol with me so I could withstand the crapfest of other bands.

Yay!

Shit shit shit! Rock rock rock!

It’s been a long time coming since their first full length, Black Thunder, chugged a beer and vomited it’s awesome bluesy metal riffage all over our dirty little bearded faces. These dudes rule, and you should check them out if you haven’t yet heard their first album.

The new record “Darkness Comes Alive” is slated for a September 29th release. Until then, enjoy these two new tracks streaming over at Deathwish Inc.

Ov busty babes…

And, ov dark, kvlt subject matter

So the new Behemoth album “Evangelion” is in our possession. Here’s a tasty little teaser trailer of the upcoming video for the first single “Ov Fire And The Void”. Should my neck not snap and my head not explode a review will be up soon. It’s fucking good people. Real good.

Beer. Butts. Blood.

Crusty jeans, crusty shirts, and body odor.

Dudefest 2009 punched me in the face!

Dudefest continues to be the most metal event to occur in the history of Indiana, beside Ozzfest – but I’m not sure if that counts anymore.   Despite the insane martial law style police presence, the fest still kicked copious amounts of ass.  Following is my band by band breakdown, I won’t list bands that we didn’t see – much like last year we managed to spend more time drinking High Life at J-Clyde’s next door.

The Viking Beard was lucky to snap some shitty photos of a few of the bands sets when he wasn’t busy getting the shit beat out of him in the pit.

Here we go with the three-day recap!

Friday

Shitstorm – Pretty good grind from Miami, includes one member of Torche.  We only caught a few songs after our beer break, but they put on a good show.

Young Widows – Had never heard Young Windows, they’re kind of stoner-y, dissonant rock.  Kind of sounds like These Arms Are Snakes.  They were good, no crazy antics or anything, crowd wasn’t terribly into it.

Lair of the Minotaur / 7000 Dying Rats – I’ll be honest – I don’t like Lair of the Minotaur’s albums at all.  They’re a little dull to me and the riffs don’t punch me in the face or anything.  That’s me though.  That said, they absolutely destroyed.  They were monolithic, a crushing metal-stoner-doom-viking-battle hurricane of intense riffage on the stage.  For some reason, their songs sounded 10 times better in a live setting.  The crowd was digging it – stage dives and some great pitting action abound.   Halfway through their set they stopped for a minute, pulled on ski masks, brought out a different singer, and like a death metal transformer turned into their grind act, 7000 dying rats.  They were fun as hell – playing a good handful of 1-5 second songs, a handful of longer songs, and then launching into a crowd singalong cover of Living After Midnight.  I think they could’ve just played 10 Judas Priest covers and the crowd would be happier than pigs in shit.

Harvey Milk – They played a good set, but with their bleak music I think the crowd was focused on trying not to commit suicide rather than moshing at a snail’s pace.  The singer is very sweaty.

Helions

Torche – Torche headlined on Friday last year as well, and absolutely dominated – by far the best set of the weekend.  After setting such a high standard, I think they had a lot to live up to this year.  Since last year, they had lost one of their guitar players, Juan Montoya -  I was interested to see how things would turn out live, as they’re now a 3 piece.  They played mostly fast songs – all of the good stuff including Healer, Rule The Beast, In Return, Pirahna, etc.  It was a hell of a set, and the crowd loved it of course.  I don’t think it was as good as their set last year, but it was still damn good.  It felt like the set ended abruptly.  In comparison, last year they closed with the crushing doomfest song Meanderthal, in it’s entirety – it doesn’t sound like the perfect send off, but it was like some kind of 2000: A Space Oddyssey-esque monolith chant and the crowd was in an absolute frenzy.

Saturday

Mehkago NT – Had never heard of them before, we caught the tail end of their set and I wished we had seen the whole thing, they sounded fairly brutal, had some really catchy riffage.

John Hoffman: fucking shit up

Weekend Nachos - After putting a few High Lifes to rest at J-Clyde’s, we were all pretty excited to see Weekend Nachos.  They’ve put on a damn good show every time we’ve seen them previously.   They played a great set of course and the crowd was really into for the first time that we had seen during the day so far.  Lots of stage dives and some intense pit action.  I picked up a shirt with Freddy Kreuger on it.  ACCEPTABLE VIOLENCE!!!!!!!

Tombs – Can’t remember much about Tombs.  Someone proclaimed them to be a doom band.  They were not a doom band.

Yes, this is what an onstage pit with Gaza looks like.

Gaza – Grind from Utah. We missed them last year, which was stupid. Fortunately we caught them this year, because they played an awesome set.  Crowd was a big damn party.  Halfway through their set, they brought about 30 people onto the tiny stage and played like that the rest of the time.  There was a mini-moshpit on the stage, and people were stage diving from above the stage into the people on the stage. Insanity.  They had a shirt with Ted Haggard’s face branded with a big, bold “SODOMITE” title.  Back of the shirt said “Meth and a Gay Prostitute!”.  Awesome.  “Why are there so many Utah Jazz fans here?”

Basketball hoop? Nudity? Grind? No problem!

HeWhoCorrupts – Awesome Chicago grind, we had seen them several times previously and they are awesome every time.  I think they get more over the top every time we see them.  They had a Chicago Bulls style introduction, complete with basketball hoop.  People were pulling off slam dunk stage dives, which is a new to me.  I don’t think I’ve ever caught more stage dives to my domepiece during a show.  They played all the good songs including, Kill ‘Em All, Master of Profits, etc.  They ended up mostly naked of course.  Tommy Camaro managed to put his beanbag in the guitar player’s mouth.  Yep.

Magrudergrind – They played a good set, but HeWhoCorrupts is a tough act to follow.  Magrudergrind didn’t get naked or anything though, so the crowd wasn’t in a frenzy or anything. It also didn’t help the fact that the Emerson’s sound fucking sucks so much of their set was white noise to me.

Russian Circles – Really good metal tinged post-rock from Chicago.  They’re definitely an outlier for the fest, but they’ve played with grind bands in Chicago before, i.e. Plague Bringer.  They were a nice change of pace in comparison to the previous three grind bands.  It was a good set.  Crowd was mostly just nodding their heads.

Portraits of Past – Old school emo/hardcore/screamo shit.  Not really my thing, we left after their first song.

Sunday

Axis and Allies – Hardcore from Indy.  Not super impressive.

American Cheeseburger – Great name.  Punk from Georgia.  Also not super impressive.

Punch – They had a female singer.  Pretty good.

Terrie then brought up a good point – “Why the fuck are we here?”.  We pretty much only wanted to see Mammoth Grinder, Iron Lung, Lords, and Phoenix Bodies for the rest of the day.  All of those bands were playing after 5:30.  We had yet to make the journey back to Chicago (which took 4 hours somehow).  Battered and bruised, we proceeded to leave Dudefest.

Fucking Slaaayyerr

There’s a track from Slayer’s upcoming release “World Painted Blood” (do out later this year) streaming online. The track, “Hate Wordlwide” is what you’d expect from Slayer: it’s fucking awesome. Ferocious riffage, criticism of religion and some frenetic leads from King and Hanneman.

Slayer have been around awhile (20+ years) and are still as metal as ever, which is more than I can say of some of their thrash brethren (Anthrax, I’m looking at you, and Metallica, don’t think I’ve forgotten about “St. Anger” and the “Load”s of unmetal albums you’ve put out).

So give the track a listen and prepare to actually look forward to a release from an old favorite.

Tyr – Hold The Heathen Hammer High

Weedly weedly weedly woo!

If Amon Amarth and Manowar had a baby, Tyr would be the result. Awesome!

Note: they also proceed to disembark their longboat to hack the shit out of a cross. Shit goddamn. Go get this record now.

A bootleg exclusive

“A Selection Unnatural”

Revolver Mag has the scoop on the themes from the forthcoming album “Deflorate”, due out September 15 on Metal Blade. The new song pretty much sounds like what you would expect from these guys, and the replacement guitarist (who plays in Arsis) sounds like an excellent replacement for the last dude whos name I can’t remember. Anyway, check out the new shit here!

Deer-men are fucking metal

Korpiklaani‘s 7th full-length is a beer swillin’, accordion squeezing, rollicking good time.

First off, look at the cover; there is some fierce-ass shit going on there. First, the dude has fucking antlers. Furthermore he is drinking from a horn, wearing a pelt and there is steak in front of him. How great is that?

As for the music, it is full of jovial riffs and sometimes soaring, sometimes swinging fiddle and accordion. Just check out the song “Vodka” pronounced “Wodka” (those crazy Finns). And the track “Kultanainen” is an interesting sort of folk-ska with the accordion hitting steady and bouncy upbeats while the guitars thrash it out.  For something a bit more mellow check out “Mettänpeiton Valtiaalle” which is beautiful melodic folk with acoustics and bongos (not the hippie drum circle bullshit bongos either). And let’s not forget Korpiklaani’s bread and butter: drinking songs. Take for example “Juodaan Viinaa”  and it’s pint swingin’ chorus. Or “Bring Us Pints Of Beer” with the catchy chorus of “bring us pints of beer, we’re going to drink now and here”.

If you want to have more fun than Michael Jackson at a preschool (what? too soon?) then check out Korpiklaani.

BleaarrRGHH!!

Tasty hardcore riffage.

Wolves are metal.

There’s a lot of metal out there to discover, and this band is one in particular I had never gotten around to checking out. Until now. If these new songs (*streaming on their myspace) are anything like their previous records, consider me a fan. This is some of the heaviest, grinding, brutal, and catchy (gasp!) riffs packed into just these two songs. The mid-paced sliding riff around 2:02 on “F-Unit” is just so good. That good. I’m looking forward to the full album available in August.

Now to go discover their older albums…