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.
So it was a late Sunday night and I just finished off a bottle of Jose with a good friend. We were watching some old NIN videos and exploring the internets for other music videos from times once past. Amidst our joy of Reznors’ bygone years of video anguish, that’s when it happened; we stumbled across Attack Attack!’s “Stick Stickly” music video.
I know there is some bad music out there but this really takes the rude-boy-emo-lame-fuck-douche award of the year.
Where to start? How about at the beginning. Within 10 seconds of the start of the video you see these fucks bouncing around. I am going to venture out on a limb and say they are…headbanging while trying to shit? I dunno. This video has it all though. Dancing, techno beats, stupid hair cuts, synchronized hair throws, and what kind of stupid scenecore video would be complete without some meaningless hot chick.
An incorrect power stance (crabcore stance) will result in loss of vision, creativity, and produce shitstained undies.
The presence of auto tuned vocals also doesn’t help them either. Who’s bright idea was it that signed these guys? Please…shoot yourself in the face.
Also, just to clarify how exactly not metal these fucks are. See figures A, B, or C, on proper metal (power) stance. Note the abscense of any sort of “Crab” position in all three. These are the proper metal power stances defined by Thor and or Zeus themselves. The inventors of heavy fucking metal.
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.
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…
The Norwegian Black Metal scene has been well documented. There have been documentaries and books.
Now, feast your eyes on an article by Revolver magazine’s Associate Editor Kory Grow listing some quality death metal recordings from the realm of ice and fjords.
Know what you should not do? Follow up what was considered your high point with complete mediocrity. ISIS did this with their last LP, In the Absence of Truth, and… well lets just say I listened to it once or twice and went back to Panopticon. Just as if that bad boy had never even happened. Your mom’s miscarriage? No one talks about that when there you are doing your thing much better than what would have been her (technically it was called Bethany, but that’s besides the point). It was the same thing with the last ISIS record.
Bong water ripples
Then there is Wavering Radient, and this is where it gets harder to explain. While I was temped to explain that ITAOT was a weak record because of Aarron Turner’s expanded use of clean vocals, I can’t actually say that. Clean vocals are on this record. Is it because the songs are shorter? Nope, that’s not the case either as most of these are around seven minutes as were the majority of ITAOT. Faster songs? Guest Vocals? Naked chick on the cover riding a dragon? Nope, nope, and nope. What makes this album better than the last one? Better s(b)ongs.
ISIS never speeds up out of the ‘ISIS thump’ groove for any noticeable amount of time outside of song peaks but that is not a bad thing. The post metal blueprint became the ‘NeurISIS’ sound because ISIS was really good at it, and here is another example. “Stone to Wake a Serpent” and “Ghost Key” could be movies or books if volume was related to typical plot progression.
Figure 1. Western Literature Plot Progression/ISIS song structure:
Intro >> Plot Point >> Progression >> Added Tension >> Progression >> Apex (Creshendo ) >> Resolution (Outro)
No one ever bitches about how Joseph Heller didn’t reinvent the written story, and people shouldn’t complain when ISIS doesn’t come up with the “New ISIS Sound”. Only complain when they bring a weak product to the market; then we’ll have to wait another three years to see if they can do it better. This is not one of those times thankfully.
Score:
3 \m/ out of 5
The High End Of Low
I am going to start this review like probably most other one’s out there. I’m going to tell you how Manson used to rock. Ready? Here goes…
I used to like Marilyn Manson. He was a hardcore shock rocker that all our parents hated. I bought Anti-Christ Superstar with quarters on the day it came out. How could you not get excited after songs like “The Beautiful People” rumbled your used-car’s speakers? That was a long time ago. I grew up, I moved on to different music.
Manson also did. He lost his balls and started making albums that you could play to put your child to sleep. This is not the music you think of when you think of Marilyn Manson. Gargamel wouldn’t even think this music was that heavy. Even with some old school bandmates (Twiggy, Vrenna, and Ginger Fish), Manson couldn’t bring back the rock that we once knew.
"I'm just looking for material for my next cd, don't mind me."
Don’t get me wrong, there are a couple of good songs. “Pretty as a Swastika” has some nice stomping parts that I could see form a nice circle pit. And who could pass up the satirical yet entertaining “We’re From America“. This jabs at us fatty ignorant Americans. Quality stuff right there.
But then you find tracks like “Into the Fire“, “Four Rusted Horses“, “Running into the Edge Of the World“, and “Unkillable Monster“ which all seem to draaaaaaag on. “Man That You Fear” was a decent hit on the radio but please leave it back in the 90′s. These songs bored the hell out of me. Slow album fillers in my opinion. Or, maybe this is the dark sensitive side coming out.
Lastly, let’s touch on the lyrics ::sigh::. No one ever said Manson was the greatest writer (see gusher), but he used to have a theme he’d go with. This album’s supposed to be about him getting dumped by ladies. Really? I think the Cure put out an album about losing a loved one. But that’s the freaking CURE! What happened to Satan, Sodomy, Drugs, and Guns? Run out of ideas?
I’m not going to even touch on the song “WOW”. All you have to say is “WOW….you seriously released that?”
Overall, I think this cd sounds more like an 80′s New Wave wanna-be cd than a Hard Rock Shock Rocker’s Album. Maybe he’ll get it next time, or maybe not…
Slaughter of the Summer Solstice?
Wow, what a kick-ass show. 10 bands, 8 hours. Summer Slaughter o9 did not disappoint, which was a task considering 2 bands listed on the bill (Ensiferum, Decrepit Birth) and 2 of the main reasons I went weren’t even at this particular show.
The one thing that bothered me about this tour is that I was expecting a death metal show. What I got was a death metal show mixed with a metalcore, hardcore, tardcore, crapcore whatever you want to call it show. I guess if it were a strict death metal bill, then it’d be me and like 5 other dudes. So they add a variety of other styles of music in order to sell more tix.
Here’s a band by band rundown:
Blackguard: Ugh, I just saw them last month at Paganfest. As far as folk-metal goes, these guys don’t cut it. They aren’t bad necessarily, it’s just that if you want to listen to this style of music, there are a ton of bands that do it much better (Finntroll, Eluveitie, Korpiklaani to name a few).
After the Burial: They hit the stage and announced that the singer was outside puking because of heat exhaustion and that they were going to do an instrumental set without him. I figured good, a metalcore band, the vocals probably blow anyhow.
So they start the instrumental set and man, the guitarists can shred. I’m talking sweep arpeggios, dual lead harmonies, tapping. The bassist and drummer were good too, excellent musicians all throughout this band.
Then the singer gets on stage for the final song, saying he was dizzy and tingly but wanted to at least do one song. Wow, he’s a big fucking hero. Remember what I said earlier about it was probably better that they were doing an instrumental set because the singer probably sucked? I was right. The vocals really take away from an otherwise good band.
Beneath the Massacre: More like on the shed. They aren’t bad, certainly not good either though. They are mediocre at best.
Angry metal pose perfection
Origin: I wasn’t familiar with Origin but am a huge fan now. They fucking destroyed, nay, decimated. The term “brutal” gets thrown around often when discussing death metal and grind, but these guys are fucking BRUTAL. The singer is amazing. Great vocals full of guttural growls and higher, almost chirps. He owns the stage and stalks it like a ravenous sasquatch with his hand held majestically skyward. He even lent a hand to a crowd surfer who was about to hit the floor head first. He grabbed the surfer by one ankle and held him up whilst singing. The music is technical and unrelenting with sick riffs and machine gun drums. Also, after the show, I saw the singer in front of the venue and said, “You guys fucking killed. I hadn’t heard of you guys until tonight but I’m a fan now.” He then proceeded to shake my hand and wobble as he was extremely inebriated and then ask the person behind me, “You got any weed?” Very metal.
Born of Osiris: Metalcore with a keyboard. Disco-core? I don’t know the proper label, but it sucked. The tour program states they have “proggy death skills”. The only thing progressive about them is their ability to progress from shit to shittier to shittiest band on the bill. Part of the bill designed to bring in hardcore teenagers in skinny jeans and white belts or gym shorts. Karate kicks and cartwheels in the pit. In the words of Brian Posehn, “Dude, you look gay-tarded.”
Dying Fetus: Fucking amazing. Hasn’t missed a step, still ferocious, technical and yes, brutal.
Winds of Plague: These guys are ok; I like them, not love them. Someone had to leave in an ambulance during their set if that tells you anything about their live show.
Darkest Hour: The only thing good about them was the solos, which were brilliant, precise and melodic.
Suffocatiioooonnngggghhhnn
Suffocation: They were great, fucking annihilated. Most of the material played was from their earliest albums (some would say their prime) but we also got a preview of their upcoming album. They just still are great after 20 years. The band is on point and the singer is charismatic. A high point of this particular set was when the singer from Blackguard took the Dying Fetus thong that was on display at a merch table, put it on his head and face and entered the pit.
Necrophagist: One of the main reasons for me going. They were excellent. Complex, beautiful and yes, brutal music. They owned. Wonderful musicianship all around. Muhammed Suicmez (the leader, writer of all music for all instruments in Necrophagist) has found a great group of musicians this time around to execute his vision. Can’t wait for their next record. We got a taste of it, but fuck a taste, I want the whole meal.