Winds of Plague

Posted in Metal, Music, Pop Culture, Reviews, deathcore, metalcore with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 12/20/2009 by Josh Haun

California’s Winds of Plague might be the ultimate metal guilty pleasure.  Let me start this off by saying that the awesome Metal Inquisition has already blogged about this band extensively (and hilariously), but I only recently decided to actually check them out for myself.  I’m sure I’ve already lost all my kvlt points for copping to liking Annotations of an Autopsy, Job For A Cowboy and Suicide Silence in the past, so what the hell do I have to lose.

Winds of Plague get lumped in with the “deathcore” genre.  I’m guessing this is because their music prominently features breakdowns and their merch is available at Hot Topic.  But then again, most music critics that make these decisions as to what category/genre/movement bands get lumped into are half-retarded, and the average metal fan that supports these categorizations is full-on retarded, so we’ll go ahead and ignore the deathcore tag alltogether. If anything, Winds of Plague are a complete genre trainwreck of Dimmu/Cradle-esque Euro-symphonic metal and Hatebreed-style toughguy metalcore, and just like a real-life trainwreck, it’s nearly impossible to look away.  Are they actually on to something with this rather improbable collision of styles that paints aural pictures of Jamey Jasta violently fornicating with Shaggrath, spewing forth the members of Winds of Plague as their infernal rape-children?

With the release of the Decimate the Weak album,  the band gained some notoriety for their mildly hip-hop flavored song “Reloaded” and video for the song “The Impaler” which features the band up in the club and exhibiting behaviors that could best be described as mad wiggerish.  While the hip-hop influence seemed to get blown waaay out of proportion by some parts of the metal media, “Reloaded” does feature some of my favorite metal lyrics of all time:

“We’ve got the world in the palm of our hands.
Busters fall down when we’re barking commands.
Atlas ain’t got shit on our steez.
Kick out the chair and get on your knees.”

(Music video for “The Impaler”… clearly P-Diddy ain’t got shit on Winds of Plague’s steez.)

Thoroughly intrigued by what I had heard and seen in my research, I decided to give their new album, The Great Stone War a shot.  Apparently it’s a concept album about an apocalyptic fantasy battle at the end of humanity’s reign on Earth… or something like that.  This, along with the album’s Warcraft-worthy album art lends yet another level of head-shaking WTF to the band’s schtick.  One minute they’re posturing like gangsta rappers, the next they’re releasing an album that makes one wonder if they’re sitting around playing Dungeons & Dragons in their backwards caps and mesh shorts.

(The Great Stone War album cover… now where are my 12-sided dice?)

Ultimately, my descent into the world of Winds of Plague has left me with more questions than answers.  Regardless, I can’t help but enjoy this bizarre, epic cross-genre clusterfuck, where sword-wielding, hobbit metal Tolkien-nerds collide in a moshpit wall of death with wack nu-hardcore meathead mouthbreathers. Either they’re one uniquely confused band or they simply don’t give a fuck and have no qualms about mashing up these styles, whether or not it looks good on paper and haters be damned.

http://www.myspace.com/windsofplague

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Squash Bowels – Grindvirus (Willowtip 2009)

Posted in Metal, Music, death metal, grindcore with tags , , , , on 12/13/2009 by Josh Haun

Spewing violently out of Poland’s anus like the undigested remnants of a bean and cheese burrito during a bout of swine flu, Squash Bowels serve up 14 tracks worth of thick ‘n’ chunky grindcore with their 5th album, Grindvirus. Employing an approach to the genre that is both as memorable as your first broken bone and as violent as a 10-car pile-up, Squash Bowels ensure that prolonged exposure to this pleasantly putrid platter of splatter may cause the following severe symptoms: nausea, projectile vomiting, diarrhea and the uncontrollable urge to headbang.

While there is no question that the band can blast away relentlessly with the best of them on Grindvirus, Squash Bowels also manage to cram plenty of diversity into this 28 minute assault on the senses. Rarely is a grindcore recording imparted with so much character and individuality, and it is this that truly sets Squash Bowels apart from their purulent peers. Tracks like “Two Cows and Monkey”, “Wriggler” and “D.I.” bring the gore, grind and groove in equal measure, and it is this varying approach that keeps the album compelling throughout its all-too-brief duration. But what really makesGrindvirus such a perfect piece of biological weaponry are the riffs. Guitarist Andy Pakos is a master of his craft, churning out a barrage of six-string gnarliness that will get stuck in your head like the discharge of a nailgun to the frontal lobe.

From a songwriting, playing and recording standpoint, Grindvirus is catchier than the clap and more devastating than an Ebola outbreak. The album is wrapped in a burly production perfectly suited to the devastating music, each instrument is perfectly audible even when the band is blasting at full speed. Although Andy’s riffing might be the album’s definite highlight, all three members of Squash Bowels demonstrate flawless musicianship throughout, displaying why they are a power trio in the truest sense of the phrase. Although the band has had a revolving door membership over the years, you’d never know it from listening to Grindvirus as the band sounds like a well-oiled machine, albeit a machine bent on committing acts of mass slaughter.

Regardless of what the Center for Disease Control may advise regarding exposure to communicable grindcore, fans of the likes of Nasum, Rotten Sound and latter-day Pig Destroyer are strongly encouraged to seek out Squash Bowels as soon as possible. Try as you might to get the band’s indelible yet ferocious attack out of your system, you’ll soon come to the terrifying realization that there is no cure for Grindvirus.

http://www.myspace.com/squashbowels

(review originally written for Sonic Frontiers.net)

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Slayer – World Painted Blood

Posted in Metal, Music, Reviews, thrash with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 12/09/2009 by Josh Haun

It’s no secret that I didn’t particularly care for Slayer’s last album, Christ Illusion.  I think I might have listened to the fucking thing twice before letting it languish in my collection for all eternity.  Of course, bear in mind that it came out during the summer of 2006 while I was interning for Metal Blade and being bombarded with cool new music on an almost daily basis (they put out new albums from Goatwhore, Amon Amarth, Gaza and God Dethroned while I was there, just to name a few), but the songs on Christ Illusion just didn’t seem to have any sort of staying power or memorability.

Of course, the fact that the album cover had what appeared to be a homeless Mexican pirate with no arms on it didn’t help matters.  I mean, I’ve seen some ugly-ass album covers in my day, but that thing takes the fucking cake.  I’m not sure how the members of Slayer (or anyone else in their right mind, for that matter) could think that pile of crap actually looked cool.

But I digress.  At some point I should probably dust off Christ Illusion and give it a fair assessment, but we’re not here to talk about that album now.  Slayer have a brand new album out in the form of World Painted Blood, and damn if it isn’t a pretty good one.  I’ll spare you the obligatory “blah blah blah it’s not as good as Reign in Blood…” bullshit that you can get from the 5 million reviews that are already floating around out there.  Quite frankly, I don’t even really think Reign in Blood is Slayer’s best work.  I personally prefer Seasons in the Abyss and South of Heaven.  Boo-fucking-hoo.  Reign in Blood is a classic sure, but that was then, this is now and Slayer has put out quite a few strong releases since then and World Painted Blood (henceforth abbreviated as WPB) is one of them.

The first thing I noticed about WPB is the production, raw (by major label standards) and dry as a bone, it comes dangerously close to sounding like the band were actually playing in a room together simultaneously and doesn’t suffer from the mixing/mastering flaws that hindered Metallica’s Death Magnetic (although I still enjoyed that album thoroughly). As for the songs themselves, they seem to draw on aspects of all the various eras of Slayer, the speed, the heaviness and groove, King and Hanneman’s blitzkrieg leads, all within a tightly wrapped 11 song, 40 minute package.

Just about everyone of these songs has some sort of vocal hook that sticks in my head, particularly “Hate Worldwide” “Not of this God” and the title track.  In fact, Tom Arraya’s vocal performance throughout the album is immense, it’s amazing he’s still capable of sounding that pissed off in his old age.  Dave Lombardo’s drumming is great as always and it’s great to hear him fully settled back into the Slayer drum throne, recording-wise.

The album’s only real flaw lies at the feet of King and Hanneman.  The guitar-work is still pretty solid in my opinion, but the riffs still don’t seem as memorable or interesting as they were on prior releases, such as the criminally underrated God Hates Us All.  I would liked to have heard something as musically catchy as maybe “Bloodline” or “God Send Death”, but I’m just not getting that from this album as yet.  The interesting thing is that the leads actually sound a bit more thoughtful than they have in the past, not quite the typical King/Hanneman mindless whammy-bar abuse that most of us are used to.  They haven’t morphed into Mustaine and Friedman overnight or anything, but leads on WPB are definitely a little more musical and a little less schizophrenic than they have in the past.

Of course, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what I or anyone else has to say about World Painted Blood. All the mainstream critics will hail the album as a return to form, the crybaby self-styled metal snobs and elitists will dismiss it as crap since it didn’t come out in 1990, and the majority will fall somewhere in between.  For what it’s worth though, I’m enjoying the hell out of it.

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New faux-Misfits songs: Pretty much the worst thing I’ve ever heard.

Posted in Horror, Metal, Music, Pop Culture, Punk, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 12/04/2009 by Josh Haun

Jerry Only should really be ashamed of himself at this point.  When he (along with brother/guitarist Doyle) originally resurrected the Misfits name back in 1997 with the American Psycho album, I had some pretty high hopes, in spite of my undying allegiance to original Misfits singer Glenn Danzig.  Michael Graves was a solid new vocalist, and the songs were catchy and heavy.  Even if they didn’t touch the heights of classic Misfits material, at least they weren’t dragging the name through the mud, and I came to think of the “nu-Misfits” as an entirely separate band, allowing myself to enjoy them without worrying too much about the legacy factor.

Now fast-forward to the present day.  What now records and tours the globe under the Misfits banner can only be called a joke and at this point it has become impossible to ignore.  Jerry Only, who technically speaking is not even an original member of the band himself, is parading around with Dez Cadena (ex-Black Flag guitar/vocals) and Robo (also ex-Black Flag and one of approximately 5 million drummers from the Misfits’ original 1977-1983 heyday) as what basically amounts to a glorified cover band.  Now, to make matters worse, they are releasing new material in the form of the positively dreadful “Land of the Dead” single.  Featuring two songs (“Land of the Dead” and “Twilight of the Dead”) penned by this wannabe Misfits lineup, the single is a dazzling display of poor production, worse musicianship and totally uncreative songwriting.  Only’s vocals are atrocious, and the songs themselves are about as limp as a male porn stud’s dong after a 12 girl orgy scene.

Speaking of dongs, at this point Only might as well whip his out and piss on the Misfits’ legacy, because that is exactly what he’s doing with these two tracks worth of total embarrassment.  Don’t believe me?  Go to the band’s myspace page and listen for yourself.

The real, original ‘77-’83 incarnation of the Misfits has been and will continue to be one of my all-time favorite bands.  But this is seriously a piss-poor attempt to keep the cash-cow that comes along with the band’s name afloat and should not be supported by anyone that considers themselves a true fan.  Go out and buy Static Age or Walk Among Us if you want to hear what the lords of horror punk are supposed to sound like, because you won’t find it on Land of the Dead.  In fact, the only redeeming quality of this release is the illustration by acclaimed comic artist Arthur Suydam (cover art for Marvel Zombies).

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Lady Gaga – Bad Romance

Posted in Music, Pop Culture, Videos, pop music with tags , , , , , , on 12/04/2009 by Josh Haun

I am strangely fascinated by this song and video.  Someone please help me.

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In defense of KISS.

Posted in Metal, Music, Pop Culture, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 11/30/2009 by Josh Haun

It seems like a lot of people I know don’t like KISS.  Because of this, I can’t help but suspect that I may be surrounded by communist subversives.  Of course it could be that I grew up with KISS (and Gene Simmons in particular) as a household name, being introduced to them by my uncle at a very young age.  Or it could be that most people I know for some reason don’t think that the following things are awesome: blood, fire, makeup, battle-axe shaped bass guitars and catchier-than-herpes nuggets of 3 minute, 3 chord pop rock.

I’m guessing it has something to do with the later.  KISS are not a heavy metal band, or even a hard rock band.  KISS is a pop band.  A mindless sugar-rush of sweet, tasty choruses and juvenile lyrics wrapped in the aforementioned fire, blood and makeup.  Once you have that in mind, it might make it easier to appreciate them for what they really are.  ”Calling Dr. Love”, “God of Thunder” and “Deuce” aren’t fucking high art or rocket science, they are the musical equivalent of a bag of Halloween candy.  Anyone assessing KISS based on any other criteria needs to get it the fuck together.

(above: “God of Thunder” my favorite KISS song and the closest they ever got to heavy metal in my opinion)

And although KISS might not be a heavy metal band by any stretch of the imagination, they are arguably the second most important band to influence heavy metal after Black Sabbath.  Their theatricality/imagery, catchiness and swagger, (not to mention the invention of what would later come to be known as corpsepaint) had wide-ranging and lasting effects on everyone from GWAR to the late Dimebag Darrell to the black metal scene in its entirety.  Bands ranging from White Zombie (“God of Thunder”) to the Melvins (“Goin’ Blind”) to Nirvana (“Do You Love Me”) and beyond have all seen fit to cover tunes penned by the grease-paint adorned quartet.  And let us not forget about the monumentally  atrocious Kiss My Ass tribute album, featuring such artists as Garth Brooks (or is that Chris Gaines) and uh… The Gin Blossoms.

(above: “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” aka KISS’ “disco song” and also one of their most successful hits.  Hey, I dislike disco as much as the next metalhead (except for the Bee Gees, those dudes were hella sick), but try to tell me this isn’t a catchy lil’ fucker of a song.)

Of course along with KISS’ imagery came accusations of satanism and other such nonsense.  According to some members of the god squad, KISS was an acronym for Knights In Satan’s Service.  I’m not quite sure how anyone could listen to “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” or “Hard Luck Woman” and get satanism out of it.  Or maybe anyone that wears face paint is automatically a satanist in the eyes of jesus freaks.  Watch out for Bozo kids, he’s going to see that you roast in the fiery pits of hell!  But I digress, the “controversy” brought on in typical fashion by the lord’s most ignorant followers only helped make KISS that much more appealing to rebellious youth, even if they were really singing about sex instead of satan.  Come to think of it, that was probably even more appealing.

So maybe now those of you that have previously scoffed at my enjoyment of KISS have a better understanding of my reasons for being a fan.  Sure, they have made numerous missteps, such as taking the makeup off, firing Peter Criss and Ace Frehley and releasing tons of clunkers in the song department (I cannot comment on their latest album as yet), not to mention basically becoming nothing more than money-grubbing media/merchandising whores.  But again, KISS is a pop band, so things like artistic integrity and cred should be viewed as non-issues.  Fun haters be damned, I’ll be cranking “Cold Gin” while you’re bitching about what a terrible band KISS is for all of the wrong reasons.  KISS my ass, indeed.

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Rammstein wants to spice up your sex life.

Posted in Metal, Music, Pop Culture, Porn, Sex with tags , , , , , , , , , , on 11/28/2009 by Josh Haun

Pictured above is the “deluxe edition” of Rammstein’s excellent new album, Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da.  While most bands are content to include a DVD, t-shirt or poster with the deluxe treatments of their latest albums, the men of Rammstein clearly have other ideas mind, choosing to include a set of six dildos (reportedly modeled from the band members’… um, members) + a set of handcuffs and a small bottle of lube.  The set comes housed in a metal case and retails for a whopping $250.00.  You can find all the gory details HERE.

As previously noted HERE, Rammstein have also released a music video for the album’s first single “Pussy” that is probably among the most NSFW clips ever made, essentially a 3 minute porn vid starring the band in numerous hilariously cliche adult film situations.

I’m not sure if Rammstein is looking to spice up their listener’s sex lives, or making a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the pervasiveness and over-importance placed on sex in popular culture… I wouldn’t put either one past them.  The thing I still can’t get over is that a major record label (Rammstein are signed to Universal) were not only completely cool with ponying up the funds for a pornographic video that was released exclusively on an adult website, they also didn’t mind producing a box set that amounts to 6 life-size fluorescent pink rubber dongs.

At first I wondered if all of this was just a grab for attention on the band’s part, but it seems like a hell of a lot of effort for a mere publicity stunt.  Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da is the best thing the band has released since Mutter, so there is no doubt that the music can stand on its own.  Personally, I’d like to think that the explicitness surrounding the album is a labor of love on Rammstein’s behalf, an advocacy of sexual freedom mixed with some biting commentary on the semi-retarded state of pop culture and a healthy dose of sarcasm.

Whatever the case may be, at least it’s blatantly obvious that Rammstein have something all too rare in the music world, particularly in heavy music… a fucking sense of humor.

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A rant from Old Man Metal…

Posted in Cult, Metal, Music, Occult, Pop Culture, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 11/19/2009 by Josh Haun

There was a time when I was obsessed with metal to the point that I would devour anything and everything that came my way.  Slap some skulls, blood or pentagrams on the cover and throw in a hard-to-read logo with spiky letters, and chances are I would buy it, or at the very least check the band out online.

However, as I’ve gotten older (in fact, I am rapidly approaching the big 3-0, one foot in the grave as I write this.), I find it harder and harder to discover new bands that I have any real vested interest in.  I can’t even remember the last time I discovered a new band that “blew me away”.  Certainly, I’ve discovered some bands that I enjoy quite a bit in the last few years (i.e. Dead Congregation, Embrace of Thorns, Necros Christos, Revocation, Augury, Ulcerate, Fleshgod Apocalypse, I could go on…), but nothing to the point of obsession, where I felt the need to listen to the album over and over again, track down the entire back catalogue, order the t-shirt, etc.  

Obviously, as part of running Sonic Frontiers.net I try to keep up with current trends and bands in the music scene, particularly the heavy side.  I check other websites, magazines and message boards on a fairly regular basis to see what new bands/albums are being ranted an raved about.  And 99% of the time I check them out for myself and walk away disappointed.

The real question here is, does this say something about me, or about the quality of new music being cranked out on a yearly basis?  Personally, I tend to think it has something to do with the fact that as a reviewer I am constantly being inundated with new music.  Add to that the fact that I have been listening to heavy music for approximately 15 years (give or take) and what you end up with is someone that is pretty fucking hard to impress.

At the end of the day, I tend to stick by (and get excited about) the bands I’ve enjoyed for years.  I can be confident these bands are going to deliver and don’t have to worry about being disappointed (although it has happened on occasion).  Besides, it is pretty damn hard for me (and most other metal fans, I’d bet) to imagine some new band coming along that blows the likes of Vader, Nile, Celtic Frost, Emperor, Autopsy or Darkthrone out of the water.  The older, veteran bands are considered the best bands for a reason.  Their music is phenomenal and continues to stand the test of time, regardless of whether or not they are still active.

Yes, there have been some killer debuts full lengths (I’m thinking of the first albums from Krallice, Sickening Horror, Maruta, Dead Congregation, etc.) and there is also a crop of “new old school death metal” bands popping up that are impressing me quite a bit of late (i.e. Fatalist, Deathevokation, the aforementioned Necros Christos and Dead Congregation), but these bands are like rare diamonds amid a sea of bullshit third generation, Hot Topic sponsored metalcore, wigger mosh/deathcore, (plus god squad affiliated variations of these two),  faceless thrash and half-baked, overly produced, uber technical boredom (although I do like a fair share of tech death, there is a glut of it of late that does absolutely nothing for me.).

Then again, what might be even worse is the abundance of absolutely useless cookie-cutter bands in all extreme metal’s subgenres that do absolutely nothing to advance the scene with the creatively stunted drivel they choose to sour our ears with.  The 5 million wannabe Darkthrones out there (you know who you are) are just as pathetic as all the moshcore mental midgets out there pimping their lame shit to 14 year old girls on myspace, if not worse.  Unfortunately, there is as yet no way to police the metal underground for quality control, but I think it’s something we definitely need to work on.

Of course, in truth the real extreme metal underground is probably in far better shape than what approximates heavy music’s mainstream these days.  When the “popular” scene is being clogged with bands sporting dayglo t-shirt designs, floppy haircuts, stupid band names like See You Next Tuesday and The Devil Wears Prada and generally acting like a bunch of half-retarded wiggers, WE HAVE A FUCKING PROBLEM.  It can only mean its time for metal to go back underground where it belongs, to regroup, gestate and listen to fucking Wolverine Blues.  Either that or genocide, but I’m guessing that just isn’t a viable option at the moment.

Folks, it’s time to put the DEATH back in death metal.  And while there is no doubt that plenty of oldschool bands out there still “get it”, I grow increasingly concerned for the younger generation.  As I’ve said many times before, death metal should sound like it’s being played by a horde of zombies, freshly resurrected as part of a Satanic ritual and now using rusty powertools as instruments to create music that will usher in the apocalypse.  Kids today simply DO NOT GET IT for the most part.  For now the underground is by and large safe, but I can’t help but fear for the future.

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New Burzum ritual Den Hvite Guden to be released in 2010.

Posted in Cult, Metal, Music, black metal with tags , , , , , on 11/19/2009 by Josh Haun

Burzum mastermind Varg Vikernes has announced plans to release the first album of new Burzum material since 1999’s Hlidskjalf.  This will be a return to Vikernes’ metal roots (the last few Burzum albums were electronic/ambient due to Vikernes’ incarceration for murder) titled Den Hvite Guden (The White God) and will be based on the norse god Baldr.  No word on what label (if any) will be releasing the album.

You can read the full story on Blabbermouth.net by clicking HERE or access the announcement from the official Burzum website.

(photo of Varg Vikernes courtesy Dagbladet)

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Pray Satan (or Taste the blood of VON)

Posted in Cult, Metal, Music, Reviews with tags , , , , , , on 11/15/2009 by Josh Haun

AG11-Von-triple-gatefold-jacket

I’ve been wanting to write about VON for a long time.  Spawned from San Francisco’s dark underbelly in 1989, VON recorded two demos (Satanic Blood and Blood Angel) and played a handful of live shows before disappearing back into the unholy abyss from whence they came.

In spite of a total recorded output of about 20 songs, VON has been highly influential within the black metal underground, and with good reason.  Armed with piss-poor production values and a deliberately rudimentary approach to songstructure, the trio is responsible for some of the filthiest, most hypnotic extreme metal ever put to tape. Indeed, VON’s reliance on repetition, coupled with their ability to make the atmosphere provided by lo-fi production work to their advantage, has lead to 20 years of hopeless mimicry from all corners of the blackened globe.

VON’s demos have been compiled (along w/ some live recordings) as Satanic Blood Angel, and have been released on several occasions by the mighty Nuclear War Now! Productions (aka the label that snubs my e-mails because I’m not kvlt enough), and have also been bootlegged for a split with Dark Funeral called Devil Pigs.  While some will undoubtedly dismiss songs like “Watain”, “Satanic Blood” and “Blood Angel” as monotonous noise, they are missing the point entirely.  VON’s music is simplicity itself, pure evil distilled into two minute and thirty second bouts of demonic delerium.  Taken as a whole, these tracks have an uncannily ritualistic vibe, capable of inducing the grim, quasi-psychedelic trance-state so much black metal tries (and more often than not fails) to attain.

Personally, I find a lot of power in VON’s minimalism.  From song composition and instrumentation to production to imagery/artwork, everything about the band is crude, direct and to-the-point.  This stark, stripped down approach makes their music that much more sinister and mysterious, and whether or not the trio’s odes to the dark lord were legitimate, I can’t imagine a more genuinely eerie and esoteric batch of sounds than those found on Satanic Blood Angel ever being put to tape.  

It is the simplistic approach that lends the air of legitimacy to their sound.  While the concept of a bunch of devil worshippers whipping up slick-sounding metal in a multi-million dollar Pro-Tools equipped studio seems beyond ludicrous, the thought of three disciples of the left-hand path gathering in a dank, dark basement and capturing their unholy sonic ritual sacrifices on a decrepit 4-track machine sounds like the stuff of true nightmares.

So many so-called extreme bands get wrapped up in all the extra bells and whistles of the recording studio and over-the-top imagery that whatever they were originally attempting to get across becomes hopelessly diluted.  VON did not fall into this trap for even a second and this is why their music remains timeless in its black purity.

VON’s music IS the ritual.  Pentagrams smeared on the floor and walls with blood and vomit.  Acts of unspeakable human depravity invoking the unnameable.  Candlelit blood sacrifices.  Demonic possession.   Blood VON.

http://www.myspace.com/vonmusicgroup

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I Don’t Care Where I Go When I Die.

Posted in Metal, Music, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , on 11/12/2009 by Josh Haun

album-i-dont-care-where-i-go-when-i-die

Gaza’s debut album, I Don’t Care Where I Go When I Die often gets unfairly lumped in with the metalcore genre.  It’s a damn shame, because this album is so noisy, fucked up and covered in pitch-black layers of sludgy filth that it’s pretty far beyond my definition of metalcore (ie bands who rip off At The Gates and add breakdowns).  This is more in the vein of noisy metallic hardcore like Botch or Coalesce, but with an extra dose of gnarly, crusty, pure EVIL thrown in the mix.

The band are only helped by a heavily anti-religious stance, further separating them from the metalcore genre which is largely dominated by the “god squad” (i.e. As I Lay Dying, Zao + lots and lots of other shit bands that have a wide array of brightly colored  merch available at your local Hot Topic).  Basically, Gaza takes hold of those bands by the throat, chokes the life out of them, and then sodomizes their rotting corpses with a large crucifix.

Gaza hail from  Salt Lake City, Utah, and it’s no surprise that the land of Joseph Smith and screwy liquor laws would produce such a vile, ferocious batch of musicians.  Chances are it was either form a band or have a psychotic meltdown and go on a Columbine-style shooting rampage.  Polygamist, Book of Mormon-toting motherfuckers beware, there is a malignant musical tumor known as Gaza festering in your fair city.

One of the most underrated albums to come out in recent years in my book, this twisted little slab of plastic proves you don’t have to be a straight-up black or death metal band to be fueled by Satan.

www.myspace.com/gaza

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True kvlt black metal instant Halloween costume.

Posted in Metal, Pop Culture, halloween with tags , , , , on 11/08/2009 by Josh Haun

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Church burning, homicidal fun for all the kiddies, available at all fine Wal Mart locations.  Hail Satan.

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White Whale, Holy Grail.

Posted in Literature, Metal, Music, Pop Culture, Reviews with tags , , , , , , on 11/08/2009 by Josh Haun

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“Split your lungs with blood and thunder / When you see the white whale /
Break your backs and crack your oars men / If you wish to prevail”                       -”Blood and Thunder”, Mastodon

I have to be honest, I wasn’t wild about Mastodon’s Leviathan when I first heard it.  Having been a fan of the band’s super-heavy psych-sludge stylings as displayed on the Lifesblood ep and the classic Remission full length, I had purchased the album expecting more of the same and walked away sorely disappointed.  Indeed, Mastodon had become oddly progressive and sprawling in their compositional approach (in spite of no increase in actual song lengths), throwing me for a loop in the process.  Sure, there were still elements of their prior all-out bludgeoning heaviosity, but something had changed, something I couldn’t quite put a finger on, and I wasn’t particularly sure I liked what I heard.

But then several years later, something strange happened.  I started thinking about the album for no apparent reason (random music has a knack for popping into my head whether I like it or not) and this in turn inspired me to finally read Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick, on which much of the album is based. To say that it now ranks among my favorite books would be something of an understatement.  

There is something about mad Ahab’s quest for revenge upon the “salt-sea mastodon” that is endlessly fascinating.  I spent many days sitting outside (usually before and after work) getting lost in Melville’s rich prose, you can’t help but immerse yourself in the world he creates. It is almost as if you yourself are standing on the deck of the Pequod, watching Ahab pivot on his ivory appendage (the titular whale bit off his flesh-and-blood leg in their first encounter).

So, my obsession with Moby Dick has lead me to re-visiting Leviathan in recent days, resulting in a greater appreciation for the album.  Now that I am familiar with the novel that inspired it, I feel like the album has taken on other dimensions that weren’t so apparent when I initially experienced it. The way in which the novel and album inform each other is something akin to the more common book/film comparison, yet somehow quite different.  Adapting a novel for music seems much more challenging and alltogether a much rarer accomplishment than the by now tried ‘n’ true book-to-film trajectory that dominates so much of our modern popular culture.

I mean seriously, how many other metal albums based on/inspired by American literature are out there? Metallica have taken inspiration from literature for individual songs (“For Whom The Bell Tolls”, “The Call of Ktulu”, “The Thing That Should Not Be”, etc.) and Cobalt’s recent/brilliant Gin album references Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson, so it isn’t totally unheard of.  But none of these convey such an understanding of a particular work in it’s entirety or are as immersive in their totality and attention to storytelling.  Mastodon’s ability to capture the spirit of Melville’s nautical oeuvre through song is an impressive feat and testament to their skills as musicians, composers and conceptualists.

I highly recommend experiencing both Leviathan (and all of Mastodon’s discography for that matter) and Moby Dick to anyone actively looking for reading and listening experiences that go beyond simple “entertainment”.

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“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!” 
- Moby Dick, Herman Melville

http://www.melville.org

http://www.mastodonrocks.com

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Portal

Posted in Horror, Metal, Music, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , on 11/05/2009 by Josh Haun

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Although I’ve admittedly been on something of a doom/prog kick here for the last little bit, one death metal band that has managed to turn my head in recent weeks is Australia’s Portal.  Not only is the band visually striking (check out the above pic of their vocalist, known as The Curator), they are the musical and lyrical of equivalent of being driven mad by the sight of some sort of Lovecraftian abomination (think The Call of Cthulhu), such is the twisted, convulsing and gnarly nature of their approach.

I had the distinct pleasure of reviewing their absolute mindfuck of a third album Swarth, for Sonic Frontiers, you can read it HERE.  

Check out this rad live video of the band performing the track “Glumurphonel”.

http://www.myspace.com/the-portal

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Michael Jackson’s This Is It.

Posted in Cinema, Music, Reviews with tags , , , , , on 11/01/2009 by Josh Haun

michael-jackson-this-is-it-movie-poster

I’ve been a fan of Michael Jackson since I was a little kid.  Jackson (along with Billy Idol and Kiss, oddly enough) was one of the first artists to really spark my interest in music, with a slew of catchy songs like “Beat It” and “Billie Jean”.  But it was the utterly fantastic video for Thriller, replete with zombies, graveyards and a “guest rap” from horror legend Vincent Price, that made me an obsessive.  I was hooked, owning Thriller on both vinyl and cassette, plus an MJ doll with the red Thriller outfit.

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As I got older, my musical interests took a decidedly darker, more underground turn, but I never forgot the bands and artists that helped form my music-obsessed outlook. From the aforementioned “Thriller” to “Smooth Criminal”, Jackson was responsible for some of my favorite pop songs.

Although I hadn’t paid much attention to Jackson’s tabloid-worthy exploits and reclusive behavior in recent years, his death nonetheless affected me for these reasons. When plans to release the quasi-concert film This Is It were announced, I was a bit apprehensive about whether or not I had any interest in seeing it, since it seemed like it had the potential to be nothing more than a hastily thrown together attempt to cash in on the recent tragedy.

Nonetheless, I caught the film with my fiancee over the Halloween weekend. This Is It documents Jackson’s preparations for a planned series of comeback concerts set to take place in London. While the film is a tragic testament to all that could have been and is a heartfelt tribute to the overwhelming talent the King of Pop still possessed at age 50, it doesn’t shed much light on Michael Jackson the human being.  We get brief snippets of MJ’s interactions with his band, dancers, crew and others involved in helping put the show together, but the lack of actual interview footage with Jackson lessens some of the film’s impact.

What we do get is a sketch of Jackson as humble yet extremely confident, thoughtful and concerned with every aspect of the production that now will never come to fruition.  Judging by the footage presented in This Is It, Jackson’s comeback concerts would have been nothing short of spectacular if they had actually happened. From pyrotechnics to dazzling CGI and 3D footage, it is clear that no expense was being spared in re-introducing Jackson to the public as a live performer.

And that is ultimately the focus of This Is It. The performance footage of Jackson’s multitude of hits from “Thriller” to Black or White” is fantastic, showcasing not only the talent of Jackson himself, but also the musicians, dancers, choreographers and special effects technicians that helped bring the elaborate stage show to life. The amount of money, time and effort that must have gone into the production is simply beyond anything I’ve ever seen in a rock concert.

The film does present a number of short interviews with the dancers and musicians involved with the production and seeing their infectious excitement at the prospect of working with Jackson makes things seem even more tragic, if such a thing is possible. Although This Is It leaves us with only the briefest glimpse of the enigmatic Jackson as a person, it is an eternal reminder of his unbelievable talent.

http://www.michaeljackson.com

thriller460

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