What is most interesting about Teitanblood’s assault is how difficult it is to categorize.  Elements of black metal, death metal, doom and even a hint of crust all rear their ugly heads throughout Seven Chalice’s lengthy duration, creating a sound that is extremely enjoyable in it’s fetid, suffocating noxiousness, but also extremely difficult to pin down.  The picture becomes even more hazy when you consider the numerous ambient/atmospheric interludes (which sound like orchestral maneuvers in hell) that pop up throughout the album.  It is almost as if the band  distilled everything that makes 4 decades worth (if the release of Black Sabbath’s s/t marks year one) of dark and evil sounding music great and out came the vile afterbirth that is Seven Chalices.

There is a very ritualistic quality to the album and an emphasis on atmosphere characteristic of black metal, but the crushing and cavernous guitar tones are pure oldschool death.  Indeed, this is what is missing from so much modern so-called extreme metal, the average big budget death metal album is about as nauseatingly squeaky clean and sterile as the average Disney film.  I sincerely doubt anyone believes the true purveyors of the coming apocalypse will use Pro Tools to deliver their message of destruction.  Seven Chalices sounds like it was recorded in a dank garage by people that are actually possessed, but instead of doing crab-walks and 360 degree head-spins, Satan is compelling them to beat the living shit out of their instruments.

Bands that take this violent/primitive/lo-fi approach often forget about two of the most important aspects of good metal, guitar riffs and leads.  This is not the case with Teitanblood.  There is some killer sludge-ridden buzzsaw guitar-work going on throughout the album, and the leads are psychotic, atonal spasms of distortion that conjure images of early Slayer on a crack binge.  The drums are a bit buried in the album’s deep, dark mix, but they perfectly suit each song and have a punk/d-beat quality to them at times that makes the record feel like Teitanblood could fly right off the rails at any moment, impaling your skull with projectile guitar necks and drumsticks.  But they keep it together even when the songs reach a psycho-Satanic fever-pitch, always managing to return from the brink of total chaos.

It seems as though there is a return to the primitive happening in the metal underground and Teitanblood are arguably the focal point of this movement along with a handful of bands such as the mighty Vasaeleth, Blasphemophagher, Diocletian, Deiphago, Impetuous Ritual and Proclamation (who shares a member with Teitanblood).  As someone who has recently grown increasingly fed up with the pap the “bigger” metal labels are attempting to cram down our throats under the guise of death metal, Teitanblood is a breath of fresh air… even if I am kicking myself for not discovering them sooner.  If you share these feelings and have yet to check out Seven Chalices, I strongly recommend you rectify the situation at any and all costs.

http://www.theajnaoffensive.com

My 50 Favorite Metal Albums of the Decade (in no particular order)

1. Mastodon – Remission (Relapse)
2. Grand Belial’s Key – Judeobeast Assassination (Drakkar)
3. Celtic Frost – Monotheist (Century Media)
4. Decapitated – Organic Hallucinosis (Earache)
5. SunnO))) – Black One (Southern Lord)
6. Immortal – Sons of Northern Darkness (Nuclear Blast)
7. Electric Wizard – Dopethrone (Rise Above)
8. God Dethroned – The Toxic Touch (Metal Blade)
9. Arsis – A Celebration of Guilt (Willowtip)
10. Arghoslent – Incorrigible Bigotry (Drakkar)
11. Weakling – Dead as Dreams (tUMULt)
12. Primordial – The Gathering Wilderness (Metal Blade)
13. Ephel Duath – The Painter’s Palette (Earache)
14. High on Fire – Blessed Black Wings (Relapse)
15. Wolves in the Throne Room – Two Hunters (Southern Lord)
16. Agoraphobic Nosebleed – A Frozen Corpse Stuffed with Dope (Relapse)
17. Today is the Day – Sadness Will Prevail (Relapse)
18. Dimmu Borgir – Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia (Nuclear Blast)
19. Amon Amarth – With Oden on Our Side (Metal Blade)
20. Opeth – Blackwater Park (Music for Nations)
21. Vader – Litany (Metal Blade)
22. Destroyer 666 – Phoenix Rising (Season of Mist)
23. Darkthrone – Hate Them (Moonfog)
24. Isis – Panopticon (Ipecac)
25. Satyricon – Volcano (Capitol)
26. Watain – Casus Luciferi (Drakkar)
27. Cobalt – Gin (Profound Lore)
28. Peste Noire – La Sanie… (De Profundis)
29. Deathspell Omega – Si Monvmentvm Reqvires, Circvmspice (NoEvDia)
30. Enslaved – Below the Lights (Osmose)
31. Nile – In Their Darkened Shrines (Relapse)
32. Slayer – God Hates Us All (American)
33. Bolt Thrower – Those Once Loyal (Metal Blade)
34. Kreator – Enemy of God (SPV)
35. Impaled – Mondo Medicale (Necropolis/Deathvomit)
36. Agalloch – The Mantle (The End)
37. Nasum – Helvete (Relapse)
38. Dying Fetus – Destroy the Opposition (Relapse)
39. Entombed – Morning Star (Music for Nations)
40. Goatwhore – The Eclipse of Ages Into Black (Rotten)
41. Xasthur – To Violate the Oblivious (THR)
42. Lurker of Chalice – s/t (THR)
43. Circle of Ouroborus – Shores (Northern Sky)
44. Lifelover – Pulver (Goatowarex)
45. Thee Plague of Gentlemen – Primula Pestis (I Hate Records)
46. Satanic Warmaster – Carellian Satanist Madness (No Colours)
47. Mastodon – Crack The Sky (Reprise)
48. Anael – From Arcane Fires (Paragon)
49. Impetuous Ritual – Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence (Profound Lore)
50. Teitanblood – Seven Chalices (Ajna)

Pictured above is the artwork for their next crusty salvo, titled Circle the Wagons.  It appears Dennis Dread, who also provided artwork for Darkthrone’s two previous albums (the goddamn mighty FOAD and Dark Thrones and Black Flags), has created a gnarly necro-native American, with some sort of totem pole robot tank in the background for this particular release.  Pretty cool stuff in my book.

The album is due April 5th.  Get ready for another motherfucking whiskey funeral in the witch ghetto.

“You call your metal black?! It’s just plastic, lame and weak!”

http://www.myspace.com/officialdarkthrone

“Duuuuh… TNA now be fucking suck! Is WCW part too… duh… duh. Fuck Hogan!” (*drools on monitor)

Anyone who knows anything about wrestling history knows that Hogan and Bischoff didn’t kill WCW. Ted Turner and Vince Russo have that honor. While there can be no doubt that there was some mismanagement afoot during Bischoff’s WCW tenure, it should also be noted that he drove the company to it’s creative and ratings peak. With that said, I have been optimistic about the changes going on with TNA, as booking/creative over the course of the last few months hadn’t been particularly interesting, in my opinion. I didn’t at all care for the Main Event Mafia gimmick and it seemed like many of the talents have been poorly used, i.e. Samoa Joe, Jay Lethal, Christopher Daniels, etc. I enjoyed the 1/4/10 three hour edition of Impact! and had high hopes.

First of all, I did not watch the recent Genesis PPV, so I really can’t comment on the quality of those matches. However, judging by the 1/21/10 edition of Impact!, I may have been far too quick to praise the Hogan/Bischoff regime.

The matches were completely lackluster and whoever had the bright idea to re-enact the “Montreal Screwjob” with Kurt Angle and AJ Styles should probably be fired. The Nasty Boyz were the world’s most boring tag team 10 years ago, and nothing has changed judging from their snooze-fest of a match w/ Kevin Nash and Eric Young. Orlando Jordan was a no-talent hack back when he was in WWE, and putting him over the extremely talented D’Angelo Dinero (especially after the stellar series of matches Dinero has had with Desmond Wolfe of late) is beyond ludicrous.

TNA thrives on having the best young talent in the business, and nobody wants to see these Hogan cronies/has-beens make them look bad with these boring matches. Let’s face it, in a wrestling match you’re only as good as the other person makes you look. Where were Samoa Joe, Daniels, Amazing Red, The Motor City Machine Guns, Desmond Wolfe, Beer Money, Homicide, Suicide, etc?

Also, where the hell is the six-sided ring? The six sides were great for the young high-flyers, adding extra maneuverability, and I have a bad feeling that getting rid of it is an attempt to cater to these geezers and hacks that seem to be riding in on Hogan’s coattails. If this is the case, I’ve got two words for them…

I am pleased however, to see TNA bring Ric Flair and Ken Anderson (formerly the WWE’s Mr. Kennedy), although I would rather have seen Kennedy in an actual match. Anderson wasn’t given a fair shake in WWE in my opinion, but then again it seems like Vince McMahon typically doesn’t know what to do with anyone who has a shred of talent of charisma these days.  But that should be made blatantly obvious by the fact that McMahon thinks it’s a good idea to hire and push charisma black holes like Drew McIntyre.  Ric Flair’s alliance with AJ Styles could be interesting, but I am surprised to see Styles being turned heel. I hope a little bit of Ric Flair’s charisma will rub off on Styles, because lets face it, as exceptionally talented in the ring as he may be, he usually comes off like Opie Taylor when he tries to cut a promo.

Wrestling fans, we need to be patient. It is going to take time for the new TNA to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Right now there are an awful lot of cooks in the kitchen and many enormous egos in the mix to boot. You have to admit, anything is better than the rated-PG, repetitive crap WWE is peddling week to week at the moment.  In my previous rant I stated that WWE should not underestimate TNA, as they currently seem to be.  However, if this week’s edition of Impact! is indicative of the new direction TNA is taking, Vince doesn’t have much to sweat about.

TNA is in a state of flux right now, and all we can do is play a game of wait and see.  It will either turn into something great, or a complete trainwreck, but either way, I’ll be watching.

Oh and one more thing… where the hell is Shark Boy?!!?!!!

Anyway, the title of the new Burzum album has changed from Den Hvite Guden (The White God) to Belus (another name for the norse god Baldr) and should be seeing the light of day on March 8th, 2010.

You can read all the details at the official Burzum website.

Crack the Skye was hands down my overall Album of the Year.  Of all the new music I was inundated with (and believe me, there was a ton of it), this was the album I returned to again and again.  I’ve been following this band since their first ep (Lifesblood) and I’ve enjoyed every step of their evolution from monstrous sludge purveyors, to mammoth-bearded prog-lords.  Looking forward to hearing their Jonah Hex soundtrack in 2010, hopefully the accompanying movie does not suck.

This year, I was feeling pretty basic when it came to music.  Hence, the inclusion of the likes of Megadeth, Slayer, Amorphis, Kreator and Slough Feg on this list.  With the notable exceptions of SunnO))) (and Gnaw Their Tongues, who doesn’t appear on this list), I wasn’t much interested in anything terribly noisy, pretentious, avant-garde or experimental.  Slough Feg brought the the Thin Lizzy-style swaggering bad-ass fun to metal in 2009 with just a dash of doom and folk, while Megadeth and Slayer each put out their strongest albums in years.  Kreator showed thrash veterans and toddlers alike how they do things in Germany, and Amorphis struck a catchier-than-herpes balance between power metal and melodic death metal.  Rammstein, whom I’ve already blogged about extensively HERE, HERE and HERE, also released a great album in Liebe ist Fur Alle Da, their best since the classic Mutter.  Oh, and about that SunnO))) album, Monoliths & Dimensions is the duo’s most varied, dynamic and layered album to date, featuring a stellar list of collaborators ranging from Attila Csihar to Eyvind Kang.

I really, reeeeally didn’t want to like Alice in Chains without Layne Staley.  However, Jerry Cantrell and the surviving members of AIC surprised the hell out of me with Black Gives Way to Blue. The vocals throughout the album recall Staley without being a carbon copy, as if the man’s specter is still informing the band’s performance from beyond the grave.  Of course, Cantrell was and is the band’s driving force, and his sludgy guitar riffing remains AIC’s calling card.  Maybe not as amazing as Dirt, but a more than worthy addition to the canon nonetheless.

Now in spite of feeling basic, psychedelic and progressive I could still get behind, and this appetite was more than sated by Mastodon’s absolutely stellar Crack The Skye, Between the Buried and Me’s The Great Misdirect and Isis’s Wavering Radiant. I was especially pleased to see Isis come back with a stellar new album, since 2006’s In the Absence of Truth did absolutely nothing for me.  BTBAM get better and more interesting with every album they release and I’m glad to see them going further out there in terms of progression and technicality.  As mentioned above, Mastodon’s 4th album was my favorite release of the year and there is no reason why they shouldn’t be ruling the world with their utterly compelling and highly conceptual take on progressive metal. Finally getting to see them live this year was simply icing on the cake.

So there you have it folks.  Nothing particularly obscure, no bands you haven’t already heard.  Just stellar material from established bands that have long been staples of my rotation.  And in 2009 there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with that.

So, for the first time in what seems like about a billion years, two pro wrestling companies went head-to-head with live programming on a Monday night.  Indeed, for the long-time wrestling fans out there, visions of the storied “Monday Night Wars” era of WWF vs WCW were conjured once again.  TNA, the young upstart company, was touting their newly forged alliance with Hulk Hogan, while the WWE brought the return of Bret “The Hitman” Hart after a 12 year absence from the company.

My first instinct was to be more excited about seeing Bret Hart.  After all, he hasn’t been on any sort of wrestling television in close to a decade, whereas Hulk Hogan never really went away for more than a few years at a time.  My initial strategy for viewing this night of programming was to watch Raw in it’s entirety and then watch TNA the next day.  When I first discovered TNA a few years ago I thought it was fantastic, but in the last few months I felt the company’s programming had gone stagnant, favoring a lot of pointless talking and lame plot over quality wrestling.  The company had a great mix of both new and veteran talents and it was bumming me out to see said talent wasted and/or watered down.  The company seemed directionless.  Meanwhile, WWE seemed to be coming out of a slump although some of their hiring/push choices still continue to boggle my mind.  They have a lot talent I can take or leave, but as long as The Undertaker, Triple H and Shawn Michaels are still around, I will watch.

Of course, like all the best laid plans, my strategy for watching wrestling went awry.  TNA started an hour before WWE, and they suckered me in with tons of surprises, namely Ric Flair, Jeff Hardy and Scott Hall, and to a much lesser extent The Nasty Boyz and Val Venis (I could really live without Sean Waltman, aka X-Pac and Orlando Jordan).  It was pretty cool to see the original NWO in the ring together.  Not only that, but the matches were pretty stellar, from the women’s tag team match to Desmond Wolfe (the future of professional wrestling) vs D’Angelo Dinero to the absolutely stellar main event of Kurt Angle (easily my favorite active wrestler) vs AJ Styles.  It really felt like TNA was pulling out all the stops and working toward presenting a better product.

WWE on the other hand, felt like the same old thing WWE always does + Bret Hart.  Of course it could be argued that WWE doesn’t have any thing to prove and furthermore doesn’t really need to worry about TNA at this point.  But Raw just didn’t have the electricity and sense of excitement that Impact possessed.  Where the hell was John Cena?!  I fail to understand how WWE could have allowed their biggest star to take the night off when they knew TNA was going to be nipping at their heels all night long.  WWE might not have anything to prove, but I think it is incredibly foolish of them to underestimate TNA.

Hopefully, this will lead to some healthy competition in the pro wrestling industry and eventually to both companies stepping up their game to give fans the best product possible from the matches themselves down to the promos and vignettes ala the original “Monday Night Wars era”.

And while you’re at it, bring back La Parka dammit!!!

http://www.tnawrestling.com

http://www.wwe.com

And so I didn’t listen to them for about 3 years, unless you count hearing “Du Hast” at a place called EJ’s Legacy (which we won’t go into).  In 2004 I randomly picked up the band’s fourth album Reise, Reise (at Target of all places) in an effort to sort of “test the waters” as it were. To my pleasant surprise, I found I was able to once again enjoy Rammstein’s music, either because I had finally grown up and stopped being so dreadfully emo, or because this was a new batch of songs that didn’t trigger the same reaction that their older material might have.  I’d like to think it was due to the former, but now being 6 years removed it’s hard to say for sure where my head was really at.

Unfortunately, my interest in Rammstein again went dormant with the release of 2005’s disappointing Rosenrot.  Rosenrot felt and sounded like the band was “phoning it in”, with only a few memorable tracks (“Benzin”, “Mann Gegen Mann”)  scattered throughout.  So, the second rekindling of the teutonic flame was rather short-lived, although I did revisit Reise, Reise from time to time.  Obviously, there hadn’t been enough sparks on the second date to make me consider re-purchasing Rammstein’s back catalogue and make them a staple of my playlist once again… but as it turned out, this wouldn’t be the last time the band would pique my interest.

In 2006, I was interning for college credit at Metal Blade Records.  Towards the end my six months in sunny California, I was only working a few days a week, which lead to me generally being a bum and keeping atrocious vampire like habits, staying up all night and sleeping a good chunk of the day away.  One of my favorite ways to waste time during those near delirious days spent inhabiting the wee hours was scouring YouTube for videos and honestly, who makes better videos than Rammstein?

But again, as enjoyable as the Rammstein video marathon at 4am was, it still didn’t get me fully back into the band.  Of course, that could be due to the fact that I was dirt poor by the end of my internship and barely had money to buy the Ramen that had become the staple of my diet, let alone go out and buy a bunch of records.  Again, my interest in the band went dormant for a few years.

Enter the waning months of 2009, the year of the ox.  Rammstein releases Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da, and once again I’m curious about what the band is up to.  I watched the controversial video for first single “Pussy”, read about the bizarre “deluxe edition” of the album which retails for $250.00 and includes handcuffs, lube and six neon-pink dildos modeled after the band members’ members.  But being that I have little or no interest in sex toys and porn doesn’t really shock me at this point, I knew I’d just have to take the proverbial plunge and buy the album to see whether or not my fling with Rammstein could once again pick up where it left off.

I decided to go all-out and pick the 2 disc special edition of the album, and was once again pleasantly surprised to discover that Liebe… is easily the band’s finest work since the awesome Mutter. Though the band might unfortunately be getting more attention for the risque music video and delightfully infectious X-rated pop rock of “Pussy”, Liebe… is easily the heaviest and most well-written album the band has put out in years.  From the opening salvo of “Rammleid” to the closing ballad “Roter Sand”, Rammstein manage to strike an excellent balance between their experimental tendencies and the sheer industrialized heaviness that they built their career on.  Easily one of my favorite albums of the year, nipping at the heals of Mastodon’s excellent Crack the Skye for the overall top spot.

Furthermore, this was the album that made me want to revisit their back catalogue, so how fortuitous it was that Santa Claus was kind enough to bring me Sehnsucht, Mutter and the Volkerball DVD.  As you can see, it’s been rather complicated between Rammstein and I.  About the only thing left to do in order to consummate the relationship at this point is to finally see the German sextet burn it up live… hopefully it will happen some day.

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 Shagrath, 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

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)

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.

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).

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

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.

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.