I don’t get the “female fronted occult rock” trend that has come out of the metal underground in the past few years. To these ears, there’s nothing even remotely evil, let alone “occult” about ripping off Jefferson Airplane, Fleetwood Mac and Heart. Okay, this is the part where someone brings up Coven and I roll my eyes. I’m not saying the music is particularly bad, it just isn’t my thing, and it definitely isn’t Satanic. I mean, isn’t it really just revisiting the hippie-dippy horseshit that early heavy metal set out to stomp to bits at the end of the ’60′s, only with a quasi-diabolic lyrical bent?
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Tag Archives: rock
Heavy Metal Hangover: THKD’s Top 10 Drinking Songs
Heavy metal and alcohol go together like… well, like heavy metal and alcohol. Once a metalhead starts to imbibe, if he’s anything like me, there are at least a handful of songs he will no doubt demand to hear, songs that add to the invincible feeling that only a little bit of the ol’ liquid courage can provide, complete with copious amounts of goat throwing, air guitaring, invisible orange palming, headbanging and living room moshing. It’s a testament to the emotional and physical response that heavy metal can inspire, amplified a thousand fold by mankind’s age-old friends hops and barley (or perhaps something harder, if you’re so inclined).
So pour yourself a pint of your favorite poison and settle in for THKD’s top ten songs for tying one on. While these songs don’t necessarily have anything to do with drinking, they’re the songs I want to hear when I’m drinking.
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Midnight – Satanic Royalty (Hells Headbangers, 2011)
The death of rock ‘n’ roll has been greatly exaggerated. In the mainstream sure, rock ‘n’ roll is as cold and lifeless as Kurt Cobain’s corpse (yeah, yeah, I know he was cremated, whatthefuckever), repeatedly shot in the face by the malformed and talentless post-grunge spawn of crumbling major labels. But in the underground, it’s a different story. Rock music is alive and well in seemingly endless permutations, from stoner to goth to death n’ roll, as raw and dangerous as ever.
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Corrosion of Conformity – s/t (Candlelight, 2012)
I first discovered Corrosion of Conformity during the mid-’90s Pepper Keenan (guitar/vocals) era; by then, they had fully traded in the crossover thrash of 1985′s Animosity album in favor of the swaggering, metallic southern rock of Deliverance and Wiseblood. That’s the COC I had come to know and love over the years, so I was admittedly apprehensive upon hearing that the band had reconvened without Keenan at the helm to record their first new material since 2005′s underrated In the Arms of God. Would they abandon the smoked-out stoner-isms that had made COC so near and dear to my heart in favor of revisiting the crossover days of yore? Would Keenan’s absense leave an unfillable hole in their sound?
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Leviathan – True Traitor, True Whore (Profound Lore, 2011)
Utterly embarrassed as I am to admit it, I’m no stranger to bouts of misogyny. Prior to meeting my phenomenal wife, my romantic dealings with the opposite sex were, to put it mildly, less than stellar (I’m sure this surprises no one). From my first “real” girlfriend breaking my heart over a decade ago, to the woman I let repeatedly grind my soul to dust my senior year of college, to countless instances of rejection and other assorted shittiness that would take ages to properly recount, I had been left with a bad taste in my mouth and a fuckload of bitterness before a raven-haired goddess rescued me from the rut I was in. As a result, I treated the few women that dared to try to get close to me like complete shit (this was totally undeserved and my petty way of getting back at the fairer sex as a whole, I reckon) and was generally distrustful and disrespectful towards any woman who wasn’t a blood relative or counted among my inner circle.
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I fucking love Motörhead and so should you.
I’m pretty sure I first heard Motörhead via Headbanger’s Ball, around the time of the March or Die and Bastards albums. I distinctly remember the video for “Hellraiser” from March or Die making quite an impression on me; Lemmy Kilmister had to be pretty badass to be playing cards with Pinhead. I already loved horror movies when I started getting into heavy metal in the early nineties, so making a connection between my two obsessions made perfect sense, even if Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth didn’t exactly turn out to be cinematic gold. Also, being already familiar with Ozzy Osbourne’s version of “Hellraiser,” I thought Lemmy must be doubly badass if The Prince of F’n Darkness is stealing his tunes. The Bastards album spawned “Burner,” which is a great song and had a pretty cool accompanying clip in spite of it being a glorified performance video, as well as ”Born to Raise Hell,” which appeared on the soundtrack to Airheads, a horrifically dumb movie (which I absolutely love) about a metal band holding a radio station hostage.
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Behold! The Monolith – Defender, Redeemist (self-released, 2012)
I’ve always been fascinated by power trios. It surely has something to do with my love of all things raw and stripped down, since it doesn’t get any more stripped down than tres hombres against the world, brandishing only electric instruments and bad attitudes. The power trio is the bare minimum of musicians needed to produce a full and complete sound within a rock or metal format (although I’m sure there are plenty of duos who would beg to differ… eh, fuck ‘em); it’s all about maximizing the minimal, and I’ve often found that power trios are inherently heavier and more powerful-sounding than these bands that feel the need to have three guitarists, two vocalists, four drummers, a percussionist, a keyboardist, a DJ, an acrobat, a lion tamer, etc… just listen to Motorhead, Venom, High on Fire or Hellhammer and you’ll catch my drift.
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Black Pyramid – II (Meteor City, 2012)
The world needs real rock ‘n’ roll more than ever. Have you listened to the radio lately? Go on then, have a listen to some of the limp-wristed, candy-assed, sub-Nickelback horseshit that passes for mainstream rock music lately and you’ll hear what I’m talking about, a bunch of preening jackasses who look like they stepped out of the pages of the Abercrombie & Fuckface catalogue, playing songs about having sex with sluts, drinking, doing drugs and having sex with more sluts. And I don’t mean that in a filthy/sleazy/awesome Venom or Motorhead way either. I mean it in a soulless, sac-less, nauseating, pristinely produced and utterly contrived faux-grunge frat-rock way, replete with vocals that sound like a cross between Eddie Vedder and a goat with a cob up its ass. Yes folks, we need real rock ‘n’ roll more than ever.
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THKD’S NUCLEAR NEW YEAR’S EVIL GIVEAWAY!
Thanks to you, the loyal readers, 2011 was the best year ever for That’s How Kids Die. I can’t believe the great response the blog has gotten over the course of the last year, and I’m honored that so many of you are willing to take time out of your days and nights to read my incoherent ramblings on all things heavy metal.
So, in the spirit of giving something back to you, the readers, and to kick off another year of THKD with a bang, I am proud to announce our first ever giveaway!
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Racebannon – Six Sik Sisters (Tizona Records, 2012)
The music of Bloomington, Indiana’s Racebannon falls somewhere between the demented sludge metal of the Melvins and the lurching, discordant pig-fuck of the Jesus Lizard, as if those two bands got together to do a fuckload of coke and orchestrate the ultimate noise rock jam session, but ended up getting slaughtered in a standoff with DEA agents while their rehearsal space burned to the ground. Their latest album, Six Sik Sisters, is a truly unsettling listen, a chronicle of monumental musical depravity that sounds like it could come unglued at any given moment.
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