Limited Edition Knock Off

To continue the commentary on the artwork for Demonoir: 1349 announced a limited edition version of the album - available both on CD and as picture disc vinyl - with different artwork, displayed below:

Now, I'll not be the one to bash the use of a skull in art, particularly one that seems to rely on the always-excellent elements of blood and fire to keep its shattered form. However, I get a feeling that the artist might have drawn inspiration from the cover of a well-known member of metal's catalog:

It's not quite a rip off, but it's not exactly original, either.

Zazas Zazas NaSatanada Zazas!

The magnificent missive displayed below is a scan of a flyer handed out by a few brave souls (apparently on behalf of someone named G/) at last night's Kreator show in NYC. When you read it (click on it to load a larger version for easier reading), be sure to look for these highlights:

• The use of inconsistent title case throughout the flyer. It's almost like the writer wanted to drive home a point, but worried about going too overboard with capitalization. I can almost see him sitting at his computer, corpse paint melting off his face as he labors over his call to arms, thinking to himself, 'No, don't capitalize every word; you don't want them to think you're a crazy person.'
  
  
• Using "ov" instead of "of" to demonstrate the band's uber-kvltness.
  
  
• The band's influences: we've got some death metal (Morbid Angel, Entombed, Dismember), some black metal (Beherit), some of both (Dissection, Bathory)...and Iron Maiden. Oh, and the touches of doom. Can't forget those. Since we know the band has "a Full-Lengths Worth ov Material Written," I can only imagine they're planning on releasing an album that sounds like a terrifying cross between In Flames, Behemoth, and My Dying Bride.
  
  
• The Lovecraft-style allusions to ancient evils and nameless horrors and the use of fake foreign languages. The hand-written text at the end is particularly awesome. Is it for special emphasis? Did the writer forget to write it before printing and decide not to reprint because he was too cheap? Why is there a dot in the middle of the upside down star?
  
  
• The exclamation points. You can never have too many exclamation points when you're trying to move people.
  
  
• The email address. When you're forming a band, always remember: AOL is by far the most metal free email service. I also like the use of the phrase, "Interested Parties May Contact," which sounds like a crib from a Victorian horror novel.

Enjoy:

(More) Songs for Your Gaming Soundtrack

I am a huge nerd. Not just a music nerd, either: I'm your garden variety, interested in geeky-pursuits-of-all-stripes-of-all-types nerd, but with social graces and a healthy grasp on proper hygiene. As a result, I can definitely appreciate a list like this one; I've made use of songs on this list or songs like them as background for a few gaming events (both tabletop and computerized) myself. A few additions:

• Dio - "Rainbow in the Dark." Not a fantasy-focused track specifically, but if you're preparing for a battle, being told you're strong enough to stand alone in hopeless places and not fall - not mention defy physics and make rainbows appear in areas entirely without light - is pretty inspiring.
• Queen - "Princes of the Universe." I'm cheating a little bit, because Queen isn't metal, but they're definitely BBB approved. Same general idea as "Rainbow in the Dark," but with a group additive: we're all tremendous badasses who can take down anything. Plus it's from the soundtrack of a movie where immortals settle their differences with sword fights, Sean Connery plays a Spaniard with a Scottish accent, and the bad guy wears a helmet made out of a lizard skull. Not including it on a list like this would be a crime against music.
• Metallica - "All Nightmare Long." Metallica's written a few songs about the madness of the Elder Gods, but the imagery in this one is particularly visceral, making it a nice choice for any time you're facing anything particularly horrifying. Plus I've already demonstrated how it's part of a good gaming sound track.
  

As the Palaces Burned: Anthrax - Sound of White Noise

On September 24, 1991 Nirvana released Nevermind. Nine years later, a reunited Iron Maiden played Madison Square Garden. The time in between was one of metal's bleaker periods, where the genre's mainstream face all but disappeared and it retreated not just underground, but underwater. To celebrate the rare gems of this dark time - and remember our fortune now that metal has ceased to be such a dirty word - we present As the Palaces Burned, a weekly series published every Wednesday that covers notable metal albums released between 1991 and 2000.

Today's entry is Anthrax's 1993 album Sound of White Noise.

John Bush's Anthrax was the best version of Anthrax. Period. His voice, attitude and vocal style mesh perfectly with the band overall. If you need to hear the old Belladonna songs pick up The Greater of Two Evils, the album where the Bush-era lineup does new versions of Belladonna songs.

This is the first album released by the lineup, and one of their best albums overall. To let you know just how good this record was, when I saw them on this tour at Roseland, Quicksand and White Zombie opened. How is that for a bill?

Sound of White Noise is a record which retained all of its Metal roots and spirit while embracing more "Alternative" elements and dipping further into Hardcore than they had since the early 80s. And on top of all of this the record is super catchy and has some amazing hooks and vocal harmonies.

Kicking off with some great proto-blast beats, the first song "Potter's Field" gives a good indication of the melodic riffing, grainy overdriven vocals and very heavy drumming all blending into a very pleasing midrange which mixer Dave Jerden treats us to over the course of the record.

Afterwards things kick into high gear with "Only," which was not only a huge hit at the time, but probably the best song Anthrax has ever written. What a monster of a singable riff. Droning chords have never had such forward momentum before! That song is about as perfect as you can get without standing out to much on the record as a "single" amongst filler tracks. In fact almost every song is presented as a possible single. I'm always surprised "Invisible" was neither released as a single nor a huge breakout hit.

And no Anthrax album would be complete without a big nerd-out moment. On Sound of White Noise this is delivered to the listener in the form of "Black Lodge," a song about the TV show Twin Peaks co-written with the man who composed the music for that show, Angelo Badalamenti.

This album is certainly not as obscure as other "As the Palaces Burned" entries but there are still a lot of people who never followed this era of Anthrax. They never made a bad record. Stomp 442 and Vol. 8 both have amazing songs and We've Come For You All, released far too late to be included in this column is a masterpiece which I listen to at least once a month. Just fire up "What Doesn't Die" in YouTube. You'll see what's up.

So let's have a listen.......

Only:



Invisible:



Black Lodge:



1000 Points of Hate:



Potter's Field:

Demonoir Cover Art: Cool or Cheesy?

Above is the artwork for 1349's upcoming release, Demonoir. The album has already generated some discussion 'round these parts for its promised return to the band's more traditional black metal sound and it seems the artwork is in keeping with the concept: not only - as Seth pointed out in an email to me - does the title font have a lot in common with the font used by Bathory, but the art has some substantial feel to it the way Hellfire did and Revelation of the Black Flame did not. However, though I think the Lovecraftian horror in the backgorund is pretty cool, there's something that bothers me about the whole presentation. Part of it is the eyes in the darkness, which seems just a little too cheesy evil; part of it might be the blocks surrounding the letters in the title font, which - either at first blush, or maybe because of the pixelation of the image - look like those Celtic-style fonts from a free font catalog that are meant to imitate illuminated manuscripts. I guess if they're trying to play up their old-school kvlt cred, using all of the cheesy old school artwork tricks emphasizes the point...

What do you all think?

Via Blabbermouth

I Believe You Have My Stapler

Thanks to Seth for this one: LiveMetallica.com has, for reasons unknown and for time unspecified, put up a selection of shows from 1982 to 2003 for free download. I took a look, hoping to find the 2003 stop in Gillette Stadium of fond memory, but no dice. I did, however, find that the 1992 show at Giants Stadium is the supposed contribution of this man:

Probably no more skeevy than anyone else you'd see running around northern New Jersey, to be honest. Here's the complete list of available shows:

10/18/1982 - Old Waldorf, San Francisco, CA
12/18/1983 - Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH
12/20/1984 - Lyceum, London, UK
3/15/1985 - Kabuki Theater, San Francisco, CA
8/17/1985 - Donington Park, Donington, UK
5/24/1986 - Arena Building, Cape Girardeau, MO
7/29/1986 - UTC Arena, Chattanooga, TN
8/1/1986 - Civic Center, Charleston, WV
9/21/1986 - Hammersmith Odeon, London, UK
2/13/1987 - Frolundaborg, Gothenburg, SWE
2/3/1989 - Erwin Events Center, Austin, TX
7/18/1992 - Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
6/17/1994 - County Fairgrounds, Middletown, NY
8/23/1995 - London Astoria II, London, UK
10/6/1996 - NEC, Birmingham, UK
12/21/1996 - Great Western Forum, Los Angeles, CA
7/8/1998 - Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, OH
7/19/1998 - Great Woods Center, Mansfield, MA
5/21/1999 - Frankenstadion, Nurnberg, GER
7/13/2003 - Citrus Bowl, Orlando, FL

And Justice for Jason: Blackened

What if Metallica's first experiment in terrible production - dropping the bass from ...And Justice for All - had never happened? Because we live in the age of the Internet, when all things are possible, a fan who goes by the handle of ProjectMetallica decided to find out, and And Justice for Jason was born. ProjectMetallica's channel page has bass-restored versions of "Blackened," "...And Justice for All," "Eye of the Beholder," and "One," but they're not the only one: other fans have taken cracks at adding the bass back in to pretty much every track on the album. Check out the ProjectMetallica version of "Blackened" below; it's pretty wild to hear what Jason was adding to the songs after years of auditory blindness.

Snowbound Surprise: Zombie Apocalypse

Mid-blizzard NYC has about 1/5th the normal amount of traffic today and my office is like a ghost town. Naturally, I think of a zombie apocalypse, and when I think of zombie apocalypse, I think of Gama Bomb and their thrashtastic take on the topic, "Zombie Blood Nightmare." Please to enjoy:

As the Palaces Burned: King Diamond - House of God

On September 24, 1991 Nirvana released Nevermind. Nine years later, a reunited Iron Maiden played Madison Square Garden. The time in between was one of metal's bleaker periods, where the genre's mainstream face all but disappeared and it retreated not just underground, but underwater. To celebrate the rare gems of this dark time - and remember our fortune now that metal has ceased to be such a dirty word - we present As the Palaces Burned, a weekly series published every Wednesday that covers notable metal albums released between 1991 and 2000.

Today's entry is King Diamond's 2000 album House of God.

It should be pretty obvious by now that I love talking Metal. A lot. All the time. And if you have a table full of seasoned Metal-heads drinking beers and eating BBQ before a show you are guaranteed a lot of lively debates. A common one is King Diamond solo versus Mercyful Fate. Another is which King Diamond album is better, Abigail or Them. For the first question my answer is always King Diamond, by a mile. There is one exception, and it will be a future As the Palaces Burned entry. However for the second conversation, most recently sparked in my presence this past Sunday, I usually remain quiet. It is easiest because my answer is neither popular nor expected. While I enjoy all stages of King Diamond's career my favorite is the work he did for Metal Blade, starting with The Spider's Lullabye in 1995. I am going to eventually cover all four albums he recorded during this period, but will start with the album that got me to revisit this era, House of God.

The first thing you have to understand about Metal Blade era King Diamond is that he and Andy LaRocque changed their sound. The technical and sometimes jerky song structures of their earlier work was replaced with a heavier and more direct approach. Personally I think asking anyone to sit through a full length horror themed fictional concept record with a singer who uses multiple characters and voices is already asking a lot. Streamlining the riffs and concentrating on song structures has been a great asset.

The other awesome thing you hear during this iteration of the band are the awesome sound textures that pepper the record. The standout example for me on this album is the track "Goodbye." It is a nice two minute guitar harmony and synth texture which propels the story along without overstaying its welcome.

So....the concept behind House of God. Fun silly little story about Jesus being kept alive in a French Chateau where he has children and legacy and some traveler who is seduced by a she wolf learns that God and Satan are pawns in a larger game. This story has been covered by everyone from the comic book "Preacher" to "the Da Vinci Code." King's twist? Glen Drover from Megadeth playing guitar opposite Andy LaRocque. That beats Dan Brown's shitty writing any day.

Anyone who enjoyed the early King Diamond material and started listening again for his last two albums The Puppet Master and Give me your Soul...Please should check out this masterpiece. And now that all four of these albums are nicely remastered by Andy LaRocque there is not better time like the present.

House of God:




The Trees Have Eyes:



Black Devil:



Piece of Mind:



Goodbye:

More Metal Like The Indie Kids Call Metal

Although this item is a little more in line with BBB's purpose than this morning's missive: it's a motherfucking bleeding glacier. Ok, so it's not bleeding so much as it slowly spewing a mass of rusty water that happens to protect a colony of bacteria living under (or is it trapped under?) ice for the last 2 million years, but semantics are for the feeble minded; I know a bleeding glacier when I see one. Take a look at the picture below and tell me you don't see a cover for a Mastodon album:


Via Good.is.

It's Not Baroque, It's Not Bleak, It's Not Brutal...

..but goddamn is it epically bad. Even though it's not metal in the slightest I'm putting it up here because a.) it's so bad - right from the very first wavery notes - it's funny and b.) it's a great demonstration of the nefarious powers of the Internets: stuff that should have never seen the light of day - stuff these guys will no doubt deplore in ten years when (if) they become better song writers and musicians - is now out there for all of us to see. Enjoy; I'm going to go scour my ears with something unwholesome but in tune.

"Shine" by Final Placement from sharity world on Vimeo.

For Those of You Pissed About the New Arsis Sound...

...maybe give Sons of Aurelius a try. They're a little more traditionally proggy than Arsis got - or at least than they got on We Are The Nightmare - but most of what I've heard thus far pretty much fits the Arsis bill. You could probably call them a more technical Between The Buried And Me and not lose any brownie points.

It might be artwork week here at BBB: I came across these guys because Metal Sucks did a post applauding the artwork for their as-yet-unreleased new album, The Farthest Reaches (and throwing in some props for the art on their first release, Myocardial Infarction, shown on the left below; the cover of The Farthest Reaches is on the right). It's not quite Howl awesome, but after hearing their music, I think I might be more likely to dig on what Sons of Aurelius is doing.

Howling With Disappointment

Above is the album cover from an upcoming release by a band called Howl that I came across on Friday on Metal Sucks. It is an awesome album cover: there's a hooded skull, it's on fire with some sweet stylized flames, there are hordes of floating eyeballs, and that geared circle supporting the band's logo ties the whole thing together really well.

This link goes to a post written by Reign in Blonde's Julia reviewing Howl open for Skeletonwitch (who know a thing or two about sweet album covers). It reads like Howl is a pretty sweet-sounding band - a bit of post-hardcore, a bit of prog, a bit of thrash, a bit of doom - so I checked out their MySpace page and, well...the stuff from the new album isn't up yet, but I hope it's more interesting than the stuff from their last release. Maybe they're a better band live, but right now Full of Hell is shaping up to be a waste of some sweet art.

Metal in Marketing

Your periodic reminder about just how metal Finns really are: recently, I was reviewing a product brief for my day job from a Finnish company that has absolutely nothing to do with metal. On certain pages, when they didn't have a diagram that fit the context, the company would include stock photos - presumably to reinforce the company's image as hip and energetic. One of these photos - the one to the left - definitely looks like a woman head banging. And that's not just energetic: that's frickin' awesome.

Sunday Surprise: 3 Inches of Blood - Execution Tank

The melting snow and Paradise-like 40 degree temperatures in NYC means it's time to start running again. For musical motivation, I made the inspired decision of choosing 3 Inches of Blood's most recent title, Here Waits Thy Doom. When you're dragging your tired ass up a hill, there's nothing quite like songs about climbing ice walls, fending off plague zombies, or driving a huge-ass killing machine to get you going.

Monotheist

I think Monotheist might be the heaviest album ever recorded. I don't mean the loudest, fastest or hardest. There are darker and more br00tal bands.

But this record melts every speaker system I have, down to my $40 ipod dock. If you can make my iPod dock sound this heavy, you have done your job right.

Anyone know any stories of how this album was recorded? I want to learn from these people. I also think the drums are real (not replaced).

In the Name of Satan We Are Forced to Rock

I'm finally getting around to checking out the new Arsis. I'm not sure yet if they've undergone some sort of Motley Crue-esque awakening in the past two years, but the title of the first track is "Forced to Rock"...and it sounds just like what you'd expect: a more technically-proficient Grim Reaper. It's definitely a genre-bending moment and I'm curious to see if it's a one-off experiment or something they experiment with successfully through the whole album.

Edit: there's a video. A video in which Arsis is channeling their inner Van Halen. I can't help but be struck with admiration:

Finntroll Wants to Know Their Audiences...Biblically

Not surprisingly, not everyone thought the idea of a black metal band participating in a song contest was the best of expression of tr00 kvltness. The keyboardist from Finntroll, for example, was a little peeved by the idea - or the suggestion that his band would ever participate in anything similar - and decided to speak his mind. I'm not taking any sides in this conflict, but I thought the metaphor he used was...interesting, to say the least:

Black metal = no compromise. If Keep of Kalessin wants to penetrate some unexplored areas in the homosexual community, I feel no harm done, yet we leave our crowd raped by other means than participating in vain and futile contests on something we consider a blasphemy of an art anyway.

I'll be seeing Finntroll when they come to NYC in early April, so I guess I'll see just how explicit this nightly raping really is.

As the Palaces Burned: Black Sabbath - Cross Purposes

On September 24, 1991 Nirvana released Nevermind. Nine years later, a reunited Iron Maiden played Madison Square Garden. The time in between was one of metal's bleaker periods, where the genre's mainstream face all but disappeared and it retreated not just underground, but underwater. To celebrate the rare gems of this dark time - and remember our fortune now that metal has ceased to be such a dirty word - we present As the Palaces Burned, a weekly series published every Wednesday that covers notable metal albums released between 1991 and 2000.

Today's entry is Black Sabbath's 1994 album Cross Purposes.

One of my pet causes when discussing music with like-minded Metal heads is raising awareness of how awesome much of the Tony Martin era of Black Sabbath really was. This album was released in 1994 right after Dehumanizer, the reunion record with Dio. You can hear a lot of that sound on this album. And although he can sometimes sound a bit too much like Dio, Tony Martin is an amazing singer with just enough soul in his voice to make it work.

Iommi is the riff king no matter what lineup he is playing with, and this album is no exception. "Virtual Death" opens with a classic Geezer dirge on the bass which is the perfect appetizer for a delicious meal of slow murky Iommi riffing. Bobby Rondinelli who was also in Rainbow provides the simple but extremely powerful drumming we've all come to expect from this version of Sabbath. He doesn't stray very far from the template written by Vinnie Appice and Cozy Powell, which is fine.

This is extremely solid Black Sabbath with a couple of unexpected members. After you get hooked on this album go back and listen to the Headless Cross. That album is the jam, and the absolute pinnacle of Tony Martin's vocal powers.

Virtual Death



Evil Eye (co-written with Eddie Van Halen)



Cross of Thorns

Even Black Metal Bands Like the Limelight

Seth may have had a hard on for Revelations of the Black Flame - and I'll admit I find the album intriguing enough to give it an occasional spin - but if the band's announcement about the direction of their next album (coming in April) is any indication, either they felt a backlash they didn't enjoy, Revelations... really was (as rumored) a wank effort thrown together around three songs, or they've said all they want to say right now with soundscapes: "The new CD, which promises 'a return to the band's more traditional, raw-yet-technical black metal sound,' is due on April 13."

A straight return to Hellfire would be boring, of course, but I wouldn't mind hearing the band finding a happy medium between Hellfire's brutality and Revelations...'s chaos to explore in their next release. Of course, if they're reverting to form, they could just be trying to get more than five people to show up to their next headlining show. We'll see: if the next album is more of the same, I vote they call it No One Likes Toiling in Obscurity.