The winner of the Opeth signer guitar pick is Alex Rochon and the winner of the All That Remains Overcome CD is Giles.

I’ll send them out this week.

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A friend (Martin) and I went to a local show last night here in North Carolina to check out the band Seneca that recently got signed to Lifeforce Records. It was at a very small venue but due to it being a Sunday and Thanksgiving weekend it was very dead. Maybe 30 people in the place and that included members of the 5 bands that were playing. Oh yeah, There was three karate moshers. Well two karate moshers and one dude that had three moves, one of which I swear looked like a silly, non-perfected ballet move. And what the hell is up with people wearing hoods inside? Anyway the bands were good (talent wise) but very little set them all apart from each other.

The first band up was The Lineage who were ok, but nothing I’ve never heard before. The heavy, crunchy deathcore. The same goes for the next band, Joe Grizzley. The singer of Joe Grizzley sang a little less of the deathcore/death metal style and opted for a more hardcore sound at times. The bass player’s voice actually sounded better to me. The third band up was a younger bunch called The Harbingers Way. Now these guys sounded slightly different in that they had a little bit more of a melody to them. Seneca was hard and heavy and Wretched had some really good guitar playing, but none of these bands really set themselves apart from each other.

The plague I’m talking about is nothing new and hasn’t already been talked about a million times over. I’m just starting to see the trend more and more. This deathcore/metalcore trend is so redundant in that a new band pops up with every other breath you take. It’s like kids cruising on myspace and hearing a band and saying “We can do that”.

The first problem with this trend is that it’s getting old to me really fast. The next problem and not so much for me but for the bands that play this same type of music is that they think they are great and expect to get signed sometime soon. Newsflash!!! YOU SOUND LIKE EVERY OTHER BAND OUT THERE! You might get lucky (or unlucky) and get signed to some basement, indy label, but if you don’t set yourself apart everyone else you’re just going to get lost in the mix of all the others out there. If you’re just out there doing what you love to do and like touring for pennies, then yippee for you but sooner or later you’re going to need a good job. Tickets were $8 last night to see 5 bands and this place was dead. The bands didn’t make much, if any money last night.

Another thing that kills me is the lack of good song structure these days. The songs are short and aren’t good for much more than standing in one spot and banging your head, just to stop for some strange out of place breakdown somewhere in the mix. Breakdowns and bridges are great in the right places. You know what else is good? A good rhythm hook and a fist pumping, sing along chorus. A chorus and rhythm that get’s people pumped. A lot of people don’t like hardcore and bands like Hatebreed but the reason that people do like them is because of the Choruses. “Destroy Everything!”. I mean how silly and cliche does that sound? Very, but people love it and it gets a crowd moving…and sells records.

All the big bands are big because they know how to write a good song with structure and feeling instead of a flat, lead filled, “This song just started but now it’s over.” tune. Sure some say that they write the songs for themselves and that’s all fine and dandy…but if you want to be remembered next month or even next week you have to write a song that people remember. You have to write songs that don’t sound like the last song you played. You have to write songs that make people want to visit your merch table for a cd or a tee shirt. If you don’t set yourself apart then who are you besides just another trendy band with maybe a cool name. That’s the last thing fans really want.

So how do we as fans and/or musicians of metal vaccinate this plague, this virus within our genre? Absolutely nothing. It’s one of those that you have to let run it’s course and hope it dies off on it’s own sooner or later…and it will. Either that or it will “genretically” mutate and start another trend.

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Machine Head Front-man Rob Flynn was interviewed by Shockhound recently. You can review that entire interview here. What I don’t understand and is the statement below where he said:

“30 year-old people don’t listen to fuckin’ metal. They really don’t. They’ve moved on with their lives, they get jobs, they get girlfriends, they listen to what’s on the radio. Kids are what keeps the scene alive;”

Seriously? I like Rob and Machine Head….but that’s the biggest bullshit statement I’ve ever heard. What keeps the scene alive is the people that don’t stop listening to metal beyond 30. Does this dude have any idea how many Machine Head fans are probably over 30 and have been following them since 94? Just because they don’t always make the shows doesn’t mean they aren’t there. I know plenty of people over 30 that still listen to metal. I’m almost 33 and I still listen to metal. Will I be listening to metal 30 years from now? I don’t know. I’d like to think so but who knows what metal music will be like in 30 years. I doubt if I’ll be headbanging and telling my grandkids about the good ole days of metal, but it’s something that will ALWAYS be with me.

Image Source: Newscom.com

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1. Skid Row - Remember Yesterday
2. Aerosmith - Angel
3. Guns N’ Roses - November Rain
4. Stone Sour - Zzyxx Road
5. Danzig - Blood And Tears
6. Iron Maiden - Wasted Love
7. Judas Priest - Diamonds And Rust
8. KISS - Hard Luck Woman
9. Metallica - Nothing Else Matters
10. Megadeth - A Tout Le Monde
11. Whitesnake - Is This Love
12. Firehouse - When I look IN To Your Eyes
13. Stryper - Honestly
14. Motley Crue - Home Sweet Home
15. Opeth - Burden
16. Ozzy And Lita Ford - Close My Eyes
17. Pantera - Cemetery Gates
18. Queensryche - Silent Lucidity
19. The Scorpions - Send Me An Angel
20. Slipknot - Snuff
21. Testament - Return To Serenity
22. Torche - Bring Me Home
23. Twisted Sister - The Price
24. White Lion - till Death Do Us Part
25. Bon Jovi - Never Say Goodbye
26. Damn Yankees - High Enough
27. Styx - Show Me The Way
28. Black Sabbath - Changes
29. Black Label Society - In This River
30. Guns N Roses - Patience

Image ©MetalMartyr.com

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“It really is BLACK SABBATH, whatever we do. We just choose to go out as HEAVEN AND HELL so everyone knows what they’re getting [and] so people won’t expect to hear ‘Iron Man’ and all those songs. We’ve done them for so many years, it’s nice to do just all the stuff with did with Ronnie again.”

I still have not grabbed a copy of the live album from Heaven And Hell, but I’ve heard great things about it. I still prefer the Ozzy era Black Sabbath but I’m eager to hear how this is going to turn out though.

• June 3-6 - Sölvesborg, Sweden - Sweden Rock Festival
• June 19-21 - Clisson, France - Hellfest

Image Source: Newscom.com

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Dream Theater have wrapped up the drum tracks on the next Dream Theater album. Metal Underground reports that drummer Mike Portnoy has made the following statement about the new record:

“Imagine a Dream Theater album with ‘A Change Of Seasons,’ ‘Octavarium,’ ‘Learning To Live,’ ‘Pull Me Under’ and ‘The Glass Prison’… all on one album… COULD YOU HANDLE IT?? Excited? I sure am!!!!”

Sound like this could be an interesting album, but we’ll have to wait until next year to find out.

Image Source: Newscom.com

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Max Cavalera’s Soulfly

Soulfly w/ Incite as support:

Feb. 01 - Portsmouth Pyramid Centre
Feb. 02 - Oxford Academy
Feb. 03 - Bristol Academy
Feb. 04 - Dublin Academy
Feb. 05 - Belfast, Ireland
Feb. 06 - Glasgow ABC
Feb. 07 - Manchester Academy 2
Feb. 08 - LeedsMet. University
Feb. 09 - Nottingham Rock City
Feb. 10 - Wolverhamton Wulfrun Hall
Feb. 11 - London Electric Ballroom

Image Source: Newscom.com

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What’s so incredible about this profession is something that lots of bands or band people don’t realize; This “job” is absolutely the best opportunity to really travel and see the world. Just about anywhere you are on the earth, you can immerse yourself in something amazing, whether it’s finding local art, farmers’ markets, local cuisine, local culture, shopping districts, historical sights, museums, symphony halls, all it takes is a little searching.

Matt exclaims that in the past he has taken the other route and spent much time on the bus drinking and says that it grows tiresome. Check out the rest at Headbanger’s Blog.

Image ©MetalMartyr.Com 2008

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Enslaved have canceled their American tour, but are rescheduling everything, so if you were looking forward to seeing them you’ll just have to wait until they get everything sorted out. Here is the statement they made:

“It is with great regret that ENSLAVED has to announce the cancellation of the North American ‘Vertebrae’ tour [with SWALLOW THE SUN and KEEP OF KALESSIN] scheduled for May 2009. At the heart of the issue lies a tour that was hard to get together in the first place so we’ve decided to let the whole tour be cancelled and start working on setting up a new North American tour all the way from scratch again. . . Our sincere apologies to all the fans that were ready to come out to these shows; but rest assured — we are working day and night on setting up the new tour that will replace these dates.”

Image Source: Amazon.com

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