We got a new Lamb Of God album that I still think is not as good as everyone else thinks; and a new Mastodon album that is musically amazing but people seem to bitch about because it’s not heavy enough or something.

Cannibal Corpse release an album that is, well, another good Cannibal Corpse album. Nothing extravagant enough to go on a murder spree, but a good album. Cattle Decapitation almost convince me to not eat beef while Sepultura almost gave me hope that I could listen to them again. That didn’t last. Psyopus almost convince me that something is wrong with my ears.

Thrash is still alive and vibrant with new releases from Kreator and neo-thrashers Lazarus A.D. bringing an old school sound with a modern touch. God Dethroned give us a WW1 History lesson.

The members that try to steal the name of the black metal band that they didn’t own the rights to, lose and start their own band. Something they should have done in the first place instead of wasting money in court.

God Forbid releases a killer, new album and then they lose a key member. Arsis also kind of loses another member and a Hatebreed member leaves the band. Arsis and Hatebreed get old members back. James Malone comes clean about his problems with anorexia, while Dallas Coyle prefers to keep his exit reasoning’s of GF private. I commend both of them for that.

Fuck Limp Bizkit. Oh, and Papa Roach too.

Dave Mustaine and Kerry King grow up and schedule tour dates with each other. Metallica gets inducted in to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Both bassist’s thank the bands that helped launch their career, while James Hetfield doesn’t thank anyone that helped them launch theirs. Lars Ulrich claims that he downloaded Death Magnetic to see how this internet thingy works. I publish a spoof that says that Warner music file lawsuit against him and numerous sites copy me and one even publishes their own version as an April Fools joke.

Metal has two new doc[rock]umentaries that are getting rave reviews. Iron Maiden’s Flight 666 is a fan favorite and most haven’t even seen it yet. Anvil beat Hannah Montana’s ass in opening weekend of their flick The Story Of Anvil. Disney is pissed and vows revenge, citing that Anvil will never play at The House Of Blues.

I’ve yet to get an Infection from Chimaira, but Daath’s The Concealers is currently in my top 10 of 2009.

Fear Factory reunites, kind of, sort of, even after Burton C. Bell says that metal was never his thing. He then shows up at a Ministry show where him and Dino kiss and make up. Well, okay, they just talked.

I know I’ve missed a bunch of cool, or not so cool shit that has happened in ‘09, but I have to close this out somehow. There is a lot of great things in metal to come this year. More great albums, tours and surely a few more reunions, with the economy in the shitter.

Post from: Metal Martyr

I was in my mid teens, working as a dishwasher during the time. My coworkers were all in to the grunge thing and were neo-hippies to boot. We had a prep room where we would prep food and had a cd player in there to listen to music while we worked. I would often get ridiculed for my music and get the typical “Kill your mother, kill your father!” mocking when they walked in to the prep room while I was working. I would either turn it up louder or change it to something a little heavier, darker or evil sounding. I didn’t mind grunge so much, but disliked a lot of people that listened to it for their total lack of having an open mind. Most of them were in to it because it was the popular thing at the time.

During that time you had to already be an established band or release an album of epic proportion in order to survive. Even the ones that struggled or didn’t pull through during that era still live in our hearts. The bands on this list were the ones that survived by releasing truly amazing work and deserve the recognition. I know I’ve missed a load of albums that deserve to be on a list of this sort, but keep in mind it’s just “10 Metal Albums” and not a “Top 10″ list.

Flotsam And Jetsam: Cuatro. Released in 1992, Flotsam And Jetsam were a radio hit band and had already been on the scene for almost 10 years when Cuatro was released. Their fourth album and their fourth bass player, Cuatro took a slight step away from their the thrash metal roots. Often overlooked and forgotten about, Cuatro was and still is a great album.

Anthrax: The Sound Of White Noise: (1993) Anthrax’s first album with, in my opinion their best singer, John Bush previously of Armored Saint, The Sound Of White Noise had so many killer songs on it. Beginning with Potter’s Field, Only, Room For One More, Packaged Rebellion, the list goes on until the end.

Iron Maiden: Fear OF the Dark. Released in 1992, Fear Of The Dark is never considered one of Maiden’s best albums but it’s not their worst. Sure it may not be a classic like most of the 80’s albums, but it was one of their best of the 90’s and has plenty of great tunes on it. This was also Bruce Dickenson’s last album before his return to the band in 1999.

Death: Individual Thought Patterns. Death’s 3rd release in the 90’s came in 1993 with Individual Thought Patterns. I bigger, cleaner sounding album than any one before it. ITP was my first taste of exceptionally technical death metal. If there is one subgenre of a subgenre you could label Death as, it would be Progressive Death Metal. Chuck Schuldiner always raised the bar a little higher with each album, but Individual thought patterns took it up a few notches.

Carcass: Heartwork. In 1993 Carcass were criticized by a lot of long time fans as breaking away from the grindcore sound and heading in more of a death metal direction. You can actually hear that transition in Necrotism, but regardless of what specific sound direction Heartwork took, the sound was amazingly clean, fast and ferocious. Still quite underground and unrecognized by the outside world, their Heartwork video put them on the map all around the world.

Entombed: Wolverine Blues. Another album criticized by their fans due to a lesser death metal feel and more of a “Death N’ Roll” sound to it, Wolverine Blues was still a great album. It may not have been fast but it was still heavy as all hell and punchy enough to be a classic. The title track and others such as Hollowman, Full Of Hell and Out Of Hand, you can’t go wrong with this album.

Suffocation: Pierced From Within: Suffocation released their last album for a long time in 1995. Pierced from within was the best sounding album of their first 3. The production was cleaner and Roadrunner Records was taking off like a bat out of hell. Unfortunately this was almost the end of Suffocation as touring as a death metal band at this time was barely livable income. 9 years later the legacy would begin again.

Fear Factory: Soul Of A New Machine. Before Nu-Metal actually had a name there were bands like NIN and Fear Factory releasing albums in the early 90’s. I don’t think it was until Korn’s self titled release that people started to truly hate what was to become a monster mainstream metal genre. Soul Of A New Machine was just considered a new metal band with their first major label release. Not an album that catapulted them in to the nu-metal world like Demanufacture, but a great album.

Helmet: Meantime. Helmet’s 1992 release introduced a slightly different sound to the metal scene. Coming out of NYC, The post hardcore band still brought a slight hardcore sound to them with stop-and-go riffs that were heavy enough to be called metal and a sound that was still raw enough to keep them out of the mainstream. Most people can only name one song from Helmet, that being Unsung.

Sepultura: Chaos A.D. Another band that was raising the bar with every release was Sepultura. With a consistently small change of sound to each album, Sepultura released, arguably their best album with Chaos A.D. in 1993. This was also a turning point as we saw more down-tuning that ultimately lead to Roots, the worst album of the Cavalera, Sepultura era.

Metal never died during the grunge era and it was never mainstream. Hair metal/glam rock was sort of mainstream, but the metal we love with the ferocity, controversy and darkness was still well underground. If anything Grunge did us a favor by decimating glam and weeding out the bands that weren’t quite good enough to make it. Sadly there were some bands that were good enough but fell to the mass-marketing of grunge. No big label wanted to sign another metal band when grunge was the money maker. Lucky for a lot of metal bands there was still the independent labels like Roadrunner, Metal Blade and Nuclear Blast that knew that grunge was only a fad and believed in their metal bands and fans. Every genre has it’s fads and trends, but sooner or later they die or fade away and the true warriors and torch bearers of that genre keep marching strong. The rest end up on VH1 classics…

(all images: Amazon.com)

Post from: Metal Martyr

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH ASCENSION OF THE WATCHERS / EX-FEAR FACTORY SINGER BURTON C. BELL

MetalSucks: So you have a new record out, Numinosum. In the most abstract way, can you talk about the new record a bit?

Burton C. Bell: Abstract? Purple. (laughs). Well it’s definitely a whole completely different direction for me. It’s a different direction from what people are accustomed to from me. For me it’s the type of music that I’ve always been into, that I’ve enjoyed, that’s more a part of me. The music that people know me from is obviously Fear Factory, and other music that I’ve assisted on vocals with, but to me this is truly the music that I like. When I was in Fear Factory and people would ask me what kind of music I’d been listening to, I’d always been naming non-metal bands. Once in a while there’d be a metal band that’d be cool… like the hard rock bands, or the stoner metal bands, and that kind of stuff. Sleep I liked a lot. Godflesh, that was more industrial. I was more of a post-punk kind of guy. I liked Nick Cave around the first Fear Factory record, Nick Cave for inspiration. So to me, I’m primarily expressing the music that I like to listen to, so this is my opportunity. I have a guitar and I’m learning how to play it (laughs), know what I mean? But this record has been a journey… and it’s turned into a spiritual journey. It’s a true expression of my heart and soul.

Visit Metalsucks.net to read the whole interview

Image Source: Metalsucks.net

Post from: Metal Martyr

After keying in the basic bands that every metalhead should be listening to I would try to bring it more modern by introducing bands that have come and gone like Guns N Roses. There is someone out there right now saying “But GNR aren’t gone, Axl just hasn’t put out the new CD yet”…trust me…G n R are dead but they are not forgotten. While more hardrock than metal in my opinion, you can’t deny the fact that they ruled their world during their day.

Moving on. I would also try to convince them to listen to some death metal to get a feel for what is to come in the present day metal. Bands like Carcass, Entombed, Morbid Angel, Grave, Sepultura, Obituary, etc., etc. And of course I would have to include some GOOD nu metal (your scratching your head wondering if there is such a thing). Bands like Nothingface, Slipknot, Mushroomhead, Fear Factory, and yes, even some Korn. Limp Bizket can kiss my choclate star fish, the only thing I would recommend for them is the trash can.

Moving Forward I would show them bands of today like Lamb Of God, Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, Yakuza, Hatebreed, Mastodon, Shadows Fall, Machinehead. Bands that are still on top of their game and just continue to get better with time.

I would also urge them to sit down and see just exactly where metal has gone and see what trends have come about in metal and show them how much carbon copy bands there are being signed by every other label out there. I would show them bands that have stood the test of time and bands that are fighting to stay in the scene due to the digital era.

These are just some of the things I would recommend to a new metal enthusiast. So that brings me to my question,(which may in turn introduce me to some new bands)…What would YOU recommend?

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Post from: Metal Martyr